Author Topic: Mary Renault Book Discussion  (Read 79815 times)

injest

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Re: Mary Renault Book Discussion
« Reply #260 on: March 31, 2009, 11:25:44 pm »
"Justice? If the gods give a man wisdom, or forethought, or skill must he be brought down as if he had got them by theft? We shall be laming the best athletes soon, at the demand of the worst, in the name of justice. Or some citizen with pockmarks and a squint will lay a complaint against such a boy as this" (here he pointed suddenly at me) "and his nose will be broken I suppose, for justice's sake."

"The Last of the Wine"
Mary Renault

injest

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Re: Mary Renault Book Discussion
« Reply #261 on: April 01, 2009, 12:36:42 am »
"Men are not born equal in themselves," he saidto me after, "so I think it beneath a man to postulate that they are. If I thought myself as good as Sokrates I should be a fool; and if, not really believing it, I asked you to make me happy by assuring me of it, you would rightly despise me. So why should I insult my fellow citizens by treating them as fools and cowards? A man that thinks himself as good as everyone else will be at no pains to grow better. On the other hand, I might think myself as good as Sokrates, and even persuade other fools to agree with me; but under a democracy, Sokrates is there in the Agora to prove me wrong. I want a City where I can find my equals and respect my betters, whoever they are; and where no one can tell me to swallow a lie because it is expedient, or some other man's will."

"The Last of the Wine"

Mary Renault

injest

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Re: Mary Renault Book Discussion
« Reply #262 on: April 01, 2009, 01:01:33 am »
I could see him waiting for me to cease, to say what he had ready to say, exactly as if I had not spoken. I had felt easy with him, liking the way he treated every man as an equal; but it is strange to speak with someone one's thoughts do not reach. Of a sudden it was as if a great desert surrounded me; I even felt the fear of Pan, driver of the herds, as one does in lonely places.

"The Last of the Wine"
Mary Renault

Offline Kerry

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Re: Mary Renault Book Discussion
« Reply #263 on: April 01, 2009, 03:06:41 am »
"Justice? If the gods give a man wisdom, or forethought, or skill must he be brought down as if he had got them by theft? We shall be laming the best athletes soon, at the demand of the worst, in the name of justice. Or some citizen with pockmarks and a squint will lay a complaint against such a boy as this" (here he pointed suddenly at me) "and his nose will be broken I suppose, for justice's sake."

"The Last of the Wine"
Mary Renault

Gasp! The perils of political correctness. Very forward thinking, our Mary (in an ancient Greek kinda way)!  ;)   :D
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Re: Mary Renault Book Discussion
« Reply #264 on: April 01, 2009, 03:08:32 am »
"Men are not born equal in themselves," he saidto me after, "so I think it beneath a man to postulate that they are. If I thought myself as good as Sokrates I should be a fool; and if, not really believing it, I asked you to make me happy by assuring me of it, you would rightly despise me. So why should I insult my fellow citizens by treating them as fools and cowards? A man that thinks himself as good as everyone else will be at no pains to grow better. On the other hand, I might think myself as good as Sokrates, and even persuade other fools to agree with me; but under a democracy, Sokrates is there in the Agora to prove me wrong. I want a City where I can find my equals and respect my betters, whoever they are; and where no one can tell me to swallow a lie because it is expedient, or some other man's will."

"The Last of the Wine"

Mary Renault

There be wisdom here!
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injest

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Re: Mary Renault Book Discussion
« Reply #265 on: April 01, 2009, 07:22:38 am »
Gasp! The perils of political correctness. Very forward thinking, our Mary (in an ancient Greek kinda way)!  ;)   :D

indeed! this book (to me) speaks so much to where we are right now here in the US. I love the blurb on the cover:

"Alexias, a young Athenian of good family, reaches manhood during the last phases of the Peloponnesian War, a time not unlike our own, when people born to a heritage of security and power felt the structure of their lives being undermined by forces they but dimly understood."

and as you know, things did NOT turn out well for them. :-\ :-\

injest

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Re: Mary Renault Book Discussion
« Reply #266 on: April 04, 2009, 01:05:20 am »
the beautiful young Alexias has attracted a suitor that is persistant and rude....he discusses this man with Sokrates:

"He tried first to buy me with gifts; not flowers or a hare, but the kind of thing we can't afford at home. Then he sent word that he was dying, to make me take him out of pity; and now, what is surely as low as a man can go, he is willing I should do it simply to keep him quiet. If I were to lose my father and mother and all I have, if I were disgraced even before the City so that people turned from me in the street, he would be glad of it, if it put me within his reach. And this he calls love." I had spoken too vehemently, but Sokrates still looked at me kindly; so coming at last to what had been behind the rest, I said, "I shall always think worse of myself for having been his choice."

He shook his head, "You are wrong, my boy, if you think he is seeking a kindred spirit. He is looking for what he lacks, being limp of soul, and not wishing to know that the good must first be wrought with toil out of a man's own self, like the statue from the block."

injest

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Re: Mary Renault Book Discussion
« Reply #267 on: April 04, 2009, 01:21:47 am »
Phaedon speaking of Kritias:

"When a man is freed from the bonds of dogma and custom, where will he run? to what he hates, or what he loves? (snip) For a long time now I have watched Kritias getting loose, from the soul, if you like the word,or from whatever keeps a man on two legs instead of four. I have gone step by step with him, for his reasons are a mirror held up to mine, till I stood at the very edge of his conclusions. It is the true teacher's gift, they say, to discover a man to himself....At Gorgus's once I lay awake considering how to kill him. But already it was too late."