Admiration

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Decameron (1353)

  On hearing the King’s inquiry, she turned boldly towards him and replied: ‘No, my lord, but our women, whilst they may differ slightly from each other in their rank and the style of their dress, are made no differently here than they are elsewhere.’ On hearing this, the King saw clearly the reason for the banquet of chickens, and the virtue that lay concealed beneath her little homily. He realized that honeyed words would be wasted on a lady of this sort, and that force was out of the question. And thus, in the same way that he had foolishly become inflamed, so now he wisely decided that he was honour-bound to extinguish the ill-conceived fires of his passion. Fearing her replies, he teased her no further, but applied himself to his meal, by now convinced that all hope was lost. And as soon as he had finished eating, in order to compensate for his dishonourable coming by his swift departure, he thanked her for her generous hospitality and departed for Genoa, with the lady wishing him God-speed.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  FIFTH STORY Messer Forese da Rabatta and Master Giotto, the painter, returning from Mugello, poke fun at one another’s disreputable appearance . The ladies were highly amused by Chichibio’s reply, and in deference to the queen’s wishes, as soon as Neifile had stopped, Panfilo began: Dearest ladies, whilst it is true that Fortune occasionally conceals abundant treasures of native wit in those who practise a humble trade, as was demonstrated just now by Pampinea, it is equally true that Nature has frequently planted astonishing genius in men of monstrously ugly appearance. This was plainly to be observed in two citizens of ours, about whom I now propose to say a few words. The first, who was called Messer Forese da Rabatta, 1 being deformed and dwarf-like in appearance, with a plain snub-nosed face that would have seemed loathsome alongside the ugliest Baronci 2 who ever lived, was a jurist of such great distinction that many scholars regarded him as a walking encyclopaedia of civil law. The second, whose name was Giotto, 3 was a man of such outstanding genius that there was nothing in the whole of creation that he could not depict with his stylus, pen, or brush. And so faithful did he remain to Nature (who is the mother and the motive force of all created things, via the constant rotation of the heavens), that whatever he depicted had the appearance, not of a reproduction, but of the thing itself, so that one very often finds, with the works of Giotto, that people’s eyes are deceived and they mistake the picture for the real thing. Hence, by virtue of the fact that he brought back to light an art which had been buried for centuries beneath the blunders of those who, in their paintings, aimed to bring visual delight to the ignorant rather than intellectual satisfaction to the wise, his work may justly be regarded as a shining monument to the glory of Florence. And all the more so, inasmuch as he set an example to others by wearing his celebrity with the utmost modesty, and always refused to be called a master, even though such a title befitted him all the more resplendently in proportion to the eagerness with which it was sought and usurped by those who knew less than himself or by his own pupils. But for all the greatness of his art, neither physically nor facially was he any more handsome than Messer Forese. Turning now to our story, I should first point out that both Messer Forese and Giotto owned properties in the region of Mug-ello. 4 And one summer, when the law courts were closed for the vacation, Messer Forese had gone to visit this property of his, and was returning to Florence astride an emaciated old hack, when whom should he meet up with along the road but the aforementioned Giotto, who was likewise returning from a visit to his property.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  “It must have been difficult being a single mother,” I said, thinking of my mother. “No, I prefer to be my own boss.” “I mean money-wise.” “People always think that. But that’s because they aren’t artists. The secret to being an artist is to know how to live well without money.” “How?” This was something I really wanted to know. “With creativity! Plus, I don’t covet all those bourgeois possessions people hold so dear.” “I know! My mother can’t let go of any possessions, and as a result, I don’t seem to want anything. Material, I mean.” Renate’s smile was warm even though she didn’t show her teeth. “I knew you were copacetic.” One of her paintings on the wall caught my attention. A naked woman, whose long black hair fell to her lovely bare behind, faced a smaller mirror image of herself walking out of a shadowy mountain pass. A raven perched at the naked woman’s foot. “That’s my friend Raven,” Renate said. “She loved Edgar Allen Poe, so she purchased a pet raven in his honor.” “So that’s her raven?” “Oh, yes. The two of them bonded so deeply that she had her name legally changed to Raven. When her lovers would visit, the bird would screech and peck at them in a jealous rage.” “Did she get rid of the bird?” “No, she stopped having her lovers over.” Renate had the timing of a vaudeville comedian. I laughed, recognizing that I needed to respond to her humor to keep her approval. “My friend,” she continued, “then slept over at her lovers’ houses, but the bird fell sick with depression and wouldn’t eat. So now she doesn’t go anywhere, just stays buried at home with the raven.” “It really is an Edgar Allen Poe story!” “Yes, that’s what Anaïs said. Raven is part of our circle.” The circle I wanted to be part of. “Are all the women in these paintings in your circle?” I looked around at the paintings of women in various degrees of undress, each posed with her animal spirit. “My circle with Anaïs? No. Most of them haven’t even met Anaïs.” Renate watched my reaction to her work. “Take your time.” I took more time than I really needed to look at the highly saturated, acrylic paintings that recalled Salvador Dali’s trompe-l’oeil dreamscapes. “It’s the kind of painting nobody does anymore,” Renate said, sighing. It was true; her surrealist style was dated and out of sync with the pop and op art of the day. Her paintings, like Anaïs’s novels, embodied a European prewar fascination with the subconscious, while Warhol’s soup cans and Vasarely's optics were reflecting our surface, modern realities. I looked at Renate’s skillfully executed but somehow naive paintings: a slender woman lying alongside a panther, a woman with blue skin floating on a swan’s spread wing, a woman with the same eyes as her Siamese cat, a naked woman sitting lotus in a field, feeding grapes to a little goat.

• From Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics (1932)

  The purest conscience and the clearest mind is prostituted by the desire to prove them morally justified. Nothing proves the prejudices of the middle-class world more clearly than its unwillingness to recognise the genuine morality of proletarian aspirations. Steeped as it is in petty virtues and major vices, it has no perspective high enough from which it might achieve a real appreciation of the morality of the rebellious worker. Yet the unbiased observer is forced to admit with Laski, “Communism has made its way by its idealism and not by its realism, by its spiritual promise, not its materialistic prospects.” {120} While the idealism is genuine, it is nevertheless in constant commerce with a realism so searching, that it is in danger of discounting moral and rational factors in social life too completely. There have been other dreams of justice and equality. The distinctive feature of the Marxian dream is that the destruction of power is regarded as the prerequisite of its attainment. Equality will be established only through the socialisation of the means of production, that is, through the destruction of private property, wherever private property is social power. If the Marxian should incline at times to too much cynicism, in underestimating the capacity of social reason to destroy power and bring it under control, he is not cynical but only realistic, in maintaining that disproportion of power in society is the real root of social injustice. We have seen how inevitably special privilege is associated with power, and how the ownership of the means of production is the significant power in modern society. The clear recognition of that fact is the greatest ethical contribution which Marxian thought has made to the problem of social life. It may at times not see with sufficient clarity, that a complex society will always centralise power, whether political or economic, in a dangerous degree; and that the coagulation of economic power can be prevented only by a vigilant and potent state which substitutes political power for economic power. The chief gain in such a substitution is that privilege is only a possible, and not an inevitable, concomitant of political power; and that it is not as easily transmitted by inheritance as economic power. The expectation of changing human nature by the destruction of economic privilege to such a degree that no one will desire to make selfish use of power, must probably be placed in the category of romantic illusions. We shall have more to say about it later. If power remains in society, mankind will never escape the necessity of endowing those who possess it with the largest measure of ethical self-control. But that does not obviate the necessity of reducing power to a minimum, of bringing the remainder under the strongest measure of social control; and of destroying such types of it as are least amenable to social control.

• From Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (1988)

  A famous Egyptian Christian named Anthony chose such freedom, and generations of ascetically inclined Christians loved to tell his story. Anthony was the son of affluent Christian parents who lived in a small town in Egypt around the year 260. When Anthony was about eighteen, his parents died and left him responsible for a large household. He had to care for his young sister, supervise the slaves, and manage three hundred acres of fertile and beautiful farmland. Some six months after his parents’ death, Anthony was pondering his future when in church one day he heard the words Jesus spoke to a rich young man: “Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; come and follow me.”9 Anthony’s biographer tells us that he immediately left the church and gave to the villagers the property he had received as his inheritance, “so that he and his sister would not be encumbered with it.”10 He sold all their possessions, gave most of the money to the poor, and kept only a little in reserve to provide for his sister; soon afterward, he placed her in a home with some ascetic Christian women and left the village, “watching over himself and patiently disciplining himself.”11 Instead of marrying and entering into the lifelong obligations of a wealthy landowner in his hometown, Anthony took Jesus’ words as permission—indeed, as encouragement—to shrug off these onerous responsibilities. Intense, solitary, and self-involved, Anthony was not seeking an easy escape from difficulty. Instead, he abruptly abandoned a traditional and respectable life to make his own way to self-discovery—and the discovery of God. Anthony devoted himself to ascesis—which literally means “exercise”—in order to “attend to his soul,”12 but first he had to battle a residual desire for human company and approval. His biographer tells us that at first the devil tormented Anthony with “memories of his property; anxiety for his sister; intimacy with his relatives; desire for money and for power; and the manifold enjoyment of food and the other pleasures of life,” and finally with vivid sexual fantasies.13 What Anthony wanted to learn was what human life was or could be apart from ordinary social expectations. He did not reject all human society but sought out the society of an aristocracy quite different from the local Egyptian landholders—experts, or so he believed, in the practice of divine wisdom. Though he rejected family, marriage, and kinship, he willingly subjected himself to those whose self-mastery he admired, and sought to become one of them: “he noticed the courtesy of one; another’s constancy in prayer; one’s humility; another’s kindness,” and, above all, “their devotion to Christ, and their love for one another.”14

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Magnificent ladies, which of us is not aware that kings, if they be so inclined, can do all sorts of wondrous things, and that they above all others are called upon to display munificence? Those people do well, then, who possess ample means and do all that is expected of them; but we ought neither to marvel thereat, nor laud them to the skies, as we should the person who is equally munificent but of whom, his means being slender, less is expected. So that if you are impressed by the actions of kings, and expend so many words in extolling them, I have no doubt whatsoever that when similar actions to these, or nobler ones, are performed by people like ourselves, your delight will be all the greater, your praises all the more fulsome. And hence I am minded to tell you a story about two private citizens, who were friends, and about the laudable generosity that each of them displayed towards the other. Now, at the time when Octavianus Caesar,1 before he was called Augustus, was ruling the Roman Empire in the office known as the triumvirate, there lived in Rome a gentleman called Publius Quintus Fulvius,2 who had a son called Titus Quintus Fulvius. This latter was exceptionally clever, and his father sent him to study philosophy in Athens,3 doing all in his power to commend him to a nobleman of that city called Chremes,4 who was a very old friend of his. Chremes lodged him under his own roof with a son of his called Gisippus, and Titus and Gisippus were both sent by Chremes to study under the guidance of a philosopher named Aristippus.5 Being regularly in one another’s company, the two young men discovered that they shared many interests in common, and this gave rise to a powerful sense of mutual friendship and brotherliness, which lasted for the rest of their lives. Indeed, it was only when they were together that either Titus or Gisippus could feel happy and relaxed. Having once embarked upon their studies, since both were endowed with equally high intelligence, they scaled the glorious heights of philosophy side by side, amid a hail of marvellous tributes. And in this way of life, to the enormous delight of Chremes, who treated both alike as his sons, they continued for three whole years, at the end of which it came about that Chremes, already an old man, passed from this world as all things eventually must. Nor were the friends and kinsfolk of Chremes able to decide which of the two deserved greater compassion in this sudden loss, for he had been a father to them both, and both were equally broken-hearted. A few months later, Gisippus was confronted by a deputation of his friends and relatives, who along with Titus persuaded him to take a wife, and they found him an incredibly lovely Athenian girl of impeccably noble breeding, some fifteen years of age, whose name was Sophronia.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘God knows, Messer Torello, that I cannot blame you in the slightest for loving your wife so dearly and for being so concerned at the thought of losing her to another. For of all the ladies I ever recall having met, she is the one whose way of life, whose manners, and whose demeanour – to say nothing of her beauty, which will fade like the flower – seem to me most precious and commendable. Nothing would have given me greater joy, since Fortune has brought you to Alexandria, than for us to have spent the rest of our lives together here, ruling as equals over the kingdom I now govern. God has willed that these wishes of mine should not be granted, but now that you have taken it into your head to die unless you are back again in Pavia by the date you prescribed, I dearly wish that I had known of all this in time for me to restore you to your home with the dignity, the splendour, and the company that your excellence deserves. Since, however, I am not even allowed to do this, and you are determined to be in Pavia forthwith, I shall do my best to get you there in the manner I have told you of.’ ‘My lord,’ said Messer Torello, ‘quite apart from your words, your actions have supplied me with abundant proof of your benevolence towards me, which far exceeds all my deserts, and even if you had said nothing, I should have lived and died in the certain knowledge that what you say is true. But since my mind is made up on the subject, I beg you to act quickly in the manner you have proposed, for after tomorrow I shall no longer be expected.’ Saladin assured him that everything was settled; and on the next day, it being his intention to send him on his way that same evening, he caused a most beautiful and sumptuous bed to be prepared in one of the great halls of his palace. It was a bed fashioned in the style of the East, with mattresses covered all over in velvet and cloth of gold, and Saladin had it bedecked with a quilt, embroidered with enormous pearls and the finest of precious stones, geometrically arranged, which was looked upon later, in these parts, as a priceless treasure. And finally he had two pillows placed upon it, of a quality appropriate to the bed itself. This done, he ordered that Messer Torello, who had now recovered, should be clothed in a robe of the kind that Saracens wear, more opulent and splendid than any that was ever seen, whilst around his head he caused one of his longest turbans to be wound. It was already late in the evening when Saladin, along with many of his lords, went to Messer Torello’s room; and having sat down beside him, he began, almost in tears, to address him as follows:

• From The Decameron (1353)

  After having offered her somewhere to sit, Messer Ansaldo said: ‘My lady, if the love I have so long borne you merits any reward, I beseech you to do me the kindness of telling me truthfully why you have come here at this hour of day with so few people to bear you company.’ To which the lady replied, confused and almost in tears: ‘Sir, I am led here, not because I love you or because I pledged you my word, but because I was ordered to come by my husband, who, paying more regard to the labours of your unruly love than to his own or his wife’s reputation, has constrained me to call upon you. And by his command I am ready to submit for this once to your every pleasure.’ Great as Messer Ansaldo’s astonishment had been when the lady arrived, his astonishment on hearing her words was considerably greater; and because he was deeply moved by Gilberto’s liberality, his ardour gradually turned to compassion. ‘My lady,’ he said, ‘since it is as you say, God forbid that I should ever impair the reputation of one who shows compassion for my love. With your consent, therefore, whilst you are under my roof I shall treat you exactly as though you were my sister, and whenever you choose you shall be free to depart, provided that you convey to your husband all the thanks you deem appropriate for the immense courtesy he has shown me, and that you look upon me always in future as your brother and your servant.’ The lady was pleased beyond measure to hear these words. ‘Nothing could ever make me believe,’ she said, ‘in view of your impeccable manners, that my coming to your house would have any other sequel than the one which I see you have made of it, for which I shall always remain in your debt.’ Then, having taken her leave, she returned to Gilberto suitably attended and told him what had happened. And from that day forth, Gilberto and Messer Ansaldo became the closest of loyal friends.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  SECOND STORY By means of a single phrase, Cisti the Baker shows Messer Geri Spina that he is being unreasonable . Madonna Oretta’s timely remark was warmly commended by all the men and ladies present, and then the queen ordered Pampinea to continue in the same vein. Pampinea therefore began, as follows: Fair ladies, I cannot myself decide whether Nature is more at fault in furnishing a noble spirit with an inferior body, or Fortune in allotting an inferior calling to a body endowed with a noble spirit, as happened in the case of Cisti, our fellow citizen, and many other people of our own acquaintance. This Cisti was a man of exceedingly lofty spirit, and yet Fortune made him a baker. I would assuredly curse Nature and Fortune alike, if I did not know for a fact that Nature is very discerning, and that Fortune has a thousand eyes, even though fools represent her as blind. Indeed, it is my conviction that Nature and Fortune, being very shrewd, follow the practice so common among mortals, who, uncertain of what the future will bring, make provision for emergencies by burying their most precious possessions in the least imposing (and therefore least suspect) part of their houses, whence they bring them forth in the hour of their greatest need, their treasure having been more securely preserved in a humble hiding place than if it had been kept in a sumptuous chamber. In the same way, the two fair arbiters of the world’s affairs frequently hide their greatest treasure beneath the shadow of the humblest of trades, so that when the need arises for it to be brought forth, its splendour will be all the more apparent. This is amply borne out by a brief anecdote I should now like to relate, concerning an episode, in itself of no great importance, in which Cisti the Baker opened the eyes of Messer Geri Spina 1 to the truth, and of which I was reminded by the tale we have just heard about Madonna Oretta, who was Messer Geri’s wife. I say, then, that when Pope Boniface, 2 who held Messer Geri in the highest esteem, sent a delegation of his courtiers to Florence on urgent papal affairs, they took lodging under Messer Geri’s roof; and almost every morning, for one reason or another, it so happened that Messer Geri and the Pope’s emissaries were obliged by the nature of their business to walk past the Church of Santa Maria Ughi, 3 beside which Cisti had his bakery, where he practised his calling in person.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  THIRD STORY Three young men squander their fortunes, reducing themselves to penury. A nephew of theirs, left penniless, is on his way home when he falls in with an abbot, whom he discovers to be the daughter of the King of England. She later marries him and makes good all the losses suffered by his uncles, restoring them to positions of honour . The whole company, men and ladies alike, listened with admiration to the adventures of Rinaldo d’Asti, commending his piety and giving thanks to God and Saint Julian, who had come to his rescue in the hour of his greatest need. Nor, moreover, was the lady considered to have acted foolishly (even though nobody openly said so) for the way she had accepted the blessing that God had left on her doorstep. And while everyone was busy talking, with half-suppressed mirth, about the pleasant night the lady had spent, Pampinea, finding herself next to Filostrato and realizing rightly that it would be her turn to speak next, collected her thoughts together and started planning what to say. And upon receiving the queen’s command, she began, in a manner no less confident than it was lively, to speak as follows: Excellent ladies, if the ways of Fortune are carefully examined, it will be seen that the more one discusses her actions, the more remains to be said. Nor is this surprising, when you pause to consider that she controls all the affairs we unthinkingly call our own, and that consequently it is she who arranges and rearranges them after her own inscrutable fashion, constantly moving them now in one direction, now in another, then back again, without following any discernible plan. The truth of this assertion is clearly illustrated by everything that happens in the space of a single day, as well as being borne out by some of the previous stories. Nevertheless, since our queen has decreed that we should speak on this particular theme, I shall add to the tales already told a story of my own, from which my listeners will possibly derive some profit, and which in my opinion ought to prove entertaining. In our city there once lived a nobleman named Messer Tebaldo, who according to some people belonged to the Lamberti family, whilst others maintain he was an Agolanti, 1 perhaps for the simple reason that Tebaldo’s son later followed a profession with which the Agolanti family has always been associated and which it practises to this day. But leaving aside the question to which of the two families he belonged, I can tell you that he was one of the wealthiest nobles of his time, and that he had three sons, of whom the first was called Lamberto, the second Tebaldo, and the third Agolante. These three had grown into fine and mettlesome youths, the eldest being not yet eighteen, when Messer Tebaldo died very rich, and they inherited all of his lands, houses and movables.

• From Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (1988)

  Anthony was to become famous among Christians as a spiritual pioneer, one who set out to discover what happens beyond the boundaries of civilization when one ventures alone into the harsh desert. Anthony—and others like him—sought the shape of his own soul, hoping to accept the terrors and ecstasies of direct and unremitting encounters with himself and, having mastered himself, to discover his relationship to the Infinite God. The number of those who chose such ascesis, or spiritual “exercise,” was not large, compared with the number of believers who increasingly crowded the churches in the third century, but their role is significant; for these hermits lived out the ideal of which many other Christians only dreamed. The classical scholar Ramsay MacMullen estimates that during the century following Constantine’s conversion the number of Christians grew from about five million to thirty million,15 while the monks in Egypt came to number about thirty thousand.16 These ascetics were called what Mother Teresa in Calcutta still calls them, “athletes” for God, and were revered as many people today revere certain athletes, men and women who discipline themselves to achieve what their thousands of admirers only dream of doing. Anthony and other ascetics spoke of their struggle for self-control in athletic terms, as an attempt to control the body and mind and to maintain both in seemingly effortless mastery. Many Christians who engaged in their own limited ascetic practices on certain days, and many more who may never have made the effort to control their diet and to strengthen themselves as “athletes” did, nevertheless, admire those who achieved such discipline. Gregory of Nyssa, a married Christian from a wealthy family in Asia Minor, wrote with passionate regret that he wished he had dared “raise his own life above the world,”17 to live for himself and for God alone, despite the expectations of family and friends and the pressures of social and political obligations. For, as he wrote, no doubt from his own experience, he whose life is contained in himself either escapes [sufferings] altogether, or can bear them easily, having a collected mind which is not distracted from itself; while he who shares himself with wife and child often has not a moment to give even to regretting his own condition, because anxiety for those he loves fills his heart.18 Gregory also understood how people suffer through their natural desire for children: There is pain always, whether children are born, or can never be expected; whether they live or die. One person has many children, but not enough means to support them; another feels the lack of an heir to the great fortune he has worked for.… one man loses by death a beloved son; another has a reprobate son alive; both equally pitiable, although one mourns over the death, the other over the life, of his son. Nor will I do more than mention how sadly and disastrously family jealousies and arguments, arising from real or imagined causes, end.19

• From Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (1988)

  The texts discovered in a jar near Nag Hammadi show us more clearly than we had ever known that some of these so-called gnostic Christians sought divine illumination through a process of spiritual self-discovery.18 The Christian bishops who called themselves orthodox might no doubt claim that they, too, sought spiritual illumination; but their methods differed considerably. Justin the philosopher followed a common Christian tradition when he called the ritual of baptism itself “illumination” and explained that “since at our birth we were born without our knowledge or choice, by our parents’ union, and were raised with bad habits and false education,” so converts had been born first as “children of necessity and ignorance.” But Christians, through baptism, were born again as “children of choice and knowledge.”19 Justin sought to increase his own understanding of the faith—and that of his students—through moral action and philosophic discourse. Followers of Valentinus, on the other hand, tended to regard baptism as only the elementary initiation ritual, and one that, for many people, lacked real spiritual content.20 Instead of following a philosophic path, like Justin, Valentinus looked within himself to dreams and visions to deepen his gnosis. He traced his own spiritual process, in fact, to a vision in which a newborn infant appeared to him and said, “I am the Logos.”21 Like Justin, Valentinus sought spiritual illumination in the Scriptures; but where Justin wrestled with their moral, philosophical, and historical dimensions, Valentinus claimed to explicate their “deeper meaning” through secret traditions known only to initiates like himself.22 My first two books, written before The Gnostic Gospels, attempt to show how Valentinian Christians interpreted the New Testament Gospel of John and the letters of Paul.23 When gnostic and orthodox Christians disagreed, each reached back to the Scriptures that they revered in common, and each claimed the Scriptures’ support. But gnostic and orthodox Christians read the same Scriptures in radically different ways; to borrow the words of the nineteenth-century poet William Blake, “Both read the Bible day and night; but you read black where I read white!” The majority of orthodox Christians in the first and second centuries, like most Jews and Christians ever since, read the Scriptures as Justin did, primarily as practical guides to moral living. They read the Genesis story, in particular, as history with a moral: that is, they regarded Adam and Eve as actual historical persons, the venerable ancestors of our race; and from the story of their disobedience, orthodox interpreters drew practical lessons in moral behavior. Tertullian, for example, took Genesis 3 as an opportunity to warn his “sisters in Christ” that even the best of them were, in effect, Eve’s co-conspirators: You are the devil’s gateway.… you are she who persuaded him whom the devil did not dare attack.… Do you not know that every one of you is an Eve? The sentence of God on your sex lives on in this age; the guilt, of necessity, lives on too.24

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  Waking the Tiger Healing Trauma The Innate Capacity to Transform Overwhelming Experiences Peter A. Levine, Ph.D. with Ann Frederick Waking the Tige r – Healing Trauma Copyright © 1997 by Peter A. Levine. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any mean s — electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwis e — without written permission of the publisher. Published by North Atlantic Books P.O. Box 12327 Berkeley, California 94712 Cover painting by Guy Coheleach with permission of the artist Cover and book design by Andrea DuFlon Photo by Gerry Greenberg Printed in the United States of America Waking the Tige r – Healing Trauma is sponsored by the Society for the Study of Native Arts and Sciences, a nonprofit educational corporation whose goals are to develop an educational and crosscultural perspective linking various scientific, social, and artistic fields; to nurture a holistic view of arts, sciences, humanities, and healing; and to publish and distribute literature on the relationship of mind, body, and nature. Library of Congress Cataloging–In–Publication Data Levine, Peter A. Waking the tiger; healing traum a / Peter A. Levine. p. cm. ISBN 1-55643-233-X 1. Post-traumatic stress disorde r Treatment. 2. Mind and body therapies. 3. Post-traumatic stress disorde r Prevention. I. Title RC552.P67L48 1997 616.85’21dc21 97-3918 CIP 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 / 00 99 98 97 What people in the Medical, Science, and Health fields say about Waking the Tiger Every life contains difficulties we are not prepared for. Read, learn and be prepared for life and healing. Bernard S. Siegel, M.D. Best-selling author of Love, Medicine & Miracles, Peace, Love, and Healing Fascinating! Amazing! A revolutionary exploration of the physiological effects and causes of traum a expands our understanding of the human mind and human behavior experientially. His ideas on how to resolve and heal traumas seem almost unbelievable in their simplicity. He shows us clearly that trauma can be healed and resolved. It is not a life sentence. It is a must read for professionals and lay people alike. Understanding and healing of trauma may very well save humanity from its path of self-destruct. Mira Rothenberg, Director-Emeritus Blueberry Treatment Centers for Disturbed Children, author of Children With Emerald Eyes This book is enormously rich in evocative ideas in one of the most significant areas of all our lives. It is superbly reasoned, passionate and makes beautifully easy reading. Levine’s work is full of wide- ranging implications, rock solid science and clearly expressed ideas. It is a most important book. Quite possibly a work of genius. Ron Kurtz, Author The Body Reveals and Body-Centered Psychotherapy Waking the Tiger introduces Somatic Experiencing, an original and scientific approach to the healing of trauma. The treatment approach is rooted in an understanding of the bi-directional communication between our thoughts and our physiology.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  When, for example, the pile was kindled, the flames surrounded the body of Polycarp, like the full sail of a ship, without touching it; on the contrary it shone, unhurt, with a gorgeous color, like white baken bread, or like gold and silver in a crucible, and gave forth a lovely fragrance as of precious spices. Then one of the executioners pierced the body of the saint with a spear, and forthwith there flowed such a stream of blood that the fire was extinguished by it. The narrative mentions also a dove which flew up from the burning pile; but the reading is corrupt, and Eusebius, Rufinus, and Nicephorus make no reference to it.1261 The sign of a dove (which is frequently found on ancient monuments) was probably first marked on the margin, as a symbol of the pure soul of the martyr, or of the power of the Holy Spirit which pervaded him; but the insertion of the word dove in the text suggests an intended contrast to the eagle, which flew up from the ashes of the Roman emperors, and proclaimed their apotheosis, and may thus be connected with the rising worship of martyrs and saints. Throughout its later chapters this narrative considerably exceeds the sober limits of the Acts of the Apostles in the description of the martyrdom of Stephen and the elder James, and serves to illustrate, in this respect also, the undeniable difference, notwithstanding all the affinity, between the apostolic and the old catholic literature.1262 Notes. I. Of all the writings of the Apostolic Fathers the Epistle of Polycarp is the least original, but nearest in tone to the Pastoral Epistles of Paul, and fullest of reminiscences from the New Testament. We give the first four chapters as specimens. I. "Polycarp and the presbyters with him to the congregation of god which sojourns at philippi. Mercy and peace be multiplied upon you, from god almighty, and from Jesus Christ our Saviour. 1. "I have greatly rejoiced with you in the joy you have had in our Lord Jesus Christ, in receiving those examples of true charity, and having accompanied, as it well became you, those who were bound with holy chains [Ignatius and his fellow-prisoners, Zosimus and Rufus; comp. ch. 9]; who are the diadems of the truly elect of God and our Lord; and that the strong root of your faith, spoken of in the earliest times, endureth until now, and bringeth forth fruit unto our Lord Jesus Christ, who suffered for our sins, but whom God raised from the dead, having loosed the pains of Hades [Acts 2:24]; in whom though ye see Him not, ye believe, and believing rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory [I Pet. 1:8]; into which joy many desire to enter; knowing that by grace ye are saved, not by works [Eph. 2:8, 9], but by the will of God through Jesus Christ. 2. "Wherefore, girding up your loins, serve the Lord in fear [1 Pet.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  "I shall not regret," he says, "to subjoin to my interpretations [of the Lord’s Oracles], whatsoever I have at any time accurately ascertained and treasured up in my memory, as I have received it from the elders (para; tw'n presbutevrwn) and have recorded it to give additional confirmation to the truth, by my testimony. For I did not, like most men, delight in those who speak much, but in those who teach the truth; nor in those who record the commands of others [or new and strange commands], but in those who record the commands given by the Lord to our faith, and proceeding from truth itself. If then any one who had attended on the elders came, I made it a point to inquire what were the words of the elders; what Andrew, or what Peter said, or Philip, or Thomas, or James, or John, or Matthew, or any other of the disciples of our Lord; and what things Aristion and the elder John, the disciples of the Lord, say. For I was of opinion that I could not derive so much benefit from books as from the living and abiding voice."1303 He collected with great zeal the oral traditions of the apostles and their disciples respecting the discourses and works of Jesus, and published them in five books under the title: "Explanation of the Lord’s Discourses."1304 Unfortunately this book, which still existed in the thirteenth century, is lost with the exception of valuable and interesting fragments preserved chiefly by Irenaeus and Eusebius. Among these are his testimonies concerning the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew and the Petrine Gospel of Mark, which figure so prominently in all the critical discussions on the origin of the Gospels.1305 The episode on the woman taken in adultery which is found in some MSS. of John 7:53–8:11, or after Luke 21:38, has been traced to the same source and was perhaps to illustrate the word of Christ, John 8:15 ("I judge no man"); for Eusebius reports that Papias "set forth another narrative concerning a woman who was maliciously accused before the Lord of many sins, which is contained in the Gospel according to the Hebrews."1306 If so, we are indebted to him for the preservation of a precious fact which at once illustrates in a most striking manner our Saviour’s absolute purity in dealing with sin, and his tender compassion toward the sinner. Papias was an enthusiastic chiliast, and the famous parable of the fertility of the millennium which he puts in the Lord’s mouth and which Irenaeus accepted in good faith, may have been intended as an explanation of the Lord’s word concerning the fruit of the vine which he shall drink new in his Father’s kingdom, Matt. 26:29.1307 His chiliasm is no proof of a Judaizing tendency, for it was the prevailing view in the second century.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Being of a very astute disposition, Saladin realized that the worthy knight had not invited them when they first met for fear of their refusing, and that, so as to make it impossible for them to deny him their company that evening, he had cleverly beguiled them into coming to his house. And having returned Messer Torello’s greeting, he said: ‘Sir, if it were possible to complain of courteous men, we should have good cause for complaint against you, for to say nothing of taking us slightly out of our way, you have more or less constrained us to accept this handsome gesture of yours, when all we did to merit your civility was to exchange a single greeting with you.’ To which the knight, who was no less wise than he was eloquent, replied: ‘If I may judge from your appearance, gentlemen, my civility is bound to be a poor thing by comparison with your deserts. But to tell the truth you could not have found a decent place to lodge outside Pavia. Do not be aggrieved, then, to have added a few more miles to your journey for the sake of a little less discomfort.’ As he was speaking, his servants gathered round the visitors, and as soon as they had dismounted, their horses were led away to the stables. Meanwhile Messer Torello conducted the three gentlemen to the rooms that had been prepared for them, where they were helped off with their riding-boots, after which Torello offered them refreshment in the form of deliciously cool wines, and detained them with agreeable talk until it was time to go to supper. Saladin and his companions and attendants were all conversant with the Italian tongue, so that they had no difficulty in following Messer Torello or in making themselves understood, and they were all of the opinion that this knight was the most agreeable, civilized, and affable gentleman they had so far had occasion to meet. For his own part, Messer Torello concluded that they were gentlemen of quality, much more distinguished than he had previously thought, and reproached himself for his inability to entertain them in company that evening, with a banquet of greater splendour. He therefore resolved that he would make amends next morning, and having explained to one of his servants what he had in mind, he sent him to Pavia, which never closed its gates4 and was very close at hand, with a message for his wife, a lady of great intelligence and exceptional spirit. This done, he led his visitors into the garden, and politely asked them who they were, whence they came, and where they were going, to which Saladin replied: ‘We are Cypriot merchants, we come from Cyprus, and we are on our way to Paris to conduct certain business of ours.’ ‘Would to God,’ said Messer Torello, ‘that this country of ours produced gentlemen of a kind to compare with what I see of the merchants of Cyprus.’

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Then she rounded on Ambrogiuolo, haughtily demanding to know when he had ever slept with her, as he had claimed. But Ambrogiuolo, seeing who it was, simply stood there and said nothing, as though he were too ashamed to open his mouth. The Sultan, who had always believed her to be a man, was so astonished on seeing and hearing all this, that he kept thinking that he must be dreaming and that his eyes and ears were deceiving him. But once he had recovered from his astonishment and realized that it was true, he lauded Zinevra to the skies for her virtuous way of life, her constancy, and her strength of character. And having ordered women’s clothes of the finest quality to be brought, and provided her with a retinue of ladies, he complied with her earlier request and spared Bernabò from the death he assuredly deserved. On recognizing his wife, Bernabò threw himself in tears at her feet asking her forgiveness, and although he merited no such favour, she graciously conceded it and helped him up again, clasping him in a fond and wifely embrace. The Sultan next commanded that Ambrogiuolo should instantly be taken to some upper part of the city, tied to a pole in the sun, smeared with honey, and left there until he fell of his own accord; and this was done. He then decreed that all of Ambrogiuolo’s possessions, which amounted in value to more than ten thousand doubloons, should be handed over to the lady. And for his own part, he put on a splendid feast, at which Bernabò, being Lady Zinevra’s husband, and the most excellent Lady Zinevra herself were the guests of honour. And in addition he presented her with jewels, gold and silver plate, and money, all of which came to a further ten thousand doubloons in value. He meanwhile commissioned a ship to be specially fitted out for their use, and once the feast held in their honour was concluded, he gave them leave to return to Genoa whenever it suited their purpose. And when they sailed into Genoa, weak with joy and laden with riches, a magnificent welcome awaited them, especially Lady Zinevra, whom everyone had thought to be dead. And thereafter, for as long as she lived, she was held in high esteem and regarded as a paragon of virtue. As for Ambrogiuolo, on the very day that he was tied to the pole and smeared with honey, he was subjected to excruciating torments by the mosquitoes, wasps and horseflies which abound in that country, and not only was he slain, but every morsel of his flesh was devoured. Hanging by their sinews, his whitened bones remained there for ages without being moved, an eloquent testimony of his wickedness to all who beheld them. And thus it was that the dupe outwitted his deceiver.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Cosimo de’ Medici, d. 1464, the most munificent promoter of arts and letters that Europe had seen for more than a thousand years, was the richest banker of the republic of Florence, scholarly, well-read and, from taste and ambition, deeply interested in literature. We have already met him at Constance during the council. He travelled extensively in France and Germany and ruled Florence, after a temporary exile, as a republican merchant-prince, for 30 years. He encouraged scholars by gifts of money and provided for the purchase of manuscripts, without assuming the air of condescension which spoils the generosity of the gift, but with a feeling of respect for superior merit. His literary minister, Nicolo de’ Niccoli, 1364–1437, was a centre of attraction to literary men in Florence and collected and, in great part, copied 800 codices. Under his auspices, Poggio searched some of the South German convents and found at St. Gall the first complete Quintilian. Niccoli’s library, through Cosimo’s mediation, was given to S. Marco, and forms a part of the Medicean library. With the same enlightened liberality, Cosimo also encouraged the fine arts. He was a great admirer of the saintly painter, Fra Angelico, whom he ordered to paint the history of the crucifixion on one of the walls of the chapter-house of S. Marco. Among the scholars protected in Florence under Cosimo’s administration were the Platonist Ficino, Lionardo Bruni and Poggio. During the last year of his life, Cosimo had read to him Aristotle’s Ethics and Ficino’s translation of Plato’s The Highest Good. He also contributed to churches and convents, and by the erection of stately buildings turned Florence into the Italian Athens. Cosimo’s grandson and worthy successor, Lorenzo de’ Medici, d. 1492, was well educated in Latin and Greek by Landino, Argyropulos and Ficino. He was a man of polite culture and himself no mean poet, whose songs were sung on the streets of Florence. His family life was reputable. He liked to play with his children and was very fond of his son Giovanni, afterwards Leo X. Michelangelo and Pico della Mirandola were among the ornaments of his court. By his lavish expenditures he brought himself and the republic to the brink of bankruptcy in 1490. Federigo da Montefeltro, duke of Urbino, d. 1482, and Alfonso of Naples also deserve special mention as patrons of learning. Federigo, a pupil of Vittorino da Feltre, was a scholar and an admirer of patristic as well as classical learning. He also cultivated a taste for music, painting and architecture, employed 30 and 40 copyists at a time, and founded, at an expense of 40,000 ducats, a library which, in 1657, was incorporated in the Vatican.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  A decided step in the direction of the, new exegesis movement was made by Nicolas of Lyra in his Postillae, a brief commentary on the entire Bible.1222 This commentator, called by Wyclif the elaborate and skilful annotator of Scripture,—tamen copiosus et ingeniosus postillator Scripturae,1223 was born in Normandy, about 1270, and became professor in Paris where he remained till his death. He knew Greek and learned Hebrew from a rabbi and his knowledge of that tongue gave rise to the false rumor that he had a Jewish mother. Lyra made a new Latin translation, commented directly on the original text and ventured at times to prefer the comments of Jewish commentators to the comments of the Fathers. As he acknowledged in his Introduction, he was much influenced by the writings of Rabbi Raschi. Lyra’s lasting merit lies in the stress he laid upon the literal sense which he insisted should alone be employed in establishing dogma. In practice, however, he allowed a secondary sense, the mystical or typical, but he declared that it had been put to such abuse as to have choked out—suffocare — the literal sense. The language of Scripture must be understood in its natural sense as we would expect our words to be understood.1224 His method aided in undermining the fanciful and pernicious exegetical system of the Schoolmen who knew neither Greek nor Hebrew and prepared the way for a new period of biblical exposition. He was used not only by Wyclif and Gerson,1225 but also by Luther, who acknowledged his services in insisting upon the literal sense. Although Wyclif wrote no commentaries on books of Scripture, he gave expositions of the Lord’s Prayer and the Decalogue and of many texts, which are thoroughly practical and popular. In his treatise on the Truth of Scripture, he seems at times to pronounce the discovery of the literal sense the only object of a sound exegesis.1226 A generation later Gerson showed an inclination to lay stress upon the literal sense as fundamental but went no further than to say that it is to be accepted so far as it is found to be in harmony with the teachings of the Church.1227 Later in the 15th century, the free critical spirit which the Revival of Letters was begetting found pioneers in the realm of exegesis in Laurentius Valla and Erasmus, Colet, Wesel and Wessel. As has already been said, Valla not only called in question the genuineness of Constantine’s donation, but criticised Jerome’s Vulgate and Augustine. Erasmus went still farther when he left out of his Greek New Testament,1516, the spurious passage about the three witnesses, 1 John 5:7, though he restored it in the edition of 1522. He pointed out the discrepancy between a statement in Stephen’s speech and the account in Genesis and questioned the authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Apostolic origin of 2d and 3rd John and the Johannine authorship of the Apocalypse.

• From Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (1988)

  I rejoice … and find the greatest consolation, in my solitude, in the fact that you have been so manly and steadfast, and that you have not allowed yourself to do wrong.… Be glad, therefore, and rejoice over your victory. For they have done everything they could against you. You, who knew only the church and your monastic cell, they have dragged out into the public eye, from there to the court, and from court to prison. They have brought false witnesses, have slandered, murdered, shed streams of blood … and left nothing undone to terrify you, and to obtain from you a lie.… But you have brought them all to shame.112 Now consider Augustine. Born into a nonpatrician family, Augustine tells us that his pagan father, Patricus, a man habitually unfaithful to Augustine’s mother, not only failed to “root out the brambles of lust” from his son but expressed pleasure in his adolescent son’s sexual appetite. (Perhaps Augustine had his hot-tempered father somehow in mind when he complained that “traditional education taught me that Jupiter punishes the wicked with his thunderbolts, and yet commits adultery himself!”) His Christian mother, Monica, patiently endured her husband’s infidelities, Augustine says, but “most earnestly implored me not to commit fornication.” As a young man he would have been embarrassed to take such “womanish” advice; much later, looking back, he came to believe that God had spoken to him through his mother, and that “when I disregarded her, I disregarded [God].” Augustine sought a secular career with intense ambition and plunged into the life of the city—theatrical performances, dinner parties, rhetorical competition, many friendships. After various earlier sexual relationships he lived for years with a lower-class woman who engaged his passions and bore him a son, but then he abandoned her for the sake of a socially advantageous marriage his mother arranged for him. Yet once he had become a successful rhetor, Augustine found himself divided. Although attracted to philosophical and religious contemplation, he was unwilling to give up marriage and career. Then, at the age of thirty-two, spurred by stories of the desert solitaries, he renounced the world and was baptized. Three years later, having “given up all hope in this world,” Augustine went to Hippo to set up the communal monastic life he intended to enter. Later he protested to his congregation that he had had no intention whatever of seeking church office and expressed ambivalence about his successful ecclesiastical career: “I was grabbed, I was made a priest … and, from there, I became your bishop.”113 The church that Augustine chose to join, as Peter Brown points out, “was not the old church of Cyprian”—not, that is, the select community of the holy, willing to risk persecution and death or, lacking the opportunity for martyrdom, eager to leave the world;