Ono no Komachi
Although there is not one moment without longing, still, how strange this autumn twilight is. — Ono no Komachi, The Ink Dark Moon tr. by Jane Hirshfield with Mariko Aratani (Vintage Classics, 1990)
Category: Ancient Literature
Plato
You’re my Star, a stargazer too,and I wish that I were Heaven,with a billion eyes to look at you! ― Plato (428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC)
Sappho
and you, sublimeAnd smiling with immortal mirth — Sappho, Come Close. Translated by Aaron Poochigian. (Penguin Classics February 26th 2015)
Aristotle
We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts not breaths; in feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time by heart throbs. He most lives who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best. — Aristotle (384–322 BC)
Philostratus
The gods perceive what lies in the future, and mortals, what occurs in the present, but wise men apprehend what is imminent. — Philostratus, Life of Apolloniur of Tyans, VII, 7. Edited by Christopher P. Jones, vol. 1 (Books I-IV) & 2 (Books V-VIII), Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.) 2005 (Loeb Classical Library no. 16… Continue reading Philostratus
Marcus Aurelius
Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present. ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations. (Penguin Classics, October 31, 2006) Originally published 180 C.E.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
What fortune has made yours is not your own. ― Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Letters from a Stoic. Trans Robin Campbell. (Penguin Books; Reprint edition, July 30, 1969)
Sappho
The glow and beauty of the starsare nothing near the splendid moonwhen in her roundness she burns silverabout the world. — Sappho, “133, FULL MOON,” The Classical Greek Reader. Trans. Willis Barnstone. (Oxford University Press; 1 edition, August 13, 1998)
Izumi Shikibu
In this world love has no color yet how deeply my body is stained by yours. — Izumi Shikibu, Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan. (Dover Publications August 27, 2003)
Homer
With that she loosed from her breasts the breastband, pierced and alluring, with every kind of enchantment woven through it . . . There is the heat of Love, the pulsing rush of Longing, the lover’s whisper, irresistible—magic to make the sanest man go mad. — Homer, The Iliad: Book XIV. (Period: Bronze Age.Traditional dating:… Continue reading Homer
The Vale of Soul-Making 