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I am Pallas Athena; and I know the thoughts of all men’s hearts, and discern their manhood from their baseness. And from the souls of clay I turn away, and they are blessed but not by me. They fatten at ease, like the sheep in the pasture, and eat what they did not sow, Like oxen in the stall. They grow and spread, like the gourd along the ground; but like the gourd, they give no shade to the traveler, and when they are ripe death gathers them, and they go down unloved into hell, and their name vanishes out of the land. ‘But to the souls of fire I give more fire, and to those who are manful I give a might more than man’s. These are the Heroes, the sons of the immortals, who are blessed, but not like the souls of clay. For I drive them forth by strange paths, that they may fight the Titans and the monsters, the enemies of Gods and men. Through doubt and need, danger and battle, I drive them ; and some of them are slain in the flower of their youth, no man knows when or where; and some of them win noble names, and a fair and green old age; but what will be their latter end I know not, and none save Zeus the father of Gods and men.
From "The Heros" by Kingsley
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