History: The Prophet: On Laws

Source of version: 2 (current)

||On Laws| Then a lawyer said, "But what of our Laws, master?"| And he answered:| You delight in laying down laws,| Yet you delight more in breaking them.| Like children playing by the ocean who build sand-towers with constancy and then destroy them with laughter.| But while you build your sand-towers the ocean brings more sand to the shore,| And when you destroy them, the ocean laughs with you.| Verily the ocean laughs always with the innocent.| But what of those to whom life is not an ocean, and man-made laws are not sand-towers,| But to whom life is a rock, and the law a chisel with which they would carve it in their own likeness?| What of the cripple who hates dancers?| What of the ox who loves his yoke and deems the elk and deer of the forest stray and vagrant things?| What of the old serpent who cannot shed his skin, and calls all others naked and shameless?| And of him who comes early to the wedding-feast, and when over-fed and tired goes his way saying that all feasts are violation and all feasters law-breakers?| What shall I say of these save that they too stand in the sunlight, but with their backs to the sun?| They see only their shadows, and their shadows are their laws.| And what is the sun to them but a caster of shadows?| And what is it to acknowledge the laws but to stoop down and trace their shadows upon the earth?| But you who walk facing the sun, what images drawn on the earth can hold you?| You who travel with the wind, what weathervane shall direct your course?| What man's law shall bind you if you break your yoke but upon no man's prison door?| What laws shall you fear if you dance but stumble against no man's iron chains?| And who is he that shall bring you to judgment if you tear off your garment yet leave it in no man's path?| People of Orphalese, you can muffle the drum, and you can loosen the strings of the lyre, but who shall command the skylark not to sing?| || ||((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||