Friko's World

Still, if you must pray for something,

if at every shrine you offer

the entrails and holy chitterlings

of a white piglet,

then ask for a healthy mind in

a healthy body,

demand a valiant heart for which

death holds no terrors,

that reckons length of life as the

least of the gifts

of nature, that’s strong to endure

every kind of sorrow, that’s anger-free, lusts for nothing,

and prefers

the sorrows and labours of

Hercules to all

Sardanapulus’ downy cushions and

women and junketings.

What I’ve shown you, you can

bestow on yourself: there’s one

path, and only one, to a tranquil

life - through virtue.

Fortune has no divinity, could we

but see it: it’s we,

we ourselves, who make her a

goddess, and set her in the heavens.

Juvenal

Wednesday 18 May 2011