The Good Life, HC101, HC102, HC103

I Identifications

Please identify the author, text, and (where applicable), speaker (or listener), then write four to six sentences in which you point out what is most interesting and important about each passage.

A. Nothing can harm a good man either in life or after death.

B. Is the nature of men such, that they can reject miracle, and at the great moments of their life, the moments of their deepest, most agonizing spiritual difficulties, cling only to the free verdict of the heart?

C. It is not reason never to yield to reason!
In flood time you can see how some trees bend,
And because they bend, even the twigs are safe,
While stubborn trees are torn up, roots and all.
And the same thing happens in sailing:
Make your sheet fast, never slaken,--and over you go,
Head over heels and under: and there’s your voyage.

D. As when a man yokes male broad-forheaded oxen
to crush white barley on a strong-laid threshing floor, and rapidly
the barley is stripped beneath the feet of the bellowing oxen,
so before great-hearted Achilleus the single-foot horses
trampled alike dead men and shields, and the axle under
the chariot was all splashed with blood and the rails which encircled
the chariot, struck by flying drops from the feet of the horses,
from the running rims of the wheels. The son of Peleus was straining
to win glory, his invincible hands spattered with bloody filth.

II: Essay

Please choose ONE (1) of the following questions and write a short essay.

A. How would the speaker in A answer the question in B? Why?

B. Do C and D illustrate the truth of A, or do they contradict it? How?

C. Would Socrates approve of the view of education implicit in the passage below? Why or why not?

"Peleus the aged horseman sent me forth with you
on that day when he sent you from Phthia to Agamemnon
a mere child, who knew nothing yet of the joining of battle
nor of debate where men are made pre-eminent. Therefore
he sent me along with you to teach you of all these matters,
to make you a speaker of words and one who accomplished in action."