AN AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE STOIC AND THE EPICURE

the epicureans and the stoics ... champions in that order of the body and the mind ... both believed in god ... a god appropriate to their cause ... a god of diffuse pleasure ... of the republic and the state ... of refinement and control ... of service to a form ... the private and the public ... the difference between the salon and the committee ... between the bed and the podium ... and of course all the traffic in between ... what epicure doesn't love a good stoic ... but with a pitiful stare ... what stoic doesn't admire a fine epicure her rhythm and her grace ... and smile at her foolish ways ... what traffic and confusion over generations always the same ... the body and the mind ... so that you might see one to understand the other ... the body idealized ... the idea given substance ... a union between the two past you might almost say against the nature of each ... this shape this form this color and that line no longer corrupt and in time but eternal