Fear

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 Martin Luther (2016)

  When the first evangelical clergy married, it was Karlstadt, not Luther, who wrote a set of theses and then a pamphlet in their support, even proposing that only married men should become priests. And it was Karlstadt who then justified the marriage of monks because sexual continence was just another vain attempt to secure salvation through works. Luther originally objected to this line of reasoning, but he eventually approved it, using much the same arguments. Certainly Melanchthon thought that something had changed in Luther by 1525, and he did not like it. The ascetic was becoming a sensualist. A month after Luther’s wedding, Melanchthon wrote to a friend that “the nuns used all their arts to draw him to them,” so that perhaps “the frequent commerce with the nuns had softened and inflamed him, despite all his noble nature and the greatness of his soul.” 20 But Luther’s feelings were initially more mixed. On the eve of his wedding, in June 1525, he published a provocative letter to Albrecht of Mainz admonishing him to marry his concubine. If Albrecht should ask, he wrote to Rühel, why the man who was advocating marriage for everyone else had not gotten married yet himself, he should be told that “I still feared, that I was not capable enough for it.” But now he was determined to marry before he died, even if it just be “an engaged marriage of Joseph”—that is, an unconsummated engagement of an old man and a young woman. 21 Such words hardly sound like the sexual bravado that had begun to color his letters to Spalatin, the “sluggish lover who does not dare to become the husband of even one woman,” perhaps because Spalatin was, like him, a bachelor, while Rühel, to whom he wrote about Albrecht, was married. For Luther, now aged forty-one, sex may have been a daunting prospect, given that Katharina was fifteen years younger than him. Sixteenth-century weddings were not for the faint-hearted. Wedding feasts were ribald occasions, and the couple would be bedded down together in front of the guests, with a cover placed over them; later, the revelers would “sing them on” as they spent the night together. As was customary in Saxony, Luther and Katharina’s marriage was consummated before the wedding, in the first half of June, and the celebrations—“leading her home”—took place two or three weeks later. If the marriage was not or could not be consummated it could be annulled: According to late medieval understandings of the sacrament of marriage, it consisted in the free exchange of a marriage promise between the couple plus their physical union.

• From Vision Quest (1979)

  I do a hundred pushups before the elevator reaches six. VI leave my white shirt and black slacks in my hotel locker, stuff my school clothes into my packsack, and run home in my rubber sweat suit. I look pretty weird running down Riverside. But it’s eleven thirty, so downtown Spokane is pretty deserted. Fridays and Saturdays you can’t get across the street for all the kids cruising. I run down alleys on Fridays and Saturdays. Up on the Northside a two-cycle bike blows by me, wound tight. It must be Kuch! This is mid-December. The streets sparkle. The moon is cold. Nobody rides in December in Spokane. Whoever it is brakes and goes down, sliding a half-circle, ramming the snowbank at the curb. It is Kuch! I know his fall. We haul his bikes to the races in Dad’s truck when Kuch’s dad has to work. Kuch is good. No shit. He’s already an AMA Junior, and I bet he makes Expert next year. He’s mainly a motocross rider. He spends all his money on his racers. He’s got two 360 Yamahas—one for motocross and one for flat track and TT. I don’t know what Kuch would do if he had a choice between living his life over as an Indian in the early 1800s or becoming a world-class motocross rider. “I came down to the hotel to see you,” he says, looking up at me. “You okay?” I ask. “Sure,” he says. “You kicked the holy living shit out of me today,” he says, getting up. “I’m bigger than you are,” I say. “You’ll murder Shute,” says Kuch. “You’ll pound up on him.” Kuch knows plenty about Gary Shute. Shute’s been the only guy to pin him in the past two years. Shute pinned him six times. Twice in duel meets, twice at district, and twice in the state tournament. In this case, however, Kuch’s perspective may be clouded. He’s my friend. “Tell my dad,” I say. “He’s already taking contributions for the Louden Swain memorial fund.” “You and your dad are both nuts,” Kuch says. Kuch rides slow while I run. “How many miles you do a day?” he asks. “Three,” I reply. “Not enough.” “Were you really trying to pin me in the second round?” “Busting my ass. Do you realize how tough that sonofabitch Shute has become since last year?” I rave. “He carried his dad’s console TV up and down the stadium steps a hundred times—running! He’ll kill me and drag my body around school behind his fucking Camaro. He’ll ravage Carla. He’ll throw our guppies off the water tower. Three miles ain’t enough.” “I hate the fucking Iliad ,” Kuch says. Beyond motorcycles and American Indians, Kuch’s interests are pretty limited. “He’s worried about you,” Kuch says when we hit the park. “Laurie works with his girlfriend’s cousin. She says Shute’s given up fucking.” “The guy has no soul,” I puff. “I’m glad I didn’t play school football this year.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  What the rebellion must have cost Luther is evident in a story about his first Mass as a priest in 1507, at which his father was present. When he arrived at the moment of consecration, where the wafer becomes the body of Christ, he experienced such panic that he would have fled had the prior not prevented him from doing so.52 As Luther told the story in 1537, it was the words tibi aeterno Deo et vero (to you, eternal and true God) that plunged him into terror. The incident concerned the miracle of the Mass, where the bread, now the body of Christ, is displayed or is administered by the priest to the believer. At the ensuing feast to celebrate his first Mass, for which Luther’s father, always the man for the grand gesture, had given the sum of twenty guilders, the breach was still evident. Luther asked whether his father now accepted his decision, and in front of everyone at table, Hans Luder replied: “Remember the fourth commandment, to obey father and mother.” “What if it was an evil spirit” behind the events in the storm? he asked. It was a very serious charge, made at the point where Luther had just acted as Christ’s representative on earth for the first time. As everyone at the table knew, Satan could easily trick the believer into thinking an apparition was divine when it was in reality demonic. There could hardly have been any comment more calculated to rattle a young man’s sense of spiritual vocation and certainty, and Luther’s shock was still evident in the way he told the story years later, stressing that the comment was made in front of the other guests at the table.53 Luther recalled in a letter to Melanchthon in 1521 that it “took such deep root in my heart that I have never heard anything from his mouth which I remembered more persistently.”54 Luther’s antagonists, too, first Cochlaeus and later Johannes Nas, would see the importance of trying to query the role of the storm. The thunder, Nas mocked, was not divine sanction. It was proof of God’s anger.55

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Instead he told them that he awaited martyrdom and saw his death as a sign: “Since it is God’s good pleasure that I should depart hence with an authentic knowledge of the divine name, and in recompense for certain abuses which the people embraced, not understanding me properly—for they sought only their own interests and the divine truth was defeated as a result—I, too, am heartily content that God has ordained things in this way….Do not allow my death, therefore, to be a stumbling block to you, for it has come to pass for the benefit of the good and the uncomprehending.” 15 Luther refused to believe that Müntzer had recanted—he grumpily insisted that his interrogators had asked him the wrong questions. His confession, Luther said, was “nothing other than a devilish, hardened obstinacy in his undertaking.” 16 — C ROWS and ravens were reported to have flown over the roofs of the Mansfeld castles, attacking one another and screaming. Many fell dead to the ground—a portent, it was later believed, of the coming Peasants’ War. 17 Fear that the miners would rebel and down their tools drove the counts of Mansfeld to call on Luther for help. They were right to be worried. The miners of Heldrungen and Stolberg, where Müntzer had first preached, proved some of his most fervent supporters and in 1524 seem to have responded to the energy and violence of his apocalyptic language, though they did not join the peasants at Frankenhausen. So in mid-April and early May 1525, Luther undertook short preaching tours, at the invitation of Count Albrecht of Mansfeld. He and Melanchthon went to Eisleben via Bitterfeld and Seeburg, and Luther preached at Stolberg, Nordhausen, and Wallhausen near Allstedt. 18 It was a courageous itinerary, with peasants and miners rebelling throughout the region, although it carefully avoided Mühlhausen. Luther had written his first tract on the Peasants’ War, the Admonition to Peace, published on April 19, 1525, in the idyllic surroundings of the garden of the Mansfeld chancellor Johann Dürr at Eisleben. 19 Now he encountered real hostility everywhere and was traveling, as he put it, “in danger of life and limb.” 20 He wrote an account of what he had seen in a letter to Johann Rühel, which formed the basis of what would become one of his most infamous tracts, Against the Robbing Murdering Thieving Hordes of Peasants . 21 In this highly intemperate work, which appeared in May, Luther likened the peasants to “mad dogs” who did nothing but “pure devil’s work” and were all driven by “that archdevil [ ertzteuffel ] who rules at Mühlhausen, and did nothing except stir up robbery, murder and bloodshed.” Because they had engaged in rebellion, every person was both their “judge and executioner”; and Luther urged them to let “everyone who can, smite, slay.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  The adult Luther thought the lights were Satan’s work. Satan was the arch deceiver and, Luther wrote, “in the mines the Devil vexes and deceives people, puts spirits before their eyes so that they believe they see a huge pile of ore and silver, where there is nothing.” And although Luther ostensibly rejected much superstition about mining, he held on to ideas about luck. Some people, he admitted, were lucky to find the rich ores. “I have no luck in mining,” Luther wrote, “because the Devil won’t permit me this gift of God’s.” 50 As so often, Luther provided a theological explanation that overlay older beliefs about fortune—and, only half in jest, attributed power to the Devil instead. 6. In the folklore of mining, each ore had its respective planet, Venus in the case of copper. In Ulrich Rülein von Calw’s mining book from 1527, copper is depicted as the large-breasted naked goddess of love gazing into a mirror, her curly tresses falling luxuriantly down her back, while a pair of scales, emblems of justice, are held in her right hand. The mine owners’ bitter experiences shaped Luther’s economic thought. His periodic outbursts later in life against the “little tricks” of the “thieves,” “robbers,” and “interest squires” expressed a populist hatred of major capitalists like the Fuggers, who engaged in the sinful practices of usury, and who tried to gain a monopoly on sources of wealth such as trading minerals. 51 Luther reached for the moral language of sin to explain economic behavior, castigating their avarice, one of the seven deadly sins, but this ethical approach left him unable to deal with the mechanisms of the new capitalism. He rejected many commercial practices as unchristian and maintained all his life that usury was a sin, although he was willing to countenance a basic rate of return on lending. Offered shares in the mines of the Saxon dukes later in life that would have returned him a much-needed three hundred guilders a year, Luther refused, declaring “I am the Pope’s louse, I torment him, and he keeps me, and I live off his goods.” Luther did not want to be a capitalist. For him, shares were Spielgeld, toy money. 52 It is hardly surprising that when Johannes Tetzel, the preacher who would eventually spark Luther’s Ninety-five Theses, began to sell indulgences in 1508, he headed straight for the new mining region of St.

• From Satyricon (1)

  “It so happened that our master had gone to Capua to attend to some odds and ends of business and I seized the opportunity, and persuaded a guest of the house to accompany me as far as the fifth mile-stone. He was a soldier, and as brave as the very devil. We set out about cock-crow, the moon was shining as bright as midday, and came to where the tombstones are. My man stepped aside amongst them, but I sat down, singing, and commenced to count them up. When I looked around for my companion, he had stripped himself and piled his clothes by the side of the road. My heart was in my mouth, and I sat there while he pissed a ring around them and was suddenly turned into a wolf! Now don’t think I’m joking, I wouldn’t lie for any amount of money, but as I was saying, he commenced to howl after he was turned into a wolf, and ran away into the forest. I didn’t know where I was for a minute or two, then I went to his clothes, to pick them up, and damned if they hadn’t turned to stone! Was ever anyone nearer dead from fright than me? Then I whipped out my sword and cut every shadow along the road to bits, till I came to the house of my mistress. I looked like a ghost when I went in, and I nearly slipped my wind. The sweat was pouring down my crotch, my eyes were staring, and I could hardly be brought around. My Melissa wondered why I was out so late. “Oh, if you’d only come sooner,” she said, “you could have helped us: a wolf broke into the folds and attacked the sheep, bleeding them like a butcher. But he didn’t get the laugh on me, even if he did get away, for one of the slaves ran his neck through with a spear!” I couldn’t keep my eyes shut any longer when I heard that, and as soon as it grew light, I rushed back to our Gaius’ house like an innkeeper beaten out of his bill, and when I came to the place where the clothes had been turned into stone, there was nothing but a pool of blood! And moreover, when I got home, my soldier was lying in bed, like an ox, and a doctor was dressing his neck! I knew then that he was a werewolf, and after that, I couldn’t have eaten a crumb of bread with him, no, not if you had killed me. Others can think what they please about this, but as for me, I hope your geniuses will all get after me if I lie.” CHAPTER THE SIXTY-THIRD.

• From Satyricon (1)

  The whole place was filled with mocking laughter, and we, who could see no reason for such a change of front, stared blankly at each other and then at the women. (Then Quartilla spoke up, finally,) “I gave orders that no mortal man should be admitted into this inn, this day, so that I could receive the treatment for my ague without interruption!” Ascyltos was, for the moment, struck dumb by this admission of Quartilla’s, and I turned colder than a Gallic winter, and could not utter a word; but the personnel of the company relieved me from the fear that the worst might be yet to come, for they were only three young women, too weak to attempt any violence against us, who were of the male sex, at least, even if we had nothing else of the man about us, and this was an asset. Then, too, we were girded higher, and I had so arranged matters that if it came to a fight, I would engage Quartilla myself, Ascyltos the maid, and Giton the girl. (While I was turning over this plan in my mind, Quartilla came to close quarters, to receive the treatment for her ague, but having her hopes disappointed, she flounced out in a rage and, returning in a little while, she had us overpowered by some unknown vagabonds, and gave orders for us to be carried away to a splendid palace.) Then our determination gave place to astonishment, and death, sure and certain, began to obscure the eyes of suffering. CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Writing to Spalatin in September, he insisted that he did not want Friedrich to suffer as a result: “I am ready and willing to be exposed to all who want to act or write against me. I hope the Sovereign will not get involved in my affairs, unless he could, without inconvenience, keep force from being used against me.” Yet he went on to proclaim, “Even if he cannot do this, I still want to carry the whole danger alone. In spite of all the opinions of the Thomists, I hope I can well defend what I have undertaken to defend, so that I may glory in Christ’s leadership. Even if it [then] will be necessary to yield to violence, at least truth will not be hurt.” He was reminding his friend with every word, however, of the danger he was facing, and of how desperately he needed the Elector’s support. 55 The prospect of martyrdom brought Luther ever closer to God, creating a spiritual intensity that acted as an emotional ratchet, driving him on to new iconoclastic insights. Each new argument left him at once more isolated and more elated. Every new step he took theologically was freighted with intense feeling, for it genuinely was a matter of life and death as he followed Christ’s progress to martyrdom. There was no room for tawdry compromise in this elevated state. As he wrote to Spalatin, “In all this I fear nothing, as you know.” 56 Meanwhile imperial politics intervened. In January 1519, the emperor Maximilian died, and for the next six months two rival candidates—Francis I of France, and Charles of Spain—competed over the imperial succession. Pope Leo determined to support neither, fearing that either, as an overmighty prince, would bring difficulties for the Medici papacy. For a while the Pope contemplated supporting Friedrich the Wise as an alternative candidate, and even presented him with the coveted Golden Rose, a rare symbol of papal favor. These intricacies of imperial politics helped keep Luther safe from persecution through the first half of 1519. In the meantime yet another emissary was sent, this time Karl von Miltitz, a courtier and a man of considerably less intelligence than Cajetan, who now tried to cajole Luther into recanting. While the aftermath of the Augsburg meeting was played out in correspondence between Luther, Cajetan, Spalatin, and Friedrich, the conflict with the papacy was now replayed as farce. Luther was acid about the “Italian,” whom he easily bested in argument. Nor did he trust his false protestations of friendship, wincing as Miltitz kissed him, a kiss “of Judas,” as he wrote to a friend.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  During a procession at Corpus Christi at Eisleben in 1515, he was suddenly struck with terror of the Eucharist and broke out in a sweat, thinking he would perish. 28 On this occasion it was Christ’s presence in the monstrance that frightened him, just as the divine presence had caused a similar panic attack during his first Mass. Both events seem to be related to his father, who had attended that first Mass, while Eisleben, where Luther was born, would have reminded him of his upbringing and the mining world of his father. It is difficult to know exactly what role the conflict with his father might have played in these struggles, but it does seem that his spiritual troubles stemmed from the relationship he was forging with a paternal God. All the crises cluster around the terror of being confronted directly with God the Father, who is also God the judge, without any intermediary; whereas the whole purpose of the monastic life as Luther experienced it was to create a security net where the intercessions of Mary, prayers said on one’s behalf, and exercises to subdue the flesh all cushioned him against God’s transcendent power. So if Luther’s entry into the monastery was a retreat into a matriarchal world, that retreat was raising spiritual problems of its own. Luther’s Anfechtungen were physically overwhelming. They were not to do with sexual desire but concerned what Luther called “the real knots”—his struggles with faith. So apparently untroubled was he by his sexuality that he unabashedly mentioned experiencing nocturnal emissions, which he simply dismissed as physical phenomena. For him, true “concupiscence of the flesh” was not primarily lust but concerned bad feelings toward a brother, such as envy, anger, or hate. 29 Luther worried at this time about his relations with others: Living in a monastic community, where he had to get on with the same small group of people all the time, could not have been easy. It may well have reawakened in him feelings of jealousy and anxieties about the envy of others that sprang from childhood relations with his siblings. Whatever the reasons, it was not lusts of the flesh, but Luther’s troubled relationship with God the Father that lay at the heart of his distress. These temptations or tribulations would continue all his life and they are fundamental to understanding Luther’s religiosity. For the first year in the monastery, he recalled, they did not trouble him; later he had a rest from them when he got married and had “a good time,” before they returned once more. During his time as a monk, the Anfechtungen seem to have chiefly concerned the idea that if he was a sinner, and if God was a judge, then God must hate him.

• From The Battle for God (2000)

  Nevertheless, he was one of the first Iranian clerics to acquaint himself with the new ideas of Europe. Where the orthodox ulema simply opposed the commercial encroachments of the British and Russians, Karim Khan was prescient enough to be more concerned about the new science and secularism of the West. In his spare time, he studied astronomy, optics, chemistry, and linguistics, and prided himself on his knowledge of science. During the 1850s and 1860s, when very few Iranians had firsthand knowledge of Europe, Karim Khan already realized that Western culture posed a grave threat to Iranian civilization. This was a period of transition, and he could see that new solutions must be found to meet this unprecedented challenge. Hence his evolutionary theology, which allowed for the possibility of something fresh, and his intuitive expectation of imminent, radical change. The Shaykhi movement was, however, rooted in the old world, with its elitist vision of knowledge. Feeling the impact of the industrialized West, it was also defensive. Karim Khan was bitterly opposed to the new Dar al-Funun, the first free high school in Tehran, founded by the reforming minister Amir Kabir. Staffed mainly by Europeans, it taught, with the aid of interpreters, natural science, higher mathematics, foreign languages, and the art of modern warfare. Karim Khan saw the school as part of a plot to extend European influence and destroy Islam. Soon the ulema would be silenced, he argued, Muslim children would be educated in Christian schools, and Iranians would become fake Europeans. He could see the dangers of alienation and anomie that lay ahead, and in the face of increasing European encroachment, his stance was rejectionist and separatist. His mystical ideology can be seen as an attempt to open the minds of Iranians to a wholly new solution, but, for better or worse, the Western presence in Iran was a fact of life and no reform movement that was unable to accommodate it could succeed. There were rumors that Karim Khan was about to establish his own religious government; he was summoned to court and kept under surveillance for eighteen months. During the 1850s and 1860s, he gradually retired from public life, kept his opinions to himself, and died, defeated and embittered, on his estate. 62 The second messianic movement of the period was also rooted in the conservative spirit, but it was also open to some of the new Western values. Its founder, Sayyid Ali Muhammad (1819–50), had been involved in the Shaykhi movement in Najaf and Kerbala, but in 1844 he declared that he was the “gate” (bab) to the divine which the ulema declared to have been closed at the time of the Occultation of the Hidden Imam. 63 He attracted ulema, notables, and wealthy merchants in Isfahan, Tehran, and Khurasan into his movement. In Kerbala, his brilliant woman disciple Qurrat al-Ain (1814–52) drew huge crowds; his chief male disciples, Mulla Sadiq (known as Muqaddas) and Mirza Muhammad Ali Barfurushi, who was given the title of Quddus (d.

• From The Battle for God (2000)

  56 For Gordon it was no accident that avodah, the word for “labor” or “service,” had once applied to the liturgy in the Temple. For the Zionist, holiness and wholeness were no longer to be found in conventional religious practices, but in their hard labor in the hills and farms of Galilee. One of the most innovative and daring Jewish attempts to spiritualize the secular was developed by Rabbi Abraham Yitzak Kook (1865–1935), who also migrated to Palestine in 1904 to become the rabbi of the new settler communities. It was an odd appointment. Unlike most of the Orthodox, Kook had been deeply stirred by the Zionist movement, but he had been horrified to hear that the delegates to the Second Zionist Congress in Basel in 1898 had issued the statement: “Zionism has nothing to do with religion.” 57 He condemned this remark in the strongest terms. It “spreads the terrible, black wings of death over our tender, lovely young national movement, by cutting it off from the source of its very life and the light of its splendor.” It was an “abomination and perverse;” a “poison” that was corrupting Zionism, causing it to “putrify and be covered in worms.” It could only turn Zionism “into an empty vessel ... filled with a spirit of destructiveness and strife.” 58 Kook often spoke like one of the ancient prophets, but many elements in his thought were modern. He was one of the first religious people who perceived, long before the First World War, that nationalism could become lethal and that, without a sense of the sacred, politics could become demonic. He pointed to the example of the French Revolution, which had begun with such high ideals but had degenerated into an orgy of bloodshed and cruelty. A purely secularist ideology could trample on the divine image in men and women; if it made the state its supreme value, there was nothing to stop a ruler from exterminating subjects who, in his view, obstructed the good of the nation. “When nationalism alone takes root among the people,” he warned, “it is as likely to debase and dehumanize their spirit as elevate it.” 59 There have, of course, been secularist ideologies that have helped people to cultivate a deep sense of the sacred inviolability of each human being without recourse to the supernatural. And religions have been just as murderous as any secular ideal. But Kook uttered a timely warning, since the twentieth century, from start to finish, has been characterized by one act of genocide after another, committed by nationalist, secularist rulers.

• From Satyricon (1)

  CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND THIRD. “Gods and men forbid that you should make so base an ending of your lives,” cried Eumolpus. “No! It will be better to do as I direct. As you may gather, from his razor, my servant is a barber: let him shave your heads and eyebrows, too, and quickly at that! I will follow after him, and I will mark my inscription so cleverly upon your foreheads that you will be mistaken for slaves who have been branded! The same letters will serve both to quiet the suspicions of the curious and to conceal, under semblance of punishment, your real features!” We did not delay the execution of this scheme but, sneaking stealthily to the ship’s side, we submitted our heads and eyebrows to the barber, that he might shave them clean. Eumolpus covered our foreheads completely, with large letters and, with a liberal hand, spread the universally known mark of the fugitive over the face of each of us. As luck would have it, one of the passengers, who was terribly seasick, was hanging over the ship’s side easing his stomach. He saw the barber busy at his unseasonable task by the light of the moon and, cursing the omen which resembled the last offering of a crew before shipwreck, he threw himself into his bunk. Pretending not to hear his puking curses, we reverted to our melancholy train of thought and, settling ourselves down in silence, we passed the remaining hours of the night in fitful slumber. (On the following morning Eumolpus entered Lycas’ cabin as soon as he knew that Tryphaena was out of bed and, after some conversation upon the happy voyage of which the fine weather gave promise, Lycas turned to Tryphaena and remarked:) CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTH. “Priapus appeared to me in a dream and seemed to say--Know that Encolpius, whom you seek, has, by me, been led aboard your ship!” Tryphaena trembled violently, “You would think we had slept together,” she cried, “for a bust of Neptune, which I saw in the gallery at Baiae, said to me, in my dream--You will find Giton aboard Lycas’ ship!” “From which you can see that Epicurus was a man inspired,” remarked Eumolpus; “he passed sentence upon mocking phantasms of that kind in a very witty manner. Dreams that delude the mind with flitting shades By neither powers of air nor gods, are sent: Each makes his own! And when relaxed in sleep The members lie, the mind, without restraint Can flit, and re-enact by night, the deeds That occupied the day. The warrior fierce, Who cities shakes and towns destroys by fire Maneuvering armies sees, and javelins, And funerals of kings and bloody fields.

• From Satyricon (1)

  I shivered, horror-struck, at this thunderbolt and, beating my throat, “Oh Destiny,” I wailed, “you’ve vanquished me completely, at last!” As for Giton, he fell in a faint upon my bosom and remained unconscious for quite a while, until a sweat finally relieved our tension, whereupon, hugging Eumolpus around the knees, “Take pity upon the perishing,” I besought him, “in the name of our common learning, aid us! Death himself hangs over us, and he will come as a relief unless you help us!” Overwhelmed by this implication, Eumolpus swore by all the gods and goddesses that he knew nothing of what had happened, nor had he had any ulterior purpose in mind, but that he had brought his companions upon this voyage which he himself had long intended taking, with the most upright intentions and in the best of good faith. “But,” demanded he, “what is this ambush? Who is this Hannibal who sails with us? Lycas of Tarentum is a most respectable citizen and the owner, not only of this ship, which he commands in person, but of landed estates as well as commercial houses under the management of slaves. He carries a cargo consigned to market. He is the Cyclops, the arch-pirate, to whom we owe our passage! And then, besides himself, there is Tryphaena, a most charming woman, travelling about here and there in search of pleasure.” “But,” objected Giton, “they are the very ones we are most anxious to avoid,” whereupon he explained to the astonished Eumolpus the reasons for their enmity and for the danger which threatened us. So muddled did he become, at what had been told him, that he lost the power of thinking, and requested each of us to offer his own opinion. “Just imagine,” said he, “that we are trapped in the Cyclops’ cave: some way out must be found, unless we bring about a shipwreck, and free ourselves from all dangers!” “Bribe the pilot, if necessary, and persuade him to steer the ship into some port,” volunteered Giton; “tell him your brother’s nearly dead from seasickness: your woebegone face and streaming tears will lend color to your deception, and the pilot may be moved to mercy and grant your prayer.” Eumolpus denied the practicability of this. “It is only with difficulty,” affirmed he, “that large ships are warped into landlocked harbors, nor would it appear probable that my brother could have been taken so desperately in so short a time. And then, Lycas will be sure to want to visit a sick passenger, as part of his duties! You can see for yourselves what a fine stroke it would be, bringing the captain to his own runaways! But, supposing that the ship could be put off her course, supposing that Lycas did not hold sick-call, how could we leave the ship in such a manner as not to be stared at by all the rest? With muffled heads? With bare? If muffled, who would not want to lend the sick man a hand? If bare, what would it mean if not proscribing ourselves?”

• From Shunned (2018)

  I needed to watch my line of thinking and keep it in check. Maybe some of my long work hours were starting to affect me. Vince was reminding us that too much time spent in worldly environments, like work, was one way our thinking could get spiritually off-track. Years earlier, a brother in our congregation, Eric, had succumbed to a curious mind and—even though we were discouraged from doing so—started reading other religious material, including heretical pieces that spoke out against the Witnesses. I made a point of avoiding any knowledge even of the titles of these books, but I knew they were written by former Witnesses we branded “apostates.” The things Eric read were so disturbing, he started questioning everything and stopped coming to the meetings, and eventually dropped out of sight. Ross said he “flipped out”—his pet term for anyone who became inactive. In the beginning, many of Eric’s friends reached out to him, but he rebuffed them all. He wanted to be left alone. No one saw him for months. When his name came up, we all shook our heads and prayed he’d find his way back from the questions, to certainty, to The Truth. Several months later, he wrote a letter to the elders, asking to be officially removed from the membership. Disassociating oneself was considered a very serious action. Once that happens, active Witnesses are not allowed to talk to you or have anything to do with you. You are considered worse than a person without faith; there really isn’t much anyone can do to save you. You have to initiate that on your own. For a while, Eric’s wife, Rachel, continued to come to the meetings, but it was difficult for her to attend alone. She was utterly devoted to her husband, even if she didn’t share his doubts. Social invitations from the community came to a screeching halt. I once saw them dining at the local Red Robin, as Ross and I waited for a table. Because of Eric’s status in the congregation, we avoided them both. It felt boorish to be so evasive, our eyes darting to the floor and then to the other side of the room, pretending not to notice them. As we lumbered past their table, following the hostess to our own, I noticed their downward glances and took it as a small sign of contrition. Eric’s once-innocent doubts had come to this. As Vince cited another Scripture, I wondered how Eric’s questions had started. Had he heard his words anew on the doorstep of a coworker? And where was he now? It was impossible to picture him living a happy life. I’d spent a lifetime absorbing Bible stories like Dinah’s and naturally assumed that anyone who discarded The Truth was doomed to isolation, to slog through time, aimless and miserable. Over the years, the Watchtower Society had discussed religious doubts in the literature, acknowledging that they were natural and should be tended to with diligent prayer and study.

• From Satyricon (1)

  “Yet it flows for common use. Shall love alone, then, be stolen, rather than be regarded as a prize to be won? No, indeed I desire no possession unless the world envies me for possessing it. A solitary old man can scarcely become a serious rival; even should he wish to take advantage, he would lose it through lack of breath.” When, but without any confidence, I had arrived at these conclusions, and beguiled my uneasy spirit, I covered my head with my tunic and began to feign sleep, when all of a sudden, as though Fortune were bent upon annihilating my peace of mind, a voice upon the ship’s deck gritted out something like this --“So he fooled me after all.”--As this voice, which was a man’s, and was only too familiar, struck my ears, my heart fluttered. And then a woman, equally furious, spat out more spitefully still--“If only some god would put Giton into my hands, what a fine time I would give that runaway.” --Stunned by these unexpected words, we both turned pale as death. I was completely terrified, and, as though I were enveloped in some turbulent nightmare, was a long time finding my voice, but at last, with trembling hands, I tugged at the hem of Eumolpus’ clothing, just as he was sinking into slumber. “Father,” I quavered, “on your word of honor, can you tell me whose ship this is, and whom she has aboard?” Peeved at being disturbed, “So,” he snapped, “this was the reason you wished to have us quartered in the most inaccessible spot on deck, was it? So we could get no rest! What good will it do you when I’ve informed you that Lycas of Tarentum is master of this ship and that he carries Tryphaena as an exile to Tarentum?” CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIRST.

• From Satyricon (1)

  We would have cried aloud in our misery but there was no one to give us any help, and whenever I attempted to shout, “Help! all honest citizens,” Psyche would prick my cheeks with her hairpin, and the little girl would intimidate Ascyltos with a brush dipped in satyrion. Then a catamite appeared, clad in a myrtle-colored frieze robe, and girded round with a belt. One minute he nearly gored us to death with his writhing buttocks, and the next, he befouled us so with his stinking kisses that Quartilla, with her robe tucked high, held up her whalebone wand and ordered him to give the unhappy wretches quarter. Both of us then took a most solemn oath that so dread a secret should perish with us. Several wrestling instructors appeared and refreshed us, worn out as we were, by a massage with pure oil, and when our fatigue had abated, we again donned our dining clothes and were escorted to the next room, in which were placed three couches, and where all the essentials necessary to a splendid banquet were laid out in all their richness. We took our places, as requested, and began with a wonderful first course. We were all but submerged in Falernian wine. When several other courses had followed, and we were endeavoring to keep awake Quartilla exclaimed, “How dare you think of going to sleep when you know that the vigil of Priapus is to be kept?” CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND.

• From Little Birds (1979)

  Her strong smell repelled Reynolds until his friend had offered to let him have a night with her. He had found her black hair as hard and bristly as a beard. The animal smell made him feel he was lying with a panther. And she was so much stronger than he that after a while, he was acting almost like a woman, and she was the one who was molding him to suit her fancies. She was indefatigable and slow to arouse. She could bear caresses that exhausted him, and he fell asleep in her arms. Then he found her climbing over him and pouring a little liquid over his penis, something that at first made him smart and then aroused him furiously. He was frightened. His penis seemed to have filled with fire, or with red peppers. He rubbed himself against her flesh, more to ease the burning than out of desire. He was angry. She was smiling and laughing softly. He began taking her with a rage, driven by a fear that what she had done to him would arouse him for the last time, that it was some sort of enchantment to get the maximum of desire from him, until he died. She lay back laughing, her white teeth showing, the animal odor of her now affecting him erotically like the smell of musk. She moved with such vigor that he felt she would tear his penis away from him. But now he wanted to subjugate her. He caressed her at the same time. She was surprised by this. No one seemed to have done this to her before. When he was tired of taking her, after two orgasms, he continued to rub her clitoris, and she enjoyed this, begging for more, opening her legs wide. Then suddenly she turned over, crouched on the bed and swung her ass upward at an incredible angle. She expected him to take her again, but he continued to caress her. After this it was always his hand that she sought. She rubbed against it like a huge cat. During the day, if she met him she would rub her sex against his hand, surreptitiously. Reynolds said that that night had made white women seem weak to him. He was laughing as he told the story. His painting had reminded him of the savage woman hiding in the bushes, waiting like a tigress to leap and run away from the men who carried guns. He had painted her in, with her heavy, pointed breasts, her fine, long legs, her slender waist.

• From Shunned (2018)

  “I’ll buckle your shoes in a minute,” he said, his eyes fixed on the mirror. “Did Dad say you could wear his tie?” I asked. “Shut up and mind your own business,” he said. I watched and waited. This was the type of answer I was used to hearing from him. “Maybe Dad will come with us today, or tomorrow,” I mused. Randy sat down on the bed next to me and pulled my legs up across his knees. “You’re such a dreamer,” he said, shaking his head as he buckled my shoes. “Dad doesn’t care about this stuff. He’d rather die at Armageddon than spend a weekend wearing a coat and tie.” “Don’t say terrible things like that!” I pulled my legs up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them. In their lighter moments, Mom would joke about Dad’s being a “heathen,” and from her tone I surmised this was not a compliment. However, it had never occurred to me until that moment that he could die. This horrific possibility wrapped around me like a weighty shawl. A hollow crater formed in my chest as I visualized the foretold army of winged black horses, their eyes filled with fire, ridden by faceless hooded riders, descending from heaven in droves. That was how I always imagined the Great Battle would begin. These fierce, righteous avengers had x-ray vision into everyone’s heart. They knew whom to strike and whom to spare, even if you were sitting in tidy rows at school or in line at the grocery store. Dad didn’t stand a chance, even reading the morning paper at our kitchen table. Randy grabbed both my ankles and yanked them back to his lap. “Don’t be such a baby,” he said, continuing to buckle my shoes. “Do you really, really believe that, Randy? Really?” “Sure.” He was nonchalant, having somehow already worked this reality out for himself. The bathroom door flew open and Lory emerged in the hallway wearing a bright pink dress. It was the first time we had seen her in high heels and panty hose. She twirled in feminine triumph, then disappeared down the hall, toward the living room. Mom clapped her hands briskly as she rushed into her room. “Okay, kids. It’s my turn to get dressed. Randy, put that tie away and go get one of your clip-ons. Have your father help you, and then ask him to get out the camera.” He hung his head but obeyed. “You, young lady, come here so I can comb your hair.” She sat down next to me, in the spot Randy had left warm. “Why the long face?” “Randy said Dad is going to die at Armageddon.” She froze in place for a split second, then pulled a hairbrush and band from the dresser and sat down on the bed. “He did, did he?” I came to stand with my back to her, facing the mirror.

• From Little Birds (1979)

  Monday at nine o’clock I was to be at the studio of a well-known painter; at one, at the studio of an illustrator; at four o’clock, at the studio of a miniaturist, and so on. There were women painters too. They objected to our using make-up. They said that when they engaged a made-up model and then got her to wash her face before posing, she did not look the same. For that reason posing for women did not attract us very much. My announcement at home that I was a model came like a thunderbolt. But it was done. I could make twenty-five dollars a week. My mother wept a little, but was pleased deep down. That night we talked in the dark. Her room connected with mine and the door was open. My mother was worrying about what I knew (or did not know) about sex. The sum of my knowledge was this: that I had been kissed many times by Stephen, lying on the sand at the beach. He had been lying over me, and I had felt something bulky and hard pressing against me, but that was all, and to my great amazement when I came home I had discovered that I was all wet between the legs. I had not mentioned this to my mother. My private impression was that I was a great sensualist, that this getting wet between the legs at being kissed showed dangerous tendencies for the future. In fact, I felt quite like a whore. My mother asked me, “Do you know what happens when a man takes a woman?” “No,” I said, “but I would like to know how a man takes a woman in the first place.” “Well, you know the small penis you saw when you bathed your brother—that gets big and hard and the man pushes it inside of the woman.” That seemed ugly to me. “It must be difficult to get it in,” I said. “No, because the woman gets wet before that, so it slides in easily.” Now I understood the mystery of the wetness. In that case, I thought to myself, I will never get raped, because to get wet you have to like the man. A few months before, having been violently kissed in the woods by a big Russian who was bringing me home from a dance, I had come home and announced that I was pregnant. Now I remembered how one night when several of us were returning from another dance, driving along the speedway, we had heard girls screaming. My escort, John, stopped the car. Two girls ran to us from the bushes, disheveled, dresses torn, and eyes haggard. We let them into the car. They were mumbling chaotically about having been taken for a ride on a motorcycle and then attacked. One of them kept saying: “If he broke through, I’ll kill myself.”

• From Little Birds (1979)

  The old lawyer had once been in love with the lady, but after ten years of courtship had not been able to win her. Now there was always a certain tone of flirtation in their voices, but an imposing, dignified flirtation, more like ancient gallantry. The meeting took place in the lady’s country house. It was warm and all the doors were open. One could see the hills. The Indian servants were carrying on some celebration. They had surrounded the house with torches. Perhaps frightened by this and unable to escape the circle of fire, a certain small animal scurried along and into the house. Two minutes later the grand old lady was screaming and contorting herself in her chair, with an attack of hysterics. The servants were called. The witch doctor was called. The witch doctor and the lady locked themselves in her room together. When the witch doctor came out, he was carrying the chanchiquito in his arms, and the chanchiquito looked worn, as though his expedition had almost cost him his life. This story had frightened Laura—the idea of an animal burrowing his head between her legs. She was afraid even to insert her finger. But at the same time the story revealed to her that between a woman’s legs there was room for an animal’s long snout. Then one day during vacation, when she was playing on the lawn with other friends, and had thrown herself back to laugh at some story or other, a big police dog was immediately upon her, sniffing and smelling at her clothes, and he stuck his nose between her legs. Laura screamed and pushed him off. The sensation had frightened and excited her at the same time. AND NOW Laura was lying on a wide, low bed, with her skirts wrinkled, her hair loose, and rouge spread unevenly around her lips. By her side lay a man twice her weight and size who was dressed like a workman, with corduroy trousers and a leather jacket, which he had opened, showing his bare neck, not confined by a shirt collar. She shifted slightly to study him. She could see the high cheekbone shaped in such a way that he seemed to be always laughing, and his eyes turned upwards at the corners with perpetual humor. His hair looked uncombed, and his gestures were easy as he smoked. Jan was an artist who laughed at hunger, at work, at slavery, at everything. He preferred to be a tramp rather than lose his freedom to sleep as late as he liked, to eat what he could find at the time he wanted it, to paint only when the passion for work took him.