A garland of quotations XXXIX

Culled from the finest egalitarians in literary history, and re-woven every Wednesday

What gleamed on the waves?
Blood gleamed on the waves.
•Friedrich Kreutzwald, Kalevipoeg (1862).

He poisoned the blade and struck home, the full bosom receiving
The wound and the venom in one, past cure or relieving.

He made treaty with Time to stand still that the grief might be fresh—
•Kipling, “Late Came the God” (1926)

As Sufaid Dev bent to pick up another rock, Amir dealt him a blow of his sword from behind, carving through his skull and slicing his spine. Sufaid Dev fell on his face and cried, “Show me the kindness of dealing me another blow so that I may depart even sooner from this ephemeral world for the Permanent Land, and do not suffer the pain of my wounds any longer.” Amir responded, “I know your race all too well. What you hope for will never come to pass.” Sufaid Dev was thwarted, and he gave up his life by bashing his head against the ground.
•Ghalib Lakhnavi & Abdullah Bilgrami, Dastan-e Amir Hamza (1871).

I am talking about the absence of a pit, about a kind of suffering that is cold and without images, without feeling, and which is like an indescribable collision of failures.
•Antonin Artaud, The Umbilicus of Limbo (1925).

You go sleepless all night
but it’s my eyes
that turn red
•Ksetrayya, “A Woman to Her Lover” (1730).

They asked Lukmân, “Of whom didst thou learn manners?” He replied, “From the unmannerly. Whatever I saw them do which I disapproved of, that I abstained from doing.”
•Sâdi, The Rose Garden (1258).

Once I saw a girl of about eighteen with magnificent hair that hung in thick tresses all the way down to her feet; she was nicely plump and had splendid white skin. Apart from her charming features, she was obviously of good breeding. At the moment she was suffering from a very bad toothache. Her hair was in great disorder and where it hung over her forehead it was damp with tears. Quite unconscious of this she kept pressing her hand to her flushed cheek, which made a delightful effect.
•Sei Shonagon, The Pillow Book (1002).

We who walk the greenwood do many a wild deed.
•Scott, Ivanhoe (1819).

We are all equal here in the greenwood.
•Howard Pyle, The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood (1883).

References: Kreutzwald: trans. Jüri Kurman (Symposia Press, 1982); Kipling: Debits and Credits (Doubleday, 1926); Lakhnavi & Bilgrami: trans. Musharraf Ali Farooqi, The Adventures of Amir Hamza (Modern Library, 2007); Artaud: Selected Writings (FSG, 1976); Ksetrayya: Ramanujan, Rao, & Schulman, eds., When God Is a Customer: Telugu Courtesan Songs (UCLA Press, 1994); Sâdi: op. cit.; Sei Shonagon: trans. Ivan Morris (Columbia UP, 1991); some of this material is copyrighted, and I plead only fair use.