History: The Prophet: On Freedom

Source of version: 2 (current)

||On Freedom| And an orator said, "Speak to us of Freedom."| And he answered:| At the city gate and by your fireside I have seen you prostrate yourself and worship your own freedom,| Even as slaves humble themselves before a tyrant and praise him though he slays them.| Ay, in the grove of the temple and in the shadow of the citadel I have seen the freest among you wear their freedom as a yoke and a handcuff.| And my heart bled within me; for you can only be free when even the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you, and when you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfillment.| You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief,| But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.| And how shall you rise beyond your days and nights unless you break the chains which you at the dawn of your understanding have fastened around your noon hour?| In truth that which you call freedom is the strongest of these chains, though its links glitter in the sun and dazzle the eyes.| And what is it but fragments of your own self you would discard that you may become free?| If it is an unjust law you would abolish, that law was written with your own hand upon your own forehead.| You cannot erase it by burning your law books nor by washing the foreheads of your judges, though you pour the sea upon them.| And if it is a despot you would dethrone, see first that his throne erected within you is destroyed.| For how can a tyrant rule the free and the proud, but for a tyranny in their own freedom and a shame in their won pride?| And if it is a care you would cast off, that care has been chosen by you rather than imposed upon you.| And if it is a fear you would dispel, the seat of that fear is in your heart and not in the hand of the feared.| Verily all things move within your being in constant half embrace, the desired and the dreaded, the repugnant and the cherished, the pursued and that which you would escape.| These things move within you as lights and shadows in pairs that cling.| And when the shadow fades and is no more, the light that lingers becomes a shadow to another light.| And thus your freedom when it loses its fetters becomes itself the fetter of a greater freedom.| || ||((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||