The Ruin of the Empire
“These wall-stones are wondrous —
calamities crumpled them, these city-sites crashed, the work of giants
corrupted. The roofs have rushed to earth, towers in ruins.”
– “The Ruin”, an Anglo-Saxon poem by an anonymous author
“These wall-stones are wondrous —
calamities crumpled them, these city-sites crashed, the work of giants
corrupted. The roofs have rushed to earth, towers in ruins.”
– “The Ruin”, an Anglo-Saxon poem by an anonymous author
“Everything lies contained in that building,” he went on, waving his hand to designate the church; “the scriptures, theology, the history of the human race, set forth in a broad outline. Thanks to the science of symbolism a pile of stones may be a macrocosm.”
“I will worship towards thy holy temple, and I will give glory to thy name. For thy mercy, and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy holy name above all.”
– Psalm 137:2
“No, the more I think of her,” he cried, “the more I think her prodigious, unique, the more I am convinced that she alone holds the truth, that outside her are only weaknesses of mind, impostures, scandals. The Church is the divine breeding ground, the heavenly dispensary of souls…”
“But it was fit that we should make merry and be glad, for this thy brother was dead and is come to life again; he was lost, and is found.” (Luke 15:32)
“No day will pass that I feel no pain for you.”
– Charlemagne
(Laisse 207. 2901)
“The Greek epics express, with an incomparable depth and fulness, the eternal knowledge of truth and destiny which is the creation of the heroic age—the age that cannot be destroyed by any bourgeois ‘progress’.”
– Werner Jaeger
“If thy heart be pure/The Grail will be to thee as food and drink!” – Gurnemanz
“Be happy, friends; your fortune is achieved,
While one fate beckons us and then another.”
– Aeneid III. 655-656.