> "But what has the Lunar Empire ever given US?"
> 'Well, there's the maps...'
> "Well, yes, obviously, the maps, yes. But what ELSE has the Lunar
> Empire ever given us?"
I'm currently reading Bernard Lewis' 'The Middle East'. Lewis quotes a second century CE commentary from the Babylonian Talmud, which describes three Rabbis in conversation:
"Rabbi Judah began by saying: ' How fine are the works of these people [the Romans]. They have built markets, they have built bridges, they have built bathhouses.'
Rabbi Jose was silent, and Rabbi Simeon Bar-Yohai answered: 'All they have built, they built only for their own needs. They built markets to set whores in them; bathhouses, to beautify themselves; bridges, to collect tolls.'
Judah, the son of proselytes, went in and reported their words to the authorities, and they said: 'Let Judah, who exalted us, be exalted. Let Jose, who was silent, be exiled to Sepphoris, and let Simeon, who denounced us, be executed.'
It seems this conversation has been going on a long long time. :)
Cheers
John
nysalor_at_... John Hughes
... a flying arrow, a crashing wave, night old ice,
a coiled snake, a bride's bed talk, a broken sword, the play of bears, a king's son.
Powered by hypermail