History: The Prophet: On Pleasure

Source of version: 2 (current)

||On Pleasure|
Then a hermit, who visited the city once a year, came forth and said, "Speak to us of Pleasure."|
And he answered, saying:|
Pleasure is a freedom song,|
But it is not freedom.|
It is the blossoming of your desires,|
But it is not their fruit.|
It is a depth calling unto a height,|
But it is not the deep nor the high.|
It is the caged taking wing,|
But it is not space encompassed.|
Ay, in very truth, pleasure is a freedom-song.|
And I fain would have you sing it with fullness of heart; yet I would not have you lose your hearts in the singing.|
Some of your youth seek pleasure as if it were all, and they are judged and rebuked.|
I would not judge nor rebuke them. I would have them seek.|
For they shall find pleasure, but not her alone:|
Seven are her sisters, and the least of them is more beautiful than pleasure.|
Have you not heard of the man who was digging in the earth for roots and found a treasure?|
And some of your elders remember pleasures with regret like wrongs committed in drunkenness.|
But regret is the beclouding of the mind and not its chastisement.|
They should remember their pleasures with gratitude, as they would the harvest of a summer.|
Yet if it comforts them to regret, let them be comforted.|
And there are among you those who are neither young to seek nor old to remember;|
And in their fear of seeking and remembering they shun all pleasures, lest they neglect the spirit or offend against it.|
But even in their foregoing is their pleasure.|
And thus they too find a treasure though they dig for roots with quivering hands.|
But tell me, who is he that can offend the spirit?|
Shall the nightingale offend the stillness of the night, or the firefly the stars?|
And shall your flame or your smoke burden the wind?|
Think you the spirit is a still pool which you can trouble with a staff?|
Oftentimes in denying yourself pleasure you do but store the desire in the recesses of your being.|
Who knows but that which seems omitted today, waits for tomorrow?|
Even your body knows its heritage and its rightful need and will not be deceived.|
And your body is the harp of your soul,|
And it is yours to bring forth sweet music from it or confused sounds.|
And now you ask in your heart, "How shall we distinguish that which is good in pleasure from that which is not good?"|
Go to your fields and your gardens, and you shall learn that it is the pleasure of the bee to gather honey of the flower,|
But it is also the pleasure of the flower to yield its honey to the bee.|
For to the bee a flower is a fountain of life,|
And to the flower a bee is a messenger of love,|
And to both, bee and flower, the giving and the receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy.|
People of Orphalese, be in your pleasures like the flowers and the bees.| ||

||((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||
History: The Prophet: On Pleasure

Source of version: 2 (current)

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