Vida Yao 姚维达

Department of Philosophy, Rice University

6100 Main St., Houston, TX 77005-1892

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      Morality: An Introduction
      Her knees failed, 
and her heart failed
as she listened to the words,
and all her power of speech went out of her.

Tears came; but the rich voice would not come.

Homer, Book IV, 730.
      Why has my child left me?
      Death is evil. So the gods decided. 
Otherwise they would die.

Aristotle, Rhetoric, 1398B
      Now face to face 
the magical Kalypso recognized him,
as all immortal gods know one another
on sight - though seeming strangers, far from home.

Homer
      My dear, I see the likeness as well as you do. Odysseus' hands and feet were like this boy's; his head, and hair, and the glinting of his eyes. Not only that, but when I spoke, just now, of Odysseus' years of toil on my behalf and all he had to endure -- the boy broke down and wept into his cloak.

Homer
      And while he pondered, Helen came
out of her centered chamber, a moving grace
like Artemis, 

straight as a shaft of of gold.

Homer
      Crazy woman
why are you bragging to me about a ring?

Sappho [5a incert.]
      Happiness
      untitled image
      Shall I?
      Why?
为什么? (Chinese, simplified)

--Sappho

Why?
为什么? (Chinese, simplified)

--Homer
      Here were no coves or harborage or shelter, 
only steep headlands, rockfallen reefs and crags.

Odysseus' knees grew slack, his heart faint, 
a heaviness came over him, and he said:

"A cruel turn, this."
      Fury
      Innocence
      All hands aboard;

come, clear the beach and no one taste

the Lotos, or you lose your hope of home.

Homer, Book IX, 108.
      Seizure
      Pleasure
      I Shall
      After these years, a helping hand? O goddess,
what guile is hidden here?

Homer, Book V, 183.
      Sacrifice
      Athena showered sleep that his distress should end, and soon, soon.

In quiet sleep she sealed his cherished eyes.
      To Eros
      When I was young I wove garlands

Sappho [125].
      End of a Party
      Tell me why you should grieve so terribly... That was all gods' work, weaving ruin there so it should make for a song for men to come!...

True it is, a wise friend can take a brother's place in our affection. 

Homer, Book VIII, 617.
      Of Those Unwilling to Take the Bitter with the Sweet
      Endure
      So he appealed to them, one after another, 
going from left to right, with open palm,
as though his life time had been spent in beggary. 
And they gave him bread, for pity -- wondering, though,
at the strange man. Who could this beggar be,
where did he come from?

Homer, Book XVII, 475.
      Walking to a Wedding
      Time of Youth
      Yet I love refinement and Eros has got me
brightness and the beauty of the sun.

Sappho [58c (lines 25-26)].
      Moses Hall; adultery-theft-falsewitness-covetingcovetingcoveting
      Handsome man