Bonis vel malis avibus=--Under good, or evil, omens.
Omina sunt aliquid=--There is something in omens. _Ovid._ [Greek: omma gar domon nomizo despotou parousian]--The presence of the master is, meseems, the eye of a house.
Oh, but to get through this night. Why won’t sleep come? What’s bothering me here in the dark? It’s not the badgers, it’s not the snakes. What’s bothering me? Something darker is worrying a hole inside me—look how my legs are trembling. Stop moving, Tatiana. That’s how the carnivores find you, by the flash of life on your body, they find you and eat you while you sleep. Like venomous spiders, they’ll bite you first to lull you into sleep—you won’t even feel it—and then they will gnaw your flesh until nothing remains. But even the animals eating her alive was not the thing that worried the sick hole in Tatiana’s stomach as she lay in the leaves with her face hidden from the forest, with her arms over her head, in case anything decided to fall on her. She should’ve made herself a shelter but it got dark so fast, and she was so sure she would find the lake, she hadn’t been thinking of making herself more comfortable in the woods. She kept walking and walking, and then was downed and breathless and unprepared for pitch black night. To quell the terror inside her, to not hear her own voices, Tatiana whimpered. Lay and cried, low and afraid. What was tormenting her from the inside out? Was it worry over Marina? No... not quite. But close. Something about Marina. Something about Saika... Saika. The girl who caused trouble between Dasha and her dentist boyfriend, the girl who pushed her bike into Tatiana’s bike to make her fall under the tires of a downward truck rushing headlong... the girl who saw Tatiana’s grandmother carrying a sack of sugar and told her mother who told her father who told the Luga Soviet that Vasily Metanov harbored sugar he had no intention of giving up? The girl who did something so unspeakable with her own brother she was nearly killed by her own father’s hand—and she herself had said the boy got worse—and this previously unmentioned brother was, after all, dead. The girl who stood unafraid under rowan trees and sat under a gaggle of crows and did not feel black omens, the girl who told Tatiana her wicked stories, tempted Tatiana with her body, turned away from Marina as Marina was drowning...who turned Marina against Tatiana, the girl who didn’t believe in demons, who thought everything was all good in the universe, could she . . . What if...? What if this was not an accident? Moaning loudly, Tatiana turned away to the other side as if she’d just had a nightmare. But she hadn’t been dreaming. Saika took her compass and her knife. But Marina took her watch. And there it was. That was the thing eating up Tatiana from the inside out. Could Marina have been in on something like this? Twisting from side to side did not assuage her torn stomach, did not mollify her sunken heart. Making anguished noises, her eyes closed, she couldn’t think of fields, or Luga, or swimming, or clover or warm milk, anything. All good thoughts were drowned in the impossible sorrow. Could Marina have betrayed her?
Ilicet infandum cuncti contra omina bellum / Contra fata deum, perverso numine poscunt=--Forthwith, against the omens and against the oracles of the gods, all to a man, under an adverse influence, clamour for unholy war.
In prison Joseph innocent between two criminals; Jesus Christ on the cross between two thieves. Joseph foretold deliverance to the one, and death to the other, from the same omens. Jesus Christ saves the elect, and condemns the reprobate after the same crimes. Joseph foretold only, Jesus Christ acts. Joseph asked of him who is saved to be mindful of him when he has come into his glory, and he whom Jesus Christ saved asked that he would remember him when he came into his Kingdom.
How do I guess at the future? Based on the omens of the present. The secret is here in the present. If you pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it.And, if you improve on the present, what comes later will also be better
What is specially true of love is, that it is a state of extreme impressionability; the lover has more senses and finer senses than others; his eye and ear are telegraphs; he reads omens in the flower and cloud and face and form and gesture, and reads them aright.
The new secular republic reflected Mustafa Kemal’s personal philosophy. In a book published in 1928, Grace Ellison quotes him as saying to her, presumably in 1926–7: I have no religion, and at times I wish all religions at the bottom of the sea. He is a weak ruler who needs religion to uphold his government; it is as if he would catch his people in a trap. My people are going to learn the principles of democracy, the dictates of truth and the teachings of science. Superstition must go. Let them worship as they will; every man can follow his own conscience, provided it does not interfere with sane reason or bid him act against the liberty of his fellow-men.31 Yet, like many rationalists, Mustafa Kemal was himself superstitious and sought omens in dreams.32 When he inspected the front in March 1922, during the War of Independence, he had portions of the Koran recited during evening gatherings with commanders.33 But now he was out of the wood.
And when once the young heart of a maiden is stolen, The maiden herself will steal after it soon.
It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people.
There are omens in the air, / And voices whispering Beware!--/ But never victor in the fight / Heeded the portents of fear and care.
34:5. Deceitful divinations and lying omens and the dreams of evildoers, are vanity:
21:6. And he made his son pass through fire: and he used divinations, and observed omens, and appointed pythons, and multiplied soothsayers, to do evil before the Lord, and to provoke him.
Then swiftly to the fatal place she pass'd, And mounts the fun'ral pile with furious haste; Unsheathes the sword the Trojan left behind (Not for so dire an enterprise design'd). But when she view'd the garments loosely spread, Which once he wore, and saw the conscious bed, She paus'd, and with a sigh the robes embrac'd; Then on the couch her trembling body cast, Repress'd the ready tears, and spoke her last: "Dear pledges of my love, while Heav'n so pleas'd, Receive a soul, of mortal anguish eas'd: My fatal course is finish'd; and I go, A glorious name, among the ghosts below. A lofty city by my hands is rais'd, Pygmalion punish'd, and my lord appeas'd. What could my fortune have afforded more, Had the false Trojan never touch'd my shore!" Then kiss'd the couch; and, "Must I die," she said, "And unreveng'd? 'T is doubly to be dead! Yet ev'n this death with pleasure I receive: On any terms, 't is better than to live. These flames, from far, may the false Trojan view; These boding omens his base flight pursue!"
Saturnian Juno now, with double care, Attends the fatal process of the war. The clowns, return'd, from battle bear the slain, Implore the gods, and to their king complain. The corps of Almon and the rest are shown; Shrieks, clamors, murmurs, fill the frighted town. Ambitious Turnus in the press appears, And, aggravating crimes, augments their fears; Proclaims his private injuries aloud, A solemn promise made, and disavow'd; A foreign son is sought, and a mix'd mungril brood. Then they, whose mothers, frantic with their fear, In woods and wilds the flags of Bacchus bear, And lead his dances with dishevel'd hair, Increase the clamor, and the war demand, (Such was Amata's interest in the land,) Against the public sanctions of the peace, Against all omens of their ill success. With fates averse, the rout in arms resort, To force their monarch, and insult the court. But, like a rock unmov'd, a rock that braves The raging tempest and the rising waves- Propp'd on himself he stands; his solid sides Wash off the seaweeds, and the sounding tides- So stood the pious prince, unmov'd, and long Sustain'd the madness of the noisy throng. But, when he found that Juno's pow'r prevail'd, And all the methods of cool counsel fail'd, He calls the gods to witness their offense, Disclaims the war, asserts his innocence. "Hurried by fate," he cries, "and borne before A furious wind, we have the faithful shore. O more than madmen! you yourselves shall bear The guilt of blood and sacrilegious war: Thou, Turnus, shalt atone it by thy fate, And pray to Heav'n for peace, but pray too late. For me, my stormy voyage at an end, I to the port of death securely tend. The fun'ral pomp which to your kings you pay, Is all I want, and all you take away." He said no more, but, in his walls confin'd, Shut out the woes which he too well divin'd Nor with the rising storm would vainly strive, But left the helm, and let the vessel drive.
"Starbuck, of late I've felt strangely moved to thee; ever since that hour we both saw--thou know'st what, in one another's eyes. But in this matter of the whale, be the front of thy face to me as the palm of this hand--a lipless, unfeatured blank. Ahab is for ever Ahab, man. This whole act's immutably decreed. 'Twas rehearsed by thee and me a billion years before this ocean rolled. Fool! I am the Fates' lieutenant; I act under orders. Look thou, underling! that thou obeyest mine.--Stand round me, men. Ye see an old man cut down to the stump; leaning on a shivered lance; propped up on a lonely foot. 'Tis Ahab--his body's part; but Ahab's soul's a centipede, that moves upon a hundred legs. I feel strained, half stranded, as ropes that tow dismasted frigates in a gale; and I may look so. But ere I break, ye'll hear me crack; and till ye hear THAT, know that Ahab's hawser tows his purpose yet. Believe ye, men, in the things called omens? Then laugh aloud, and cry encore! For ere they drown, drowning things will twice rise to the surface; then rise again, to sink for evermore. So with Moby Dick--two days he's floated--tomorrow will be the third. Aye, men, he'll rise once more,--but only to spout his last! D'ye feel brave men, brave?"
"The good old man with suppliant hands implor'd The gods' protection, and their star ador'd. 'Now, now,' said he, 'my son, no more delay! I yield, I follow where Heav'n shews the way. Keep, O my country gods, our dwelling place, And guard this relic of the Trojan race, This tender child! These omens are your own, And you can yet restore the ruin'd town. At least accomplish what your signs foreshow: I stand resign'd, and am prepar'd to go.'
Then thus he pray'd, and fix'd on heav'n his eyes: "Hear thou, great Mother of the deities. With turrets crown'd! (on Ida's holy hill Fierce tigers, rein'd and curb'd, obey thy will.) Firm thy own omens; lead us on to fight; And let thy Phrygians conquer in thy right."
The Daunian hero lifts his hands eyes, And thus invokes the goddess as she flies: "Iris, the grace of heav'n, what pow'r divine Has sent thee down, thro' dusky clouds to shine? See, they divide; immortal day appears, And glitt'ring planets dancing in their spheres! With joy, these happy omens I obey, And follow to the war the god that leads the way." Thus having said, as by the brook he stood, He scoop'd the water from the crystal flood; Then with his hands the drops to heav'n he throws, And loads the pow'rs above with offer'd vows.
"When Heav'n had overturn'd the Trojan state And Priam's throne, by too severe a fate; When ruin'd Troy became the Grecians' prey, And Ilium's lofty tow'rs in ashes lay; Warn'd by celestial omens, we retreat, To seek in foreign lands a happier seat. Near old Antandros, and at Ida's foot, The timber of the sacred groves we cut, And build our fleet; uncertain yet to find What place the gods for our repose assign'd. Friends daily flock; and scarce the kindly spring Began to clothe the ground, and birds to sing, When old Anchises summon'd all to sea: The crew my father and the Fates obey. With sighs and tears I leave my native shore, And empty fields, where Ilium stood before. My sire, my son, our less and greater gods, All sail at once, and cleave the briny floods.
The lover gaz'd, and, burning with desire, The more he look'd, the more he fed the fire: Revenge, and jealous rage, and secret spite, Roll in his breast, and rouse him to the fight. Then fixing on the queen his ardent eyes, Firm to his first intent, he thus replies: "O mother, do not by your tears prepare Such boding omens, and prejudge the war. Resolv'd on fight, I am no longer free To shun my death, if Heav'n my death decree." Then turning to the herald, thus pursues: "Go, greet the Trojan with ungrateful news; Denounce from me, that, when to-morrow's light Shall gild the heav'ns, he need not urge the fight; The Trojan and Rutulian troops no more Shall dye, with mutual blood, the Latian shore: Our single swords the quarrel shall decide, And to the victor be the beauteous bride."
To whom, dark-louring, Hector thus replied. Polydamas! I like not thy advice; Thou couldst have framed far better; but if this Be thy deliberate judgment, then the Gods Make thy deliberate judgment nothing worth, Who bidd'st me disregard the Thunderer's firm Assurance to myself announced, and make The wild inhabitants of air my guides, Which I alike despise, speed they their course With right-hand flight toward the ruddy East, Or leftward down into the shades of eve. Consider _we_ the will of Jove alone, Sovereign of heaven and earth. Omens abound, But the best omen is our country's cause. Wherefore should fiery war _thy_ soul alarm? For were we slaughter'd, one and all, around The fleet of Greece, _thou_ need'st not fear to die, Whose courage never will thy flight retard. But if thou shrink thyself, or by smooth speech Seduce one other from a soldier's part, Pierced by this spear incontinent thou diest.
"And now the rising morn with rosy light Adorns the skies, and puts the stars to flight; When we from far, like bluish mists, descry The hills, and then the plains, of Italy. Achates first pronounc'd the joyful sound; Then, 'Italy!' the cheerful crew rebound. My sire Anchises crown'd a cup with wine, And, off'ring, thus implor'd the pow'rs divine: 'Ye gods, presiding over lands and seas, And you who raging winds and waves appease, Breathe on our swelling sails a prosp'rous wind, And smooth our passage to the port assign'd!' The gentle gales their flagging force renew, And now the happy harbor is in view. Minerva's temple then salutes our sight, Plac'd, as a landmark, on the mountain's height. We furl our sails, and turn the prows to shore; The curling waters round the galleys roar. The land lies open to the raging east, Then, bending like a bow, with rocks compress'd, Shuts out the storms; the winds and waves complain, And vent their malice on the cliffs in vain. The port lies hid within; on either side Two tow'ring rocks the narrow mouth divide. The temple, which aloft we view'd before, To distance flies, and seems to shun the shore. Scarce landed, the first omens I beheld Were four white steeds that cropp'd the flow'ry field. 'War, war is threaten'd from this foreign ground,' My father cried, 'where warlike steeds are found. Yet, since reclaim'd to chariots they submit, And bend to stubborn yokes, and champ the bit, Peace may succeed to war.' Our way we bend To Pallas, and the sacred hill ascend; There prostrate to the fierce virago pray, Whose temple was the landmark of our way. Each with a Phrygian mantle veil'd his head, And all commands of Helenus obey'd, And pious rites to Grecian Juno paid. These dues perform'd, we stretch our sails, and stand To sea, forsaking that suspected land.
"And as mechanical," muttered Ahab. Then as the men went forward, he muttered on: "The things called omens! And yesterday I talked the same to Starbuck there, concerning my broken boat. Oh! how valiantly I seek to drive out of others' hearts what's clinched so fast in mine!--The Parsee--the Parsee!--gone, gone? and he was to go before:--but still was to be seen again ere I could perish--How's that?--There's a riddle now might baffle all the lawyers backed by the ghosts of the whole line of judges:--like a hawk's beak it pecks my brain. I'LL, I'LL solve it, though!"
Now was the world forsaken by the sun, And Phoebe half her nightly race had run. The careful chief, who never clos'd his eyes, Himself the rudder holds, the sails supplies. A choir of Nereids meet him on the flood, Once his own galleys, hewn from Ida's wood; But now, as many nymphs, the sea they sweep, As rode, before, tall vessels on the deep. They know him from afar; and in a ring Inclose the ship that bore the Trojan king. Cymodoce, whose voice excell'd the rest, Above the waves advanc'd her snowy breast; Her right hand stops the stern; her left divides The curling ocean, and corrects the tides. She spoke for all the choir, and thus began With pleasing words to warn th' unknowing man: "Sleeps our lov'd lord? O goddess-born, awake! Spread ev'ry sail, pursue your wat'ry track, And haste your course. Your navy once were we, From Ida's height descending to the sea; Till Turnus, as at anchor fix'd we stood, Presum'd to violate our holy wood. Then, loos'd from shore, we fled his fires profane (Unwillingly we broke our master's chain), And since have sought you thro' the Tuscan main. The mighty Mother chang'd our forms to these, And gave us life immortal in the seas. But young Ascanius, in his camp distress'd, By your insulting foes is hardly press'd. Th' Arcadian horsemen, and Etrurian host, Advance in order on the Latian coast: To cut their way the Daunian chief designs, Before their troops can reach the Trojan lines. Thou, when the rosy morn restores the light, First arm thy soldiers for th' ensuing fight: Thyself the fated sword of Vulcan wield, And bear aloft th' impenetrable shield. To-morrow's sun, unless my skill be vain, Shall see huge heaps of foes in battle slain." Parting, she spoke; and with immortal force Push'd on the vessel in her wat'ry course; For well she knew the way. Impell'd behind, The ship flew forward, and outstripp'd the wind. The rest make up. Unknowing of the cause, The chief admires their speed, and happy omens draws.
18:10. Neither let there be found among you any one that shall expiate his son or daughter, making them to pass through the fire: or that consulteth soothsayers, or observeth dreams and omens, neither let there be any wizard,
Ofttimes in council, Hector, thou art wont To censure me, although advising well; Nor ought the private citizen, I confess, Either in council or in war to indulge Loquacity, but ever to employ All his exertions in support of thine. Yet hear my best opinion once again. Proceed we not in our attempt against The Grecian fleet. For if in truth the sign Respect the host of Troy ardent to pass, Then, as the eagle soar'd both hosts between, With Ilium's on his left, and clutch'd a snake Enormous, dripping blood, but still alive, Which yet he dropp'd suddenly, ere he reach'd His eyry, or could give it to his young, So we, although with mighty force we burst Both gates and barrier, and although the Greeks Should all retire, shall never yet the way Tread honorably back by which we came. No. Many a Trojan shall we leave behind Slain by the Grecians in their fleet's defence. An augur skill'd in omens would expound This omen thus, and faith would win from all.
The truth is that no system of ethics could be constructed until attention had been directed to the vagueness and inconsistency of the common moral opinions of mankind. For this purpose was needed the concentration of a philosophic intellect of the first order on the problems of practice. In Socrates first we find the required combination of a paramount interest in conduct and an ardent desire for knowledge. The pre-Socratic thinkers were all primarily devoted to ontological research; but by the middle of the 5th century B.C. the conflict of their dogmatic systems had led some of the keenest minds to doubt the possibility of penetrating the secret of the physical universe. This doubt found expression in the reasoned scepticism of Gorgias, and produced the famous proposition of Protagoras, that human apprehension is the only standard of existence. The same feeling led Socrates to abandon the old physico-metaphysical inquiries. In his ease, moreover, it was strengthened by a naive piety that forbade him to search into things of which the gods seemed to have reserved the knowledge to themselves. The regulation of human action, on the other hand (except on occasions of special difficulty, for which omens and oracles might be vouchsafed), they had left to human reason. On this accordingly Socrates concentrated his efforts. Entry: A
The belief in a species of lady fairies, deathly to their human lovers, was found by R.L. Stevenson to be as common in Samoa (see _Island Nights' Entertainments_) as in Strathfinlas or on the banks of Loch Awe. In New Caledonia a native friend of J.J. Atkinson (author of _Primal Law_) told him that he had met and caressed the girl of his heart in the forest, that she had vanished and must have been a fairy. He therefore would die in three days, which (Mr Atkinson informs the writer) he punctually did. The Greek sirens of Homer are clearly a form of these deadly fairies, as the Nereids and Oreads and Naiads are fairies of wells, mountains and the sea. The fairy women who come to the births of children and foretell their fortunes (_Fata_, _Moerae_, ancient Egyptian _Hathors_, _Fées_, _Dominae Fatales_), with their spindles, are refractions of the human "spae-women" (in the Scots term) who attend at birth and derive omens of the child's future from various signs. The custom is common among several savage races, and these women, represented in the spiritual world by _Fata_, bequeath to us the French _fée_, in the sense of fairy. Perrault also uses _fée_ for anything that has magical quality; "the key was _fée_," had _mana_, or _wakan_, savage words for the supposed "power," or _ether_, which works magic or is the vehicle of magical influences. Entry: FAIRY
The history of the Dual Monarchy during his reign is told under the heading of AUSTRIA-HUNGARY, and here it is only necessary to deal with its personal aspects. The young emperor was during the first years of his reign completely in the hands of Prince Felix Schwarzenberg, to whom, with Windischgrätz and Radetzky, he owed it that Austria had emerged from the revolution apparently stronger than it had been before. The first task was to reduce Hungary to obedience, for the Magyars refused to acknowledge the validity of the abdication in so far as it concerned Hungary, on the ground that such an act would only be valid with the consent of the Hungarian parliament. A further motive for their attitude was that Francis Joseph, unlike his predecessor, had not taken the oath to observe the Hungarian constitution, which it was the avowed object of Schwarzenberg to overthrow. In the war which followed the emperor himself took part, but it was not brought to a successful conclusion till the help of the Russians had been called in. Hungary, deprived of her ancient constitution, became an integral part of the Austrian empire. The new reign began, therefore, under sinister omens, with the suppression of liberty in Italy, Hungary and Germany. In 1853 a Hungarian named Lebenyi attempted to assassinate the emperor, and succeeded in inflicting a serious wound with a knife. With the death of Schwarzenberg in 1852 the personal government of the emperor really began, and with it that long series of experiments of which Austria has been the subject. Generally it may be said that throughout his long reign Francis Joseph remained the real ruler of his dominions; he not only kept in his hands the appointment and dismissal of his ministers, but himself directed their policy, and owing to the great knowledge of affairs, the unremitting diligence and clearness of apprehension, to which all who transacted business with him have borne testimony, he was able to keep a very real control even of the details of government. Entry: FRANCIS
After wintering in Syria Germanicus started for a tour in Egypt. The chief motive for his journey was love of travel and antiquarian study, and it seems never to have occurred to him, till he was warned by Tiberius, that he was thereby transgressing an unwritten law which forbade any Roman of rank to set foot in Egypt without express permission. On his return to Syria he found that all his arrangements had been upset by Piso. Violent recriminations followed, the result of which, it would seem, was a promise on the part of Piso to quit the province. But at this juncture Germanicus was suddenly attacked at Epidaphne near Antioch by a violent illness, which he himself and his friends attributed to poison administered by Plancina, the wife of Piso, at the instigation of Tiberius. Whether these suspicions were true is open to question; it seems more probable that his death was due to natural causes. His ashes were brought to Rome in the following year (20) by his wife Agrippina, and deposited in the grave of Augustus. He had nine children, six of whom, three sons and three daughters, survived him, amongst them the future emperor Gaius and the notorious Agrippina, the mother of Nero. The news of his death cast a gloom over the whole empire. Nor was Germanicus unworthy of this passionate devotion. He had wiped out a great national disgrace; he had quelled the most formidable foe of Rome. His private life had been stainless, and he possessed a singularly attractive personality. Yet there were elements of weakness in his character which his short life only half revealed: an impetuosity which made him twice threaten to take his own life; a superstitious vein which impelled him to consult oracles and shrink from bad omens; an amiable dilettantism which led him to travel in Egypt while his enemy was plotting his ruin; a want of nerve and resolution which prevented him from coming to an open rupture with Piso till it was too late. Entry: GERMANICUS