 |
| |
Chapter 24 - Pleasure |
| |
 hen
a hermit, who visited the city once a year, came forth
and said, "Speak to us of Pleasure." |
| |
| And he answered, saying: Pleasure is a freedom-song,
But it is not freedom. It is the blossoming of your
desires, But it is not their fruit. It is a depth
calling unto a height, But it is not the deep nor
the high. It is the caged taking wing, But it is
not space encompassed. Aye, in very truth, pleasure
is a freedom-song. And I fain would have you sing
it with fullness of heart; yet I would not have you
lose your hearts in the singing. |
| |
| Some of your youth seek pleasure as if it were
all, and they are judged and rebuked. I would not
judge nor rebuke them. I would have them seek. For
they shall find pleasure, but not her alone; |
| |
| Seven are her sisters, and the least of them is
more beautiful than pleasure. Have you not heard
of the man who was digging in the earth for roots
and found a treasure? |
| |
| And some of your elders remember pleasures with
regret like wrongs committed in drunkenness. But
regret is the beclouding of the mind and not its
chastisement. They should remember their pleasures
with gratitude, as they would the harvest of a summer.
Yet if it comforts them to regret, let them be comforted. |
| |
| And there are among you those who are neither
young to seek nor old to remember; And in their fear
of seeking and remembering they shun all pleasures,
lest they neglect the spirit or offend against it.
But even in their foregoing is their pleasure. And
thus they too find a treasure though they dig for
roots with quivering hands. |
 |
| But tell me, who is he that can offend the spirit?
Shall the nightingale offend the stillness of the
night, or the firefly the stars? And shall your flame
or your smoke burden the wind? Think you the spirit
is a still pool which you can trouble with a staff? |
| |
| Oftentimes in denying yourself pleasure you do
but store the desire in the recesses of your being.
Who knows but that which seems omitted to day, waits
for to-morrow? Even your body knows its heritage
and its rightful need and will not be deceived. And
your body is the harp of your soul, And it is yours
to bring forth sweet music from it or confused sounds. |
| |
| And now you ask in your heart, "How shall we distinguish
that which is good in pleasure from that which is
not good?" Go to your fields and your gardens, and
you shall learn that it is the pleasure of the bee
to gather honey of the flower, But it is also the
pleasure of the flower to yield its honey to the
bee. For to the bee a flower is a fountain of life,
And to the flower a bee is a messenger of love, And
to both, bee and flower, the giving and the receiving
of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy. |
| |
| People of Orphalese, be in your pleasures like
the flowers and the bees. |
| |
|
| |
