The Traveler's Curse after Misdirection, by Robert Graves

May they stumble, stage by stage
On an endless Pilgrimage
Dawn and dusk, mile after mile
At each and every step a stile
At each and every step withal
May they catch their feet and fall
At each and every fall they take
May a bone within them break
And may the bone that breaks within
Not be, for variations sake
Now rib, now thigh, now arm, now shin
but always, without fail, the NECK

Ancient Rome song by Mr. Nicky

Chronological Timeframe of Ancient Rome, portraying the territorial extension

of the Roman Empire under the Rule of Octavian Augustus Caesar,

a time in history known as the Pax Romana, which is the theme

of the Mr. Nicky "Ancient Rome" video below.

The following is a fun, history primer on the days of the Augustian Pax Romana.  The song is a parody of "Thirft Shop" by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis featuring Wanz.

I have posted elsewhere history primer parodies by Mr. Nicky, specifically on Ancient Mesopotamia and Ancient Greece.

I hope you enjoy the video below as much as I have... over and over again  :)

For Mobile users who cannot see the video above, here is Ancient Rome by Mr. Nicky.

Fatality, by Rubén Darío (the founder of literary Modernism)

The tree is happy because it is scarcely sentient,
and even more the hard rock because it no longer feels:
for there is no pain greater than the pain of being alive
nor heavier burden than conscious life.

To be, and know nothing, and be without a sure path,
and the dread of having been and of a future terror...
And the certain scare of tomorrow being dead,
and suffer for life and for the shadow and for

what we do not know and we hardly suspect,
and the flesh that temps us with its fresh racemes,
and the tomb that awaits with its funereal bouquets,
and not know what way we are going,
nor from where we came! ...

------

(Translation from Spanish is mine.)

LO FATAL

DICHOSO el árbol, que es apenas sensitivo,
y más la piedra dura porque ésa ya no siente,
pues no hay dolor más grande que el dolor de ser vivo
ni mayor pesadumbre que la vida consciente.

Ser, y no saber nada, y ser sin rumbo cierto,
y el temor de haber sido y un futuro terror...
¡Y el espanto seguro de estar mañana muerto,
y sufrir por la vida y por la sombra y por

lo que no conocemos y apenas sospechamos,
y la carne que tienta con sus frescos racimos,
y la tumba que aguarda con sus fúnebres ramos
y no saber adónde vamos,
ni de dónde venimos!...

Adam Smith's Real Thoughts on the Free Market

Adam Smith warned -

“The interest of the dealers [the stock holding class], however, in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens. The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it."


- An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Chapter XI, Book I. 


(Full book, originally published in 1776, Revised Fifth Edition)