“A.D. 1137. This year went the King Stephen over sea to Normandy, and there was received; for that they concluded that he should be all such as the uncle was; and because he had got his treasure: but he dealed it out, and scattered it foolishly. Much had King Henry gathered, gold and silver, but no good did men for his soul thereof. When the King Stephen came to England, he held his council at Oxford; where he seized the Bishop Roger of Sarum, and Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln, and the chancellor Roger, his nephew; and threw all into prison till they gave up their castles. When the traitors understood that he was a mild man, and soft, and good, and no justice executed, then did they all wonder. They had done him homage, and sworn oaths, but they no truth maintained. They were all forsworn, and forgetful of their troth; for every rich man built his castles, which they held against him: and they filled the land full of castles. They cruelly oppressed the wretched men of the land with castle-works; and when the castles were made, they filled them with devils and evil men. Then took they those whom they supposed to have any goods, both by night and by day, labouring men and women, and threw them into prison for their gold and silver, and inflicted on them unutterable tortures; for never were any martyrs so tortured as they were. Some they hanged up by the feet, and smoked them with foul smoke; and some by the thumbs, or by the head, and hung coats of mail on their feet. They tied knotted strings about their heads, and twisted them till the pain went to the brains. They put them into dungeons, wherein were adders, and snakes, and toads; and so destroyed them. Some they placed in a crucet-house; that is, in a chest that was short and narrow, and not deep; wherein they put sharp stones, and so thrust the man therein, that they broke all the limbs. In many of the castles were things loathsome and grim, called ‘Sachenteges’, of which two or three men had enough to bear one. It was thus made: that is, fastened to a beam; and they placed a sharp iron [collar] about the man’s throat and neck, so that he could in no direction either sit, or lie, or sleep, but bear all that iron. Many thousands they wore out with hunger. I neither can, nor may I tell all the wounds and all the pains which they inflicted on wretched men in this land. This lasted the nineteen winters while Stephen was king; and it grew continually worse and worse. They constantly laid guilds on the towns, and called it “tenserie”; and when the wretched men had no more to give, then they plundered and burned all the towns; that well thou mightest go a whole day’s journey and never shouldest thou find a man sitting in a town, nor the land tilled. Then was corn dear, and flesh, and cheese, and butter; for none was there in the land. Wretched men starved of hunger. Some had recourse to alms, who were for a while rich men, and some fled out of the land. Never yet was there more wretchedness in the land; nor ever did heathen men worse than they did: for, after a time, they spared neither church nor churchyard, but took all the goods that were therein, and then burned the church and all together. Neither did they spare a bishop’s land, or an abbot’s, or a priest’s, but plundered both monks and clerks; and every man robbed another who could. If two men, or three, came riding to a town, all the township fled for them, concluding them to be robbers. The bishops and learned men cursed them continually, but the effect thereof was nothing to them; for they were all accursed, and forsworn, and abandoned. To till the ground was to plough the sea: the earth bare no corn, for the land was all laid waste by such deeds; and they said openly, that Christ slept, and his saints. Such things, and more than we can say, suffered we nineteen winters for our sins.” – Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (trans. Ingram & Giles)
“The king and the head men loved much, and overmuch, covetousness in gold and in silver; and recked not how sinfully it was got, provided it came to them. The king let his land at as high a rate as he possibly could; then came some other person, and bade more than the former one gave, and the king let it to the men that bade him more. Then came the third, and bade yet more; and the king let it to hand to the men that bade him most of all: and he recked not how very sinfully the stewards got it of wretched men, nor how many unlawful deeds they did; but the more men spake about right law, the more unlawfully they acted. They erected unjust tolls, and many other unjust things they did.” — From the entry for A.D. 1087, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (trans. Ingram & Giles)
“They who tell the people revolutionary legends, they who amuse themselves with sensational stories, are as criminal as the geographer who would draw up false charts for navigators.” – Sean Bonney, Happiness (Poems after Rimbaud)
“There was once a time when there were but two persons in the world, Old Man and Old Woman. One time, when they were traveling about, Old Man met Old Woman, who said, ‘Now, let us come to an agreement of some kind; let us decide how the people shall live.’ ‘Well,’ said Old Man, ‘I am to have the first say in everything.’ To this Old Woman agreed, provided she had the second say. Then Old Man began, ‘The women are to tan the hides. When they do this, they are to rub brains on them to make them soft; they are to scrape them well with scraping tools, etc. But all this they are to do very quickly, for it will not be very hard work.’ ‘No, I will not agree to this,’ said Old Woman. ‘They must tan the hide in the way you say; but it must be made very hard work, and take a long time, so that the good workers may be found out.’ ‘Well,’ said Old Man, ‘let the people have eyes and mouths in their faces; but they shall be straight up and down.’ ‘No,’ said Old Woman, ‘we will not have them that way. We will have the eyes and mouth in the faces, as you say; but they shall all be set crosswise.’ ‘Well,’ said Old Man, ‘the people shall have ten fingers on each hand.’ ‘Oh, no!’ said Old Woman. ‘That will be too many. They will be in the way. There shall be four fingers and one thumb on each hand.’ ‘Well,’ said Old Man, ‘we shall beget children. The genitals shall be at our navels.’ ‘No,’ said Old Woman, ‘that will make childbearing too easy; the people will not care for their children. The genitals shall be at the pubes.’ So they went on until they had provided for everything in the lives of the people that were to be. Then Old Woman asked what they should do about life and death. Should the people always live, or should they die? They had some difficulty in agreeing on this; but finally Old Man said, ‘I will tell you what I will do. I will throw a buffalo chip into the water, and, if it floats, the people die for four days and live again. But, if it sinks, they will die forever.’ So he threw it in, and it floated. ‘No,’ said Old Woman, ‘we will not decide in that way. I will throw in this rock. If it floats, the people will die for four days. If it sinks, the people will die forever.’ Then Old Woman threw the rock out into the water, and it sank to the bottom. ‘There,’ said she, ‘it is better for the people to die forever; for, if they did not die forever, they would never feel sorry for each other, and there would be no sympathy in the world.’ ‘Well,’ said Old Man, ‘let it be that way.’ After a time Old Woman had a daughter, who died. She was very sorry now that it had been fixed so that people died forever. So she said to Old Man, ‘Let us have our say over again.’ ‘No,’ said he, ‘we fixed it once.’” – Clark Wissler and D. C. Duvall, Mythology of the Blackfoot Indians
“Remember what Socrates tells Euthyphro, who supposed that the good could be defined by what the gods had willed: if what the gods will is based on some other criterion of goodness, divine will isn’t what makes something good; but if goodness is simply determined by divine will there’s no way for us to assess that judgment. In other words, if you believe that God ordains morality–constitutes it through his will–you still have to decide where God gets morality from. If you are inclined to reply, ‘ Well, God is goodness; He invents it,’ you threaten to turn morality into God’s plaything, and you deprive yourself of any capacity to judge that morality.” — James Wood, “Is That All There Is?” (emphasis in original)
“May the corn-stalks grow as long as my stretches, and may the will of the Holder of the Roads of Life shelter me from dangers as he sheltered his children in the days of the ancients.” – “The Maiden the Sun Made Love to, and Her Boys,” Zuñi Folk Tales, Frank Cushing
“Perhaps had men been more grateful and wiser, the Sun-father had smiled and dropped everywhere the treasures we long for, and not hidden them deep in the earth and buried them in the shores of the sea. And perhaps, moreover, all men would have smiled upon one another and never enlarged their voices nor strengthened their arms in anger toward one another.” – “The Maiden the Sun Made Love to, and Her Boys,” Zuñi Folk Tales, Frank Cushing
“Doing right keeps right; doing wrong makes wrong, which, to make right, one must even pay.” – “The Cock and the Mouse,” Zuñi Folk Tales, Frank Cushing
“Is it not well that even for a little time the light of life shine—though it shine through fear and sadness—than be cut off altogether? For who knows where the trails tend that lead through the darkness of the night of death?” – “Atahsaia, the Cannibal Demon,” Zuñi Folk Tales, Frank Cushing
“Pretty girls care very little how their husbands look, being pretty enough themselves for both. But they like to have them able to think and guess at a way of getting along occasionally.” – “How the Corn-Pests Were Ensnared,” Zuñi Folk Tales, Frank Cushing
“There are two kinds of laugh with women. One of them is a very good sort of thing, and makes young men feel happy and conceited. The other kind is somewhat heartier, and makes young men feel depressed and very humble.” – “How the Corn-Pests Were Ensnared,” Zuñi Folk Tales, Frank Cushing
“Once—as was the case with many, if not all, of the animals—the Rattlesnakes were a people, and a splendid people too. Therefore we kill them not needlessly, nor waste the lives even of the other animals without cause.” – “How the Rattlesnakes Came To Be What They Are,” Zuñi Folk Tales, Frank Cushing
“Calmness, forbearance, candor, and soft speech—these virtues of the good are by the insolent taken for the effects of incompetency. The person who is self-laudatory, wicked, badly bold, and who publishes his own praise and metes out chastisement everywhere, is honored in the world. By moderation one cannot attain celebrity; by moderation one cannot obtain fame.” — Valmiki Ramayana, Yuddhakanda Sarga 21
“Even a wicked-minded enemy, if he with folded palms and a poor heart craves for your shelter, should not be slain. If an enemy, proud or terrified, seeks shelter in fear, he should be saved by a great man even at the risk of his own life. One who from fear, ignorance, or willfulness does not protect him who seeks his shelter perpetrates a mighty iniquity and is blamed by all. When a person is slain before him whose shelter he has taken, he takes away all the virtues of his protector. So great is the sin in not affording shelter unto those who seek it; it stands in the way of going to heaven, bringing in calumny and destroying strength and prowess.” — Valmiki Ramayana, Yuddhakanda Sarga 18
“The king who, arriving at certain conclusions, carries on his regal affairs agreeable to justice, has no need to repent afterwards. But those actions that are done without deliberation, like unto clarified butter poured onto an unclean sacrifice, conduce only to harm.” — Valmiki Ramayana, Yuddhakanda Sarga 12
“What iniquity is there which cannot be perpetrated by the angry? They can even slay the worshipful and vilify the pious with harsh words. The angry cannot decide what should be spoken and what not. There is no vice which cannot be committed by them, and there is nothing which cannot be spoken by them. He is the proper person who can subdue his rising ire by means of forgiveness as a serpent leaves off his worn skin.” — Valmiki Ramayana, Sundarakanda Sarga 55
“Whether in the enjoyment of vast riches, or immersed in the abyss of miseries, Death is pulling a man, binding him roughly with a cord.” — Valmiki Ramayana, Sundarakanda Sarga 37
“He that, renouncing righteousness and the good, devotes himself to pleasure solely, is like a man that falling asleep on top of a tree, wakes when he has fallen down.” — Valmiki Ramayana, Kishkindhakanda Sarga 38
“A vicious person can never relinquish his sinful habits—virtue never resides in the abodes of impious persons.” — Valmiki Ramayana, Aranyakanda Sarga 50
“In punishing wrongdoers, no one concentrates on the fact that a man has done wrong in the past, or punishes him on that account, unless taking blind vengeance like a beast. No, punishment is not inflicted by a rational man for the sake of the crime that has been committed–after all one cannot undo what is past–but for the sake of the future, to prevent either the same man or, by the spectacle of his punishment, someone else, from doing wrong again. But to hold such a view amounts to holding that virtue can be instilled by education; at all events the punishment is inflicted as a deterrent. This then is the view held by all who inflict it whether privately or publicly.” — Plato, Protagoras (trans. Guthrie)