Success is man’s god.

But, as a beam balances, so

Sudden disasters wait, to strike

Some in the brightness, some in gloom

Destiny waits alike for the free man as well as for him enslaved by another's might.

The gods know, and we call upon the gods; they know

How we are spun in circles like seafarers, in

What storms. But if we are to win, and our ship live,

From one small seed could burgeon an enormous tree.

Dreaming is a light pastime, of fortune more golden than gold.

For a deadly blow let him pay with a deadly blow; it is for him who has done a deed to suffer.

The female force, the desperate

Love crams its resisted way

On marriage and the dark embrace

Of brute beasts, of mortal men.

What is pleasanter than the tie of host and guest?

Time brings all things to pass.

Of what thing can we speak, and strike more close,

Than of the sorrows they who bore us have given...

For we are bloody like the wolf

And savage born from the savage mother.

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