

“Chiron had said once that nations were the most foolish of mortal inventions. 鈥淣o man is worth more than another, wherever he is from.鈥
鈥淏ut what if he is your friend?鈥 Achilles had asked him, feet kicked up on the wall of the rose-quartz cave. 鈥淥r your brother? Should you treat him the same as a stranger?鈥
鈥淵ou ask a question that philosophers argue over,鈥 Chiron had said. 鈥淗e is worth more to you, perhaps. But the stranger is someone else鈥檚 friend and brother. So which life is more important?鈥
We had been silent. We were fourteen, and these things were too hard for us. Now that we are twenty-seven, they still feel too hard.
He is half of my soul, as the poets say. He will be dead soon, and his honor is all that will remain. It is his child, his dearest self. Should I reproach him for it? I have saved Briseis. I cannot save them all.
I know, now, how I would answer Chiron. I would say: there is no answer. Whichever you choose, you are wrong.”
― The Song of Achilles
鈥淏ut what if he is your friend?鈥 Achilles had asked him, feet kicked up on the wall of the rose-quartz cave. 鈥淥r your brother? Should you treat him the same as a stranger?鈥
鈥淵ou ask a question that philosophers argue over,鈥 Chiron had said. 鈥淗e is worth more to you, perhaps. But the stranger is someone else鈥檚 friend and brother. So which life is more important?鈥
We had been silent. We were fourteen, and these things were too hard for us. Now that we are twenty-seven, they still feel too hard.
He is half of my soul, as the poets say. He will be dead soon, and his honor is all that will remain. It is his child, his dearest self. Should I reproach him for it? I have saved Briseis. I cannot save them all.
I know, now, how I would answer Chiron. I would say: there is no answer. Whichever you choose, you are wrong.”
― The Song of Achilles

“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.”
― The Picture of Dorian Gray
― The Picture of Dorian Gray

“I was forced to acknowledge too late, much too late, that I too had loved, that I was capable of suffering, and that I was human after all.”
― I Who Have Never Known Men
― I Who Have Never Known Men
Beth鈥檚 2024 Year in Books
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