Trials and Laments to Larihei

[SteppeNomad 1552]

 

-Larihei Is Watching

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Muses of Larihei who give glory through song, come hither, tell of your sons and daughters and chant their praise. Through her mortal 'Thill are famed or unfamed, sung or unsung alike, as great Larihei wills. For easily she makes strong, and easily she brings the strong low; easily she humbles the proud and raises the obscure, and easily she straightens the crooked and blasts the proud,—Venerated, who thunders aloft and has his dwelling most high. Attend thou with eye and ear, and make judgements straight with righteousness. And, Lliran I would tell of true things.

 

 

o, after all, there was not one kind of Strife alone, but all over the world there are two. As for the one, a man would praise her when he came to understand her; but that one other, is one most full of blame, impure by design: and they are wholly different in nature. For one fosters evil war and battle, being cruel: her no man loves; but perforce, through the will of the deathless Daemonic gods, 'Ata pay harsh Strife her honor due. But the other is the elder daughter of tarnished night, and the son of brazen sky and polished silver who sits above and dwells in the aether, set her in the roots of the earth: and she is far kinder to men. She stirs up even the shiftless to toil; for a man grows eager to work when he considers his neighbor, a rich man who hastens to plough and plant and put his marbled house in good order; and neighbor vies with his neighbor as he hurries after wealth, envious of his privileges. This Strife is wholesome for men; and potter is angry with potter, and craftsman with craftsman, and beggar is jealous of beggar, and minstrel of minstrel. Lliran, lay up these things in your heart, and do not let that Strife who delights in mischief hold your heart back from work, while you peep and peer and listen to the wrangles of the court-house. Little concern has he with quarrels and courts who has not a year's victuals laid up betimes in his land far off, even that which the earth bears, Dimaethor's grain. When you have got plenty of that, and fine salt a blessing paid in full, you can raise disputes and strive to get another's goods. But, now that these truest of colors have been shown you shall have no second chance to deal so again: nay, let us settle our dispute here with true judgement which is of Larihei and is perfect. For we had already divided our inheritance, but you seized the greater share and carried it off, greatly swelling the glory of our bribe-swallowing lords who love to judge such a cause as this. Fools! They know not how much more the half is than the whole, nor what great advantage there is in mallow and silvered asphodel.