From 29f1470ec639dc31a30caeb4c1ab9f33a566ab11 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: PatR Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2015 17:15:15 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] tribute: Small Gods --- dat/tribute | 209 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-- 1 file changed, 204 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-) diff --git a/dat/tribute b/dat/tribute index 700a3486b..745551a9d 100644 --- a/dat/tribute +++ b/dat/tribute @@ -342,15 +342,210 @@ managed it from the cat. # # # -%title Small Gods (2) +%title Small Gods (12) %passage 1 -He says gods like to see an atheist around. Gives them something to aim at. +He says gods like to see an atheist around. Gives them something to aim at. [Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett] %e passage %passage 2 -Pets are always a great help in times of stress. And in times of starvation -too, o'course. +Pets are always a great help in times of stress. And in times of starvation +too, o'course. + + [Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett] +%e passage +# p. 3 (Harper Torch edition) +%passage 3 +So history has its caretakers. + +They live ... well, in the nature of things they live wherever they are +sent, but their /spiritual/ home is in a hidden valley in the high Ramtops +of the Discworld, where the books of history are kept. + +These aren't books in which the events of the past are pinned like so many +butterflies to a cork. These are the books from which history in derived. +There are more than twenty thousand of them, each one is ten feet high, +bound in lead, and the letters are so small that they have to be read with +a magnifying glass. + +When people say "It is written ..." it is written /here/. + +There are fewer metaphors than people think. + +Every month the abbot and two senior monks go into the cave where the +books are kept. It used to be the duty of the abbot alone, but two other +reliable monks were included after the unfortunate case of the 59th Abbot, +who made a million dollars in small bets before his fellow monks caught up +with him. + +Besides, it's dangerous to go in alone. The sheer concentratedness of +History, sleeting past soundlessly out into the world, can be overwhelming. +Time is a drug. Too much of it kills you. + + [Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett] +%e passage +# pp. 4-5 +%passage 4 +It was the Year of the Notional Serpent, or two hundred years after the +Declaration of the Prophet Abbys. + +Which meant that the time of the 8th Prophet was imminent. + +That was the reliable thing about the Church of the Great God Om. It had +very punctual prophets. You could set your calendar by them, if you had +one big enough. + +And, as is generally the case around the time a prophet is expected, the +Church redoubled its efforts to be holy. This was very much like the +bustle you get in any large concern when the auditors are expected, but +tended towards taking people suspected of being less holy and putting them +to death in a hundred ingenious ways. This is considered a reliable +barometer of the state of one's piety in most of the really popular +religions. There's a tendency to declare that there is more backsliding +around than in the national toboggan championships, that heresy must be +torn out root and branch, and even arm and leg and eye and tongue, and +that it's time to wipe the slate clean. Blood is generally considered +very efficient for this purpose. + + [Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett] +%e passage +# p. 60 ("he" is a tortoise, unnoticed among a large crowd of people) +%passage 5 +He walked off slowly, keeping close to the wall to avoid the feet. He had +no alternative to walking slowly in any case, but now he was walking slowly +because he was thinking. Most gods find it hard to walk and think at the +same time. + + [Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett] +%e passage +# p. 60 (same page as preceding passage) +%passage 6 +There were all sorts of ways to petition the Great God, but they depended +largely on how much you could afford, which was right and proper and +exactly how things should be. After all, those who had achieved success +in the world clearly had done it with the approval of the Great God, +because it was impossible to believe that they had managed it with His +/disapproval/. In the same way, the Quisition could act without +possibility of flaw. Suspicion was proof. How could it be anything else? +The Great God would not have seen fit to put the suspicion in the minds +of His exquisitors unless it was /right/ that it should be there. Life +could be very simple, if you believed in the Great God Om. And sometimes +quite short, too. + + [Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett] +%e passage +# p. 92 ([sic] first paragraph ought to have fourth '.' to end sentence) +%passage 7 +The memory stole over him: a desert is what you think it is. And now, +you can think clearly ... + +There were no lies here. All fancies fled away. That's what happened in +all deserts. It was just you, and what you believed. + +What have I always believed? + +That on the whole, and by and large, if a man lived properly, not +according to what any priests said, but according to what seemed decent +and honest /inside/, then it would, in the end, more or less, turn out +all right. + +You couldn't get that on a banner. But the desert looked better already. + + [Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett] +%e passage +# p. 114 +%passage 8 +Vorbis had a cabin somewhere near the bilges, where the air was as thick +as thin soup. Brutha knocked. + +"Enter."(1) + +(1) Words are the litmus paper of the mind. If you find yourself in the +power of someone who will use the word "commence" in cold blood, go +somewhere else very quickly. But if they say "Enter," don't stop to pack. + + [Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett] +%e passage +# p. 141 (at the end, Xeno is almost certainly agreeing with Ibid, but +# he /might/ be answering Brutha's last question) +%passage 9 +"Are you all philosophers?" said Brutha. + +The one called Xeno stepped forward, adjusting the hang of his toga. + +"That's right," he said. "We're philosophers. We think, therefore we am." + +"Are," said the luckless paradox manufacturer automatically. + +Xeno spun around. "I've just about had it up to /here/ with you, Ibid!" he +roared. He turned back to Brutha. "We /are/, therefore we am," he said +confidently. "That's it." + +Several of the philosophers looked at one another with interest. + +"That's actually quite interesting," one said. "The evidence of our +existence is the /fact/ of our existence, is that what you're saying?" + +"Shut up," said Xeno, without looking around. + +"Have you been fighting?" said Brutha. + +The assembled philosophers assumed various expressions of shock and horror. + +"Fighting? Us? We're /philosophers/," said Ibid, shocked. + +"My word, yes," said Xeno. + + [Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett] +%e passage +# p. 151 +%passage 10 +All over the world there were rulers with titles like the Exalted, the +Supreme, and Lord High Something or Other. Only in one small country was +the ruler elected by the people, who could remove him whenever they +wanted--and they called him the Tyrant. + +The Ephebians believed that every man should have the vote.(1) Every five +years someone was elected to be Tyrant, provided he could prove that he +was honest, intelligent, sensible, and trustworthy. Immediately after he +was elected, of course, it was obvious to everyone that he was a criminal +madman and totally out of touch with the view of the ordinary philosopher +in the street looking for a towel. And then five years later they elected +another one just like him, and really it was amazing how intelligent +people kept on making the same mistakes. + +(1) Provided that we wasn't poor, foreign, nor disqualified by reason of +being mad, frivolous, or a woman. + + [Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett] +%e passage +# p. 239 +%passage 11 +"I still don't see how one god can be a hundred different thunder gods. +They all look different ..." + +"False noses." + +"What?" + +"And different voices. I happen to know Io's got seventy different hammers. +Not common knowledge, that. And it's just the same with mother goddesses. +There's only one of 'em. She just got a lot of wigs and of course it's +amazing what you can do with a padded bra." + + [Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett] +%e passage +# p. 265 +%passage 12 +An hour later the lion, who was limping after Brutha, also arrived at the +grave. It had lived in the desert for sixteen years, and the reason it had +lived so long was that it had not died, and it had not died because it +never wasted handy protein. It dug. + +Humans have always wasted handy protein ever since they started wondering +who had lived in it. + +But, on the whole, there are worse places to be buried than inside a lion. [Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett] %e passage @@ -2383,7 +2578,7 @@ looking at. # Used for interaction with Death. # %section Death -%title Death Quotes (6) +%title Death Quotes (7) %passage 1 WHERE THE FIRST PRIMAL CELL WAS, THERE WAS I ALSO. WHERE MAN IS, THERE AM I. WHEN THE LAST LIFE CRAWLS UNDER FREEZING STARS, THERE WILL I BE. %e passage @@ -2408,5 +2603,9 @@ HAVE YOU SPOKEN TO RONNIE LATELY? %passage 6 PLEASE DO NOT PANIC. YOU ARE MERELY DEAD. %e passage +# Small Gods, p. 90 (Harper Torch edition) +%passage 7 +THERE IS A LITTLE CONFUSION AT FIRST. IT IS ONLY TO BE EXPECTED. +%e passage %e title %e section