History: The Prophet: On Crime and Punishment

Source of version: 2 (current)

||On Crime & Punishment| Then one of the judges of the city stood forth and said, "Speak to us of Crime and Punishment."| And he answered saying:| It is when your spirit goes wandering upon the wind,| That you, alone and unguarded, commit a wrong unto others and therefore unto yourself.| And for that wrong committed must you knock and wait a while unheeded at the gate of the blessed.| Like the ocean is your god-self;| It remains for ever undefiled.| And like the ether it lifts but the winged.| Even like the sun is your god-self;| It knows not the ways of the mole nor seeks it the holes of the serpent.| But your god-self does not dwell alone in your being.| Much in you is still man, and much in you is not yet man,| But a shapeless pigmy that walks asleep in the mist searching for its own awakening.| And of the man in you would I now speak.| For it is he and not your god-self nor the pigmy in the mist, that knows crime and the punishment of crime.| Oftentimes have I heard you speak of one who commits a wrong as though he were not one of you, but a stranger unto you and an intruder upon your world.| But I say that even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you,| So the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also.| And as a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree,| So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all.| Like a procession you walk together towards your god-self.| You are the way and the wayfarers.| And when one of you falls down he falls for those behind him, a caution against the stumbling stone.| Ay, and he falls for those ahead of him, who though faster and surer of foot, yet removed not the stumbling stone.| And this also, though the word lie heavy upon your hearts:| The murdered is not unaccountable for his own murder,| And the robbed is not blameless in being robbed.| The righteous is not innocent of the deeds of the wicked,| And the white-handed is not clean in the doings of the felon.| Yea, the guilty is oftentimes the victim of the injured,| And still more often the condemned is the burden-bearer for the guiltless and unblamed.| You cannot separate the just from the unjust and the good from the wicked;| For they stand together before the face of the sun even as the black thread and the white are woven together.| And when the black thread breaks, the weaver shall look into the whole cloth, and he shall examine the loom also.| If any of you would bring judgment the unfaithful wife,| Let him also weight the heart of her husband in scales, and measure his soul with measurements.| And let him who would lash the offender look unto the spirit of the offended.| And if any of you would punish in the name of righteousness and lay the ax unto the evil tree, let him see to its roots;| And verily he will find the roots of the good and the bad, the fruitful and the fruitless, all entwined together in the silent heart of the earth.| And you judges who would be just,| What judgment pronounce you upon him who though honest in the flesh yet is a thief in spirit?| What penalty lay you upon him who slays in the flesh yet is himself slain in the spirit?| And how prosecute you him who in action is a deceiver and an oppressor,| Yet who also is aggrieved and outraged?| And how shall you punish those whose remorse is already greater than their misdeeds?| Is not remorse the justice which is administered by that very law which you would fain serve?| Yet you cannot lay remorse upon the innocent nor lift it from the heart of the guilty.| Unbidden shall it call in the night, that men may wake and gaze upon themselves.| And you who would understand justice, how shall you unless you look upon all deeds in the fullness of light?| Only then shall you know that the erect and the fallen are but one man standing in twilight between the night of his pigmy-self and the day of his god-self,| And that the corner-stone of the temple is not higher than the lowest stone in its foundation.| || ||((The Prophet|The Prophet)) |le prije ctuca / le pijyctu (the wise teacher) ((The Prophet: The Coming of the Ship)) |.i nu selklama le bloti ((The Prophet: On Love)) |lo ka prami ((The Prophet: On Marriage)) |lo nu speni ((The Prophet: On Children)) |lo panzi ((The Prophet: On Giving)) |lo nu dunda ((The Prophet: On Eating and Drinking)) |lo nu citka je pinxe ((The Prophet: On Work)) |lo zu'o gunka ((The Prophet: On Joy and Sorrow)) |lo li'i gleki je badri ((The Prophet: On Houses)) |lo zdani ((The Prophet: On Clothes)) |lo taxfu ((The Prophet: On Buying and Selling)) |lo nu tevecnu je vecnu ((The Prophet: On Crime and Punishment)) |lo zekri .e lo nu sfasa ((The Prophet: On Laws)) |lo flalu ((The Prophet: On Freedom)) |lo za'i zifre ((The Prophet: On Reason and Passion)) | lo nu krinu pensi .e lo se cinmo ((The Prophet: On Pain)) | lo nu dunku ((The Prophet: On Self-Knowledge)) | lo nu sevzi djuno ((The Prophet: On Teaching)) | lo nu ctuca ((The Prophet: On Friendship)) | lo nu pendo ((The Prophet: On Talking)) | lo nu tavla ((The Prophet: On Time)) | lo temci ((The Prophet: On Good and Evil)) | lo ka vrude .e lo ka pacna ((The Prophet: On Prayer)) | lo nu jdaselsku ((The Prophet: On Pleasure)) | lo za'i pluka ((The Prophet: On Beauty)) | lo ka melbi ((The Prophet: On Religion)) | lo lijde ((The Prophet: On Death)) | lo nu morsi ((The Prophet: The Farewell)) | le nu cusku zo co'o||