ὦ τέκος, ἦ ῥ᾽ ἀγαθὸν καὶ ἐναίσιμα δῶρα διδοῦναι
ἀθανάτοις, ἐπεὶ οὔ ποτ᾽ ἐμὸς πάϊς, εἴ ποτ᾽ ἔην γε,
λήθετ᾽ ἐνὶ μεγάροισι θεῶν οἳ Ὄλυμπον ἔχουσι:
τώ οἱ ἀπεμνήσαντο καὶ ἐν θανάτοιό περ αἴσῃ.
My Child, a good thing truly is it to give to the immortals such as are due
them; far never did my son—if ever in fact he was—forget in our halls the gods
hold Olympus; so they have rememnbered this for him, even though he is in the
doom of death.
慢慢讀荷馬史詩《伊里亞德》最後一卷，聆聽人與人之間的對話、觀察天地神之奧妙、以及思考生與死的意義。老國王Priam在喪子之痛的悲傷情緒中，堅持諸般應盡禮儀，得到神祗幫助，Hermes扮成年輕人安慰與鼓勵Priam，當Priam知道長子Hector之屍首仍完好，感謝眾神之眷顧—看顧兒子之生死。
若只在意失去的，擔心沒有擁有的，就會放不下生死；但是若是感謝遇到的每一件事、珍惜現在擁有的一切，就不會害怕失去。
欣賞這位特洛伊老國王的雍容大度、修養與智慧。
VERY HUMAN ARM: Priam kissing the hand that killed his son in Joseph Wencker's
"Priam at the Feet of Achilles," which can be seen at the
Princeton Art Museum's current exhibition, "The Legacy of Homer: Four
Centuries of Art from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts,
Paris." Presented in collaboration with the Dahesh Museum of Art in New
York City, the show will run through January 15, 2006. It was organized by
École curator Emmanuel Schwartz and coordinated at Princeton by Betsy Rosasco,
research curator of later Western art.
