“ These things hath Fate brought to pass, and we be but Fate's whipping-tops bandied what way she will. ”
This last best luck of all: that earth should gape for me when my great deeds were ended.
~ E.r. Eddison
Where were all heroical parts but in Helteranius? and a man might make a garment for the moon sooner than fit the o'erleaping actions of great Jalcanaius, who now leaveth but his body to bedung that earth that was lately shaken at his terror. I have waded in red blood to the knee; and in this hour, in my old years, the world is become for me a vision only and a mock-show.
He that feareth is a slave, were he never so rich, were he never so powerful. But he that is without fear is king of all the world. Though hast my sword. Strike. Death shall be a sweet rest to me. Thraldom, not death, should terrify me.
Surely time past is gone by like a shadow.