Margaret’s Song

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  There was a king in Thule,  True even to the grave;  To whom his dying mistress  A golden beaker gave.  At every feast he drained it,  Naught was to him so dear,  And often as he drained it,  Gush’d from his eyes the tear.  When death came, unrepining  His cities o’er he told;  All to his heir resigning,  Except his cup of gold.  With many a knightly vassal  At a royal feast sat he,  In yon proud hall ancestral,  In his castle o’er the sea.  Up stood the jovial monarch,  And quaff’d his last life’s glow,  Then hurled the hallow’d goblet  Into the flood below.  He saw it splashing, drinking,  And plunging in the sea;  His eyes meanwhile were sinking,  And never again drank he. “Margaret’s Song” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) in “Faust. Part I.”

Anger

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 “How much better to heal than seek revenge from injury. Vengeance wastes a lot of time and exposes you to many more injuries than the first that sparked it. Anger always outlasts hurt. Best to take the opposite course. Would anyone think it normal to return a kick to a mule or a bite to a dog?” SENECA, ON ANGER , 3.27.2 

“The best way to avenge yourself is to not be like that.” MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS , 6.6

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