Musonius Rufus, Lectures 7.1

Lecture 7: That one should disdain hardships.

In order to support more easily and more cheerfully those hardships that we may expect to suffer in behalf of virtue and goodness, it is useful to recall what hardships people will endure for unworthy ends.

Thus for example consider what intemperate lovers undergo for the sake of evil desires, and how much exertion others expend for the sake of making profit, and how much suffering those who are pursuing fame endure, and bear in mind that all of these people submit to all kinds of toil and hardship voluntarily.

Is it not then monstrous that they for no honorable reward endure such things, while we for the sake of the ideal good—that is not only the avoidance of evil such as wrecks our lives, but also the acquisition of virtue, which we may call the provider of all goods—are not ready to bear every hardship? 

If I don’t much care for it, I may take it or leave it. But if I love it enough, I will go through hell or high water for the sake of it. If I actually love it the most, I will gladly die for it, and I will then be truly happy, even in death.

“But I hate my school!” Yes, of course I do, because I don’t really love learning, do I? What is it I want? I desire immediate gratification. No one can make me love anything, but if I just looked inside myself, I could decide that seeking wisdom is not half as bad as I think it is, and that it is worth at least as much effort as I put into feeding my appetites.

“But I hate my job!” Is it work itself that is troubling me, or is it about working for the right things? Yes, they don’t pay me enough to make ends meet, and they don’t give me an ounce of respect, whatever it is I do for them. Might I, however, consider loving the merit of my actions for their own sake, and worrying less about my bank account and my vanity?

“But I hate my life!” Yes, I have said it, and I have actually meant it. Why did I say it? Perhaps it was the burden of my circumstances, but then I can still decide to make something out of them for myself, whatever they might be. Perhaps it was the burden of my own judgments and actions, but then I always have the option of changing them. If I reconsider what I love, and how I love, I won’t need to hate my life.

If I choose to learn, if I choose to work, if I choose to serve others, if I choose to commit to myself, I will find that no obstacle can stand in my way. The depth of my love will be motive enough. I will then disdain any hardship.

“But how can I love anything, or anyone, that much? It seems impossible!”

It is only impossible because I make it impossible for myself. No one else decides what I love the most. I will decide. In those immortal words of George Clinton and Funkadelic: “Free your mind, and your ass will follow. The Kingdom of Heaven is within.”

Do I think I have chosen correctly? Then I should pursue it, since I know it to be best. Am I still hesitating? Then I didn’t know it fully at all, and I don’t truly love it, and I only chose it halfheartedly. Go back to square one.

I should think of all the energy I put into the worst things I ever did, because I foolishly considered them to be good at the time, and redirect all of that energy to doing something better, because I know it to be so now.

Do I remember that girl I was obsessed with, the one who could just smile, or roll her eyes, or cross her legs, and I would do absolutely anything she said? There was no limit to my obedience. Now I can take that same dedication to become a good man, by not being a slave to my desires.

Do I remember when she lied to me, and cheated on me, and she still had me wrapped around her finger? My denial reigned supreme. Now I can take that same devotion to become a good man, by being honest, faithful, and loyal.

Do I remember how heartbroken I was when she finally walked away, and I made those extraordinary efforts to feel sorry for myself? That melancholy was really hard work. Now I can take that same commitment to become a good man, by learning to love with sincerity.

Look how much I have done in the service of vice. Look how much I was willing to sacrifice for the sake of my lusts. If my values have indeed changed, I will also be willing to give anything and everything for true love, just like I did earlier for all my sins.

There will be one big difference: I will now be informed by my conscience, not just by my passions. I can take all the blood, sweat, and tears I expended back then, and commit them to something new, something better, something worthy.

Does it hurt? That shows that I am pushing myself. Seeking the worst things in life did indeed hurt, and look what I was willing to sacrifice for what would destroy me. Now I can consider the best things in life—are they not worth an even greater sacrifice? 

Written in 8/1999

Vanitas 7

Evert Collier, A Vanitas (1669)

Babylon 5: The Geometry of Shadows

As a reference for Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy 4.20:

The whole bit about that Drazi cultural tradition, about their regularly scheduled conflict between the Green and Purple factions, is really only the B plot to this episode, but it remains a wonderful piece of satire about our own human failings, and treads that thin line between comedy and tragedy.

Here are three brief video snippets to help clarify the point:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddxIfMRZemc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxds-Co7G1Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFkZgxtlcws

Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy 4.20

“Then from this,” said she, “and other causes which rest upon the same foundation, it is plain that, since baseness makes men more miserable by its own nature, the misery is brought not to the sufferer of an injustice, but to the doer thereof.

“But the speakers in law-courts take the opposite course: they try to excite the pity of the judges for those who have suffered any heavy or bitter wrong; but more justly their pity would be due to those who have committed the wrong.

“These guilty men ought to be brought, by accusers kindly rather than angry, to justice, as patients to a doctor, that their disease of crime may be checked by punishment. Under such an arrangement the occupation of advocates for defense would either come to a complete standstill, or if it seemed more to the advantage of mankind, it might turn to the work of prosecution.

“And if the wicked too themselves might by some device look on virtue left behind them, and if they could see that they would lay aside the squalor of vice by the pain of punishment, and that they would gain the compensation of achieving virtue again, they would no longer hold it punishment, but would refuse the aid of advocates for their defense, and would entrust themselves unreservedly to their accusers and their judges.

“In this way there would be no place left for hatred among wise men. For who but the most foolish would hate good men? And there is no cause to hate bad men. Vice is as a disease of the mind, just as feebleness shows ill health in the body. As, then, we should never think that those, who are sick in the body, deserve hatred, so are those, whose minds are oppressed by a fiercer disease than feebleness, namely wickedness, much more worthy of pity than of persecution.”

—from Book 4, Prose 4

I am wary of presenting a passage like this, because it will all soon degrade into a fight about the petty politics of justice. One man will tell me that we are too easy on criminals, that we must punish them more severely. Another man will tell me that we have no heart, that we must reform rather than inflict any suffering.

The one man says he loves the victim, and demands a harsh repayment from the offender. The other man says he loves the offender, and demands complete forgiveness from the victim.

And these two combatants will duke it out, and the hatred they have for one another will overshadow the original question. It will become a battle of the tribes, the red versus the blue in modern America, or the blue versus the green in Constantinople, or the green Drazi versus the purple Drazi on Babylon 5.

The limitations of labels will become apparent when we look beyond the party lines, and we turn instead to a deeper philosophy. Yes, embrace both punishment and compassion. Be just to them all, and love them all, because any justice or love that is preferential will never be justice or love at all. There can be no opposition here, but only a harmony between both. Justice is an expression of love, and love is the source of justice.

Pay the price that you must pay, balance out those scales, and then there is a chance for both compensation and reformation. Give back what you have unjustly taken, and then you have the opportunity to both make the wrong right and to redeem yourself. Might the punishment need to be harsh? Perhaps. Must the motive always be love? Absolutely.

If I have done wrong it is from my own choice, but my vice is still a sickness of ignorance and poor habits. A sick man requires a doctor, not another man who inflicts another round of hatred upon him. Will the cure be painful? It most often is. Will it be worth the cost? Most certainly.

Me versus you? No. All of us together? Yes.

Lawyers and judges get a bad rap, but not because there is anything wrong with the practice of law itself. There is, rather, something wrong with the way a good number of them go about interpreting the law. Many assume that it must be confrontational, and from manipulating this confrontation they make their own profits, winning their ill-gained fame and fortune.

One man wins, and another man loses; it never occurs to them that all men should win. This side has succeeded, and that side has failed; it never occurs to them all sides can succeed.

How might I help a wicked fellow come to recognize what he has done, and who he might still become? How might I help a poor fellow, who has been dragged in the dirt, recognize that he can still reach out a merciful hand? That is justice, as Nature intended.

It is a difficult goal, but it is not an impossible one. It is far less ridiculous than assuming we can make life better for one half by destroying the other half.

My resentment comes from thinking I have been wronged, and my hatred comes from lashing out against that perceived wrong. Now I am no better than what I condemn. Nature, and Nature’s God, do their work by healing, not by condemnation.

Bring out physicians for the soul, not executioners of the spirit.

Written in 11/2015

Wisdom from the Bhagavad Gita 9

Arjuna said:

1. If, O Janârdana, according to You, knowledge is superior to action, why then, O Keshava, do You engage me in this terrible action?

 2. With these seemingly conflicting words, You are, as it were, bewildering my understanding—tell me that one thing for certain, by which I can attain to the highest.

The Blessed Lord said: 

3. In the beginning of creation, O sinless one, the twofold path of devotion was given by Me to this world—the path of knowledge for the meditative, the path of work for the active.

4. By non-performance of work none reaches worklessness; by merely giving up action no one attains to perfection. 

5. Verily none can ever rest for even an instant, without performing action; for all are made to act, helplessly indeed, by the Gunas, born of Prakriti (Primal Matter).

6. He, who restraining the organs of action, sits revolving in the mind, thoughts regarding objects of senses, he, of deluded understanding, is called a hypocrite.

7. But, who, controlling the senses by the mind, unattached, directs his organs of action to the path of work, he, O Arjuna, excels. 

8. Do you perform obligatory action; for action is superior to inaction, and even the bare maintenance of your body would not be possible if you are inactive. 

9. The world is bound by actions other than those performed for the sake of Yajna (Sacrifice); do you therefore, O son of Kunti, perform action for Yajna alone, devoid of attachment.

—Bhagavad Gita, 3:1-9

Seneca, On Peace of Mind 4.6

Even though others may form the first line, and your lot may have placed you among the veterans of the third, do your duty there with your voice, encouragement, example, and spirit: even though a man's hands be cut off, he may find means to help his side in a battle, if he stands his ground and cheers on his comrades. 

Do something of that sort yourself: if Fortune removes you from the front rank, stand your ground nevertheless and cheer on your comrades, and if somebody stops your mouth, stand nevertheless and help your side in silence. 

The services of a good citizen are never thrown away: he does good by being heard and seen, by his expression, his gestures, his silent determination, and his very walk. 

However limiting the circumstances may seem, however meager the means may appear, there is always something good to be done. Every action, every contribution, every effort is necessary, and will play its own part in the unfolding of Providence. 

Only my pride, my desire for recognition in the eyes of others, can keep me from finding peace in every situation. It does not have to be glorious to be noble. I have, in fact, often found that the noblest efforts are precisely those where there is no lure of any other gain, where a purity of intention can assist with a purity of deed. The greatness is not always where we first look to find it. 

Now a man is hardly a dog, but a dog can still help me to learn many things. I have sometimes felt annoyed when Lucky, a dog who seems to have adopted us, rushes about my feet excitedly whenever I try to get anything done around the house. 

“He’s just the trying to help,” the wife will remind me. 

“How is he helping?” I ask. “He’s getting his nose in the way.”

“Don’t be silly. He’s encouraging you!”

I have to admit that she is completely right. The time passes more quickly, and the task becomes easier, whenever he is around. Yes, in his own way, he most certainly does help. It doesn’t matter that he won’t really follow directions, or doesn’t have any hands to hold tools. 

They tell us that as we get older, our power over the world ought to increase, as a result of all our hard work. I have rather found that mine has quite decreased, though perhaps it is just that I have learned how little control over circumstances I ever had to begin with. 

Instead, I now dedicate myself first and foremost to gaining power over myself, day by day, bit by tiny bit. That is already a full-time job. On most days, the most decent thing I can manage is to give someone a simple courtesy, or perhaps to offer an encouraging word. Yes, sometimes a word will do just fine, over even a gesture, or just being there for the moment. 

Some people may insist that this is hardly enough, that far more must be done. But more of what? Any action, however humble, can be performed with a great degree of love, whether there is more or less at stake in terms of money, or fame, or influence over external conditions. I should not let myself be misled about where the greatness lies. 

Observe any business, or school, even a group of friends, and you will quickly learn who likes to be in front, and who is content to stand back. Some will draw attention to themselves, and others find it all awkward. Some never stop talking, and others just listen. 

You will know right away who the important people are, the ones who make the most noise, but you will not know right away who the most virtuous people are, the ones who do the most good. You will have to get to know them, because the biggest job does not necessarily bring with it the biggest character. 

Written in 7/2011

Wisdom from the Early Stoics, Zeno of Citium 9

A Rhodian, who was handsome and rich, but nothing more, insisted on joining his class; but so unwelcome was this pupil, that first of all Zeno made him sit on the benches that were dusty, that he might soil his cloak, and then he consigned him to the place where the beggars sat, that he might rub shoulders with their rags. So at last the young man went away. 

Nothing, he declared, was more unbecoming than arrogance, especially in the young. 

He used also to say that it was not the words and expressions that we ought to remember, but we should exercise our mind in disposing to advantage of what we hear, instead of, as it were, tasting a well-cooked dish or well-dressed meal. 

The young, he thought, should behave with perfect propriety in walk, gait, and dress, and he used continually to quote the lines of Euripides about Capaneus: 

Large means had he, yet not the haughtiness
That springs from wealth, nor cherished prouder thoughts
Of vain ambition than the poorest man.    
 
—Diogenes Laërtius, 7.22

Sayings of Ramakrishna 22

God tells the thief to go and steal, and at the same time warns the householder against the thief.

Musonius Rufus, Lectures 6.8

 

And yet, in spite of understanding this, because of the depravity which has become implanted in us straight from childhood and because of evil habits engendered by this depravity, when hardship comes we think an evil has come upon us, and when pleasure comes our way we think that a good has befallen us; we dread death as the most extreme misfortune; we cling to life as the greatest blessing, and when we give away money we grieve as if we were injured, but upon receiving it we rejoice as if a benefit had been conferred. 

Similarly with the majority of other things, we do not meet circumstances in accordance with right principles, but rather we follow wretched habit. Since, then, I repeat, all this is the case, the person who is in training must strive to habituate himself not to love pleasure, not to avoid hardship, not to be infatuated with living, not to fear death, and in the case of goods or money not to place receiving above giving.  

“Oh, it’s not so bad! I just need to make a little alteration here, and adjust a bit of something over there, and it will all be fine. Maybe I should rethink the charities I contribute to? Or will that be too much? Let me ask my wife first, we don’t want to get our bosses and friends upset, after all!”

No, that won’t be enough, I’m sorry to say. Reforming a life is bigger than going to a new yoga class, or using paper instead of plastic. Driving a hybrid Toyota is really no different than driving that diesel Volkswagen. Sending your children to a politically correct private school is ultimately no better than sending them to that run down public school down the street.

Will volunteering for the annual pro-life supper at the Catholic parish be better than running in that diversity love-a-thon for the Unitarians? No.

Don’t you see it? You’ve been duped, played with, lied to. You have been told that you must play a game, that you must appear to others as glorious, that you must strike a pose. Yet you don’t need to do any of that.

I had the blessing of a family that taught me to care for virtue first, but from the earliest age other people told me that virtue wasn’t nearly enough. The question was always about what my future job might be, not what my future character might be.

Imagine if, in the second or third grade, I had said that I wanted to be a janitor. How I would have been ridiculed, both by my peers and by my teachers! They would never have thought about whether I was going to be a kind, a committed, or an honest janitor, and would only have cared about what a lowly status that would be.

How funny, I suppose, that Bruno, a janitor at my own school back then, was one of the few people to pay attention to me, to encourage me, to even give me the time of day. He’s long gone now, but he sticks in my memory more than any of the progressive teachers, who told me I needed to be a doctor, or a lawyer, or a congressman.

The bad habits were deeply ingrained from the beginning. Grades mattered. Why? To get into a good college. Sucking up mattered. Why? To get a good job. Getting an even better job mattered. Why? So I could finally be someone.

Who is that someone now?

It has been beaten into me for so long, and I must struggle to think otherwise. You can also see it within yourself. You were raised to win by taking things. You were actually bred, just like an animal, to produce more for your masters.

Yes, that offends you. I understand. It offends me too, because I somehow fell for it.

Look at all the assumptions we make. A rich man is a success, so he must have done the right things. A poor man is a failure, so he must have done the wrong things. They drilled that into our heads from the beginning, and it’s hard to get it out of our heads.

“I really like that Stoic thing you do, it’s really great, but I have a mortgage to pay.”

There you have the priorities.

Watch any show on television, and observe the values you see. Our characters win when they defeat someone, or have sex with someone. Power and lust. Then watch the advertisements during the show, which now take up a third of the hour. We are all supposedly happier when we own more and when we have greater luxuries.

We think of pain as a bad thing, and of pleasure as a good thing. We think of dying as a curse, and we do anything we can to extend our lives. We will scramble to make money, and we will shun those who have little or no money at all.

And we are completely mistaken. The very fact that the drones think this claim to be insane is the very proof of how deeply we are stuck to those depraved habits.

Train to be a human being, not a machine made to produce and consume this or that product.

Train to think, not to conform to anyone else’s thinking.

Train to decide, not to have everything determined for you.

Train to bear suffering, to accept death, to embrace poverty.

Train to give first, and to care nothing about what you receive.

Old habits will die hard.

Written in 7/1999

Stoic Conversations 30

"It's not like I'm doing it for money or anything!"

"No, Pigeon, you're not. Is it better that you're doing it for free?"

Sayings of Socrates 31

Wherefore, O judges, be of good cheer about death, and know that this is of a truth—that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death. . . . 

For which reason also, I am not angry with my accusers, or my condemners; they have done me no harm, although neither of them meant to do me any good; and for this I may gently blame them.

—Plato, Apology 41c–e

Seneca, On Peace of Mind 4.5

Thus, it is never possible for so many outlets to be closed against your ambition that more will not remain open to it: but see whether the whole prohibition does not arise from your own fault.

You do not choose to direct the affairs of the state except as consul, or prytanis, or meddix, or sufes: what should we say if you refused to serve in the army save as general or military tribune?

How accustomed I have become to thinking of success and failure by my circumstances. I will define my worth by the things I possess, the position I am given, or the satisfaction I receive. And if these don’t come my way as I demand, I wonder who I might blame for my misery, or why the stars weren’t aligned, or if I just wasn’t clever or forceful enough in winning the conditions I wanted.

“This has happened, or that was taken away, so now I can never be happy!” What an odd way for me to understanding winning or losing, where everything I am depends on everything other than myself.

“But what can I possibly do now, without any opportunities?” That will all hinge upon what I consider worth doing. Many people will measure success and failure by wealth, influence, and luxury, but I do not need to see it that way at all. If I reflect upon my own nature, I can do much better.

There will always be opportunities for me to live well and to be of service. I can always know success, if only I so decide, whenever I take the time and effort to act according to Nature. Has my action been a just one? Then, whatever the context or whatever the scale, it has been a good one, and a successful one.

All that stands in my way is my own stubborn insistence that the world should give me rewards beyond the virtue of my own actions, or that others should give me only the opportunities I prefer. It suddenly starts sounding quite vain when I put it that way.

Some will commit to unconditional love, and then promptly add conditions. Others will beg for the chance to get ahead in life, and then promptly reject the options they are given. This is because they do not know what love is, and they do not know what getting ahead in life really entails.

I can’t say that I want to help society by being a teacher, but then complain about the low pay, the grueling hours of grading, the crippling politics, or the ungrateful students.

I can’t say I want to be a lawyer to defend people’s rights, but then complain about not getting into the right law school, or being hired by the wrong firm, or losing that plum promotion.

In much the same way, I can’t say that I want to be a good man, but then complain about all the available ways I could go about being a good man.

Where is the obstacle? I am the obstacle. I can’t control what life gives me, even as I can control what I give to life. It won’t be actual service if I insist on being served.

Written in 7/2011

Stoic Conversations 29

"Maybe we just need to move things forward, and apply Stoicism to the stuff that matter now, like running a profitable business, or finding the sort of lifestyles we find comfortable."

"Profit and comfort?"

"Yeah, the stuff that matters now."

 "How are profit and comfort Stoic virtues?"

 "That's what everyone cares about these days, right?"

"Do they all care about that, or just the yuppies and the hipsters?"

"Isn't that what you care about?"

"No."

"Dude, everyone just wants to get rich and get laid."

"No, not everyone."

Stoic Conversations 28

"I'm really sorry, but you weren't supposed to know about it. I did my best to keep it from you, and I didn't actually want to hurt you. It just sort of happened."

"Isn't trust about showing, not hiding?"

"Well, yes."

"And isn't love about choosing to make something happen, not just going with what happens?"

"I guess so."

"Do you just guess, or do you know?"

Tao Te Ching 56

He who knows the Tao does not care to speak about it; he who is ever ready to speak about it does not know it.

He who knows it will keep his mouth shut and close the portals of his nostrils. He will blunt his sharp points and unravel the complications of things; he will temper his brightness, and bring himself into agreement with the obscurity of others. This is called "the Mysterious Agreement."

Such a one cannot be treated familiarly or distantly; he is beyond all consideration of profit or injury, of nobility or meanness—he is the noblest man under heaven.

Musonius Rufus, Lectures 6.7

In summary, then, I have tried to tell what the nature of each type of training is. I shall not, however, endeavor to discuss how the training should be carried out in detail, by analyzing and distinguishing what is appropriate for the soul and the body in common and what is appropriate for the soul alone, but by presenting without fixed order what is proper for each.

It is true that all of us who have participated in philosophical discussion have heard and apprehended that neither pain, nor death, nor poverty, nor anything else that is free from wrong is an evil, and again that wealth, life, pleasure, or anything else that does not partake of virtue is not a good.

There can be all sorts of routes to get there, many different paths winding their way up the same hill, but the goal needs to remain the same, to reach the summit. Often, of course, we worry so much about the specifics of the means that we forget to focus on the glory of the end.

It is even worse when we simply run around the base of the hill, insisting that all the paths are either too steep or too slight, too narrow or too broad, too direct or too winding, too difficult or too easy. The movement is without direction and purpose.

I will regularly hear about the particulars of a sound education, about the canon of texts, and the order of disciplines, and the purity of methods. Let us indeed attend to these, but let us first remember that they must all be in service to our very human nature. Will they help us to train the soul and the body to be strong in character? Do they look to moral worth above all over worth? Are they encouraging us to measure all other benefits by the standard of virtue alone?

If they can do that, then the job is getting done, whatever else our preferences may be. As they say, don’t lose the forest for the trees. We can dress people in whatever fashions we like, but behind the finery there must be ladies and gentlemen.

When Musonius speaks of those familiar with philosophy, he must surely mean those more specifically acquainted with the Stoic arguments of his time; I know many esteemed philosophers of our time who would be quite confused by the basic principles he presents.

Still, the goal must be to look beyond this or that school, whether it be narrowly Stoic or not, and embrace a shared humanity. If human nature is defined by the power of the soul to rule the body through sound judgment, then the good life will first and foremost be informed by conscience. Virtue will then be the highest human good.

It is only from this starting point that I can recognize how pleasure and pain, wealth and poverty, or even life and death are never good or bad in themselves, but only in how they are joined to virtue or vice.

It will be easier to say than to do, of course, because in the doing I will learn how confused I have been, how far I have strayed off of the path. But if it is genuinely true in theory, it will also work in practice, however unfamiliar it will at first seem to me.

I am tempted to follow whatever gratifies, and oppose whatever hurts, but whatever may feel preferable, neither is intrinsically worthy of choice. Which one will make me better? That is the one to help me be happy.

I am tempted to make myself rich, and to frown upon being poor, but whatever may feel preferable, neither is intrinsically worthy of choice. Which one will make me better? That is the one to help me be happy.

I am tempted to want a long life, and to fear a short one, but whatever may feel preferable, neither is intrinsically worthy of choice. Which one will make me better? That is the one to help me be happy.

To know this, to live like this, is the goal of all training. Whatever the path may be, there is the summit.

Written in 7/1999

IMAGE: The many possible climbing routes on the south side of K2. 

The Wisdom of Solomon 2:6-11

[6] "Come, therefore, let us enjoy the good things that exist,
and make use of the creation to the full as in youth.
[7] Let us take our fill of costly wine and perfumes,
and let no flower of spring pass by us.
[8] Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before they wither.
[9] Let none of us fail to share in our revelry,
everywhere let us leave signs of enjoyment,
because this is our portion, and this our lot.
[10] Let us oppress the righteous poor man;
let us not spare the widow
nor regard the gray hairs of the aged.
[11] But let our might be our law of right,
for what is weak proves itself to be useless."

Swans

M.C. Escher, Swans (1956)

The Art of Peace 47

The Way of a Warrior is based on humanity, love, and sincerity; the heart of martial valor is true bravery, wisdom, love, and friendship. Emphasis on the physical aspects of warriorship is futile, for the power of the body is always limited. 

Fragments of Parmenides 2

There are the gates of the ways of Night and Day, fitted above with a lintel and below with a threshold of stone. They themselves, high in the air, are closed by mighty doors, and Avenging Justice keeps the keys that fit them. 

Her did the maidens entreat with gentle words and cunningly persuade to unfasten without demur the bolted bars from the gates. 

Then, when the doors were thrown back, they disclosed a wide opening, when their brazen posts fitted with rivets and nails swung back one after the other. 

Straight through them, on the broad way, did the maidens guide the horses and the car, and the goddess greeted me kindly, and took my right hand in hers, and spake to me these words: . . .