Classic Quotes In BDSM Context

[IAmCanadian]

CLASSIC QUOTES IN BDSM CONTEXT

One can find any number of telling and poignant quotes sprinkled throughout the great works of writers and poets in history. Many have interesting leesons for us, when viewed in a BDSM context. I'll be adding to this thread when I can, and I encourage others to do so as well- but only if you like.

I'll start things off with this passage from Plato's "The Last Days Of Socrates". This was written in the 3rd century B.C. Socrates (on death row) and his follower Crito are having a philosophical discussion:

Socrates: "When a man is in training, and taking it seriously, does he pay attention to all praise and criticism and opinion indescriminately, or only when it comes from the one qualified person, the actual doctor or trainer?"

Crito: "Only when it comes from the one qualified person."

Socrates: "Then he should be afraid of the criticism and welcome the praise of the one qualified person, but not those of the general public."

Crito: "Obviously."

Socrates: "So he ought to regulate his actions and exercises and eating and drinking by the judgment of his instructor, who has expert knowledge, rather than by the opinions of the rest of the public."

Crito: "Yes, that is so."

Socrates: "Very well. Now if he disobeys the one man and disregards his opinions and commendations, and pays attention to the advice of the many who have no expert knowledge, surely he will suffer some bad effect?"

Crito: "Certainly."

Socrates: "And what is this bad effect? Where is it produced? I mean, in what part of the disobedient person?"

Crito: "His body, obviously; that is what suffers."

I think it will be revealed that most of these quotes don't have far to travel in order to be applicable to a BDSM lifestyle, and this should come as no surprise at all- because I believe that BDSM doesn't have as far to travel from the so-called "norm" as some might think. The ideas behind BDSM are ones that any human being would recognize.

- FS

[leo9]

My slave-wife used to use as a sigline a Shakespearian quote: "I am your spaniel, and the more you beat me, the more I will fawn on you."

[IAmCanadian]

My slave-wife used to use as a sigline a Shakespearian quote: "I am your spaniel, and the more you beat me, the more I will fawn on you."

That's a good one! It's from A Midsummer Night's Dream, and the full passage, spoken by the character Helena, is interesting indeed:

I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius,

The more you beat me, I will fawn on you:

Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me,

Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave,

Unworthy as I am, to follow you.

What worser place can I beg in your love,--

And yet a place of high respect with me,--

Than to be used as you use your dog?

[leah06]

Well, this doesn't have quite the same intellectual pedigree, so to speak, but:

"What praise is more valuable than the praise of an intelligent servant? . . . She considered how many people's happiness were in his guardianship! How much of pleasure or pain it was in his power to bestow! How much of good or evil must be done by him!" Jane Austin, Pride and Prejudice.

[Euryleia]

And a woman spoke, saying, 'Tell us of Pain.'

And he said:

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.

And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;

Kahlil Gibran

[SubmissiveDoll]

"The very instant that I saw you did my heart fly to your service, there it resides, to make me a slave to it; and for your sake."

Shakespeare - The Tempest

[damyanti]

Great thread!!!
I notice that all the time...glad to see its not just my dirty mind, lol.


A Prayer

Again!
Come, give, yield all your strength to me!
From far a low word breathes on the breaking brain
Its cruel calm, submission's misery,
Gentling her awe as to a soul predestined.
Cease, silent love! My doom!

Blind me with your dark nearness, O have mercy, beloved enemy of my will!
I dare not withstand the cold touch that I dread.
Draw from me still
My slow life! Bend deeper on me, threatening head,
Proud by my downfall, remembering, pitying
Him who is, him who was!

Again!
Together, folded by the night, they lay on earth. I hear
From far her low word breathe on my breaking brain.
Come! I yield. Bend deeper upon me! I am here.
Subduer, do not leave me! Only joy, only anguish,
Take me, save me, soothe me, O spare me!

James Joyce

[gagged_Louise]

This is from the opening scene of The Road to Damascus, a play by August Strindberg. The Unknown Man (more or less a moniker for Strindberg himself) and the Lady meet in a street corner and check into a dowdy little hotel. He knows he has creditors on his heels and maybe some more:

The Unknown Man: As soon as I heard this was hotel room number eight, I felt the pang of fear - but then I started longing to be tortured.
The Lady: Me also.
The Unknown Man: So you too have been here before, then?
The Lady: Yes.

Strindberg definitely had a sado-masochist streak, he enjoyed picturing lovers who become each other's worst enemies and knew it from his own life too. Famous for picking up on tiny dishonours and details and reading deep ill-will into them. At one point in Inferno, written around the same time as The Road to Damascus and also using himself for the bones of the main character, he recalls staying in a hotel and being "haunted by the dark, unseen powers" when loud piano playing suddenly kicked in from the three rooms around him at the same time.

[Hime]

Here's one I saved from a grad school reading assignment:

"When danger or pain press too nearly, they are incapable of giving any delight, and are simply terrible; but at certain distances, and with certain modifications, they may be, and they are, delightful, as we every day experience. The cause of this I shall endeavour to investigate hereafter." -- From Edmund Burke's On The Sublime and the Beautiful.

Funny, he never says how he "investigated."

[gagged_Louise]

"You gave me Mozart, before
you killed me"

-enigmatic quote from the Swedish poet Göran Sonnevi. Irresistibly conjures up the image of a serial killer who ties up his victims and then ritually offers them a "Mozart sweet" (Mozartkugel), the kind that's a staple in cafés of Salzburg - before torturing and murdering them.

[Emerson]

Shakespeare actually wrote two sonnets that are relatively explicit (#57, 58):

57

Being your slave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor services to do till you require.
Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour
Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour
When you have bid your servant once adieu.
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But, like a sad slave, stay and think of naught
Save where you are how happy you make those.
So true a fool is love that in your will,
Though you do anything, he thinks no ill.

58

That god forbid that made me first your slave
I should in thought control your times of pleasure,
Or at your hand th' account of hours to crave,
Being your vassal bound to stay your leisure.
O, let me suffer, being at your beck,
Th' imprissoned absence of your liberty;
And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each check,
Without accusing you of injury.
Be where you list, your charter is so strong
That you yourself may priviledge your time
To what you will; to you it doth belong
Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime.
I am to wait, though waiting so be hell,
Not blame your pleasure, be it ill or well.

[gagged_Louise]

This one by Dante may be more about jealousy than about real BDSM, but the sadistic vibe is unmistakable. The brutal images must have been really shocking in the early 14th century - at the end the angered man dreams of pulling his cold woman by the hair, threatening to strike her in the face - not said openly, but kind of implied - flogging her, and forcing her into subjugation. Most of his stand-alone poems are much tidier than this one, and it's been seen as an early attempt at the climate and style of his description of Hell.

---
Ah, agonizing merciless file that hiddenly
rasps my life away! Why do you not refrain
from so gnawing my heart through
layer by layer, as I do from revealing
who she is who gives you strength?

For whenever I think of her in a place
where another may turn his eyes,
my heart trembles more with fear lest
my thought shine out and be discovered,
than I tremble at that death which already
is devouring all my senses with the teeth
of Love; that is, my torment is gnawing away
their strength and slowing down their action.
Love has struck me to the ground and stands
over me with the sword with which he slew Dido,
and I cry to him calling for mercy,
and humbly I implore him, but he shows
himself set against all mercy.
Again and again he raises his hand
threatening my weakened life, this evil one
who pins me to the ground, flat on my back,
and too exhausted to move. Then shrieks
arise in my mind, and the blood
that was dispersed through my veins
runs fleeing back to the heart
that summons it, so that I am left white.

He strikes me under the left arm
so violently that the pain rebounds
through my heart. Then I say:
'If he lifts his hand again, death will have
locked me in before the blow descends.'
Would that I could see him split the heart
of the cruel woman who cuts mine to pieces!
For then that death would not seem black to me,
to which her beauty drives me --striking as she
does with equal force in sunlight and in shade,
this murderous assassin and robber.
Alas, why does she not howl for me in the hot
gorge, as I do for her? For at once I'd cry:
'I'll help you': and gladly would I do so,
for in the yellow hair that Love
curls and gilds for my destruction
I'd put my hand, and then
she would begin to love me.

Once I'd taken in my hand the fair locks
which have become my whip and lash, seizing them
before terce I'd pass through vespers with them
and the evening bell: and I'd not show pity
or courtesy, Oh no, I'd be like a bear at play.
And though Love whips me with them now, I would
take my revenge more than a thousandfold.
Still more, I'd gaze into those eyes
whence come the sparks that inflame my heart,
which is dead within me; I'd gaze into them
close and fixedly, to revenge myself on her
for fleeing from me as she does: and then
with love I would make our peace.

The translation is more a kind of content rendering, it doesn't catch the force and elegance of the original. Full text in Italian and English at the Princeton Dante project: http://etcweb.princeton.edu/dante/pdp/ (Minor Works/Rime (poems) and rime ciii, poem nr.103)

[damyanti]

He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command.
Niccolo Machiavelli, I think this one is from, "The Prince"

And, "Machiavelli's poem":

I hope and hoping feeds my pain
I weep and weeping feeds my failing heart
I laugh but the laughter does not pass within
I burn but the burning makes no mark outside

[Veridical]

Mmm. I have a couple...

"Slavery takes hold of few, but many take hold of slavery."
- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
"Trust me that as I ignore all law to help the slave, so will I ignore it all to protect an enslaved woman."
- Susan B. Anthony
"No one is more enslaved than a slave who doesn't think they're enslaved. "
- Kate Beckinsale
"A woman who does not become the slave of just one man becomes the slave of all men."
- Jose Bergamin

Granted, these aren't 'classic', per say, but they are rather significant.

[RedHotKinky]

I can't remember where I read this but I've never forgotten it....

"Innocence is everywhere, but the open enjoyment of perversion is rare."

[damyanti]

What kind of idea
does Submission seem today?
One full of fear.
An idea that runs away.

- Salman Rushdie, the Satanic Verses

[SubmissiveDoll]

I adore this one. Can't explain it, but it struck me when I read it.

"A woman who does not become the slave of just one man becomes the slave of all men."
- Jose Bergamin