Hitting and Striking an Opponent: Is It An Idea Whose Days Have Now Passed Us By?

TOWSON, Maryland, Wednesday, August 23, 2017 - Reclined and languid, waiting for the exhale of the opponent so that I might strike.

It is never crystal clear, this idea of striking.  Lashing out at another human is brought about by a stupefying concoction of brain waves, brain spurts and brain wave malfunctions, to begin with.  Really, it is.  Why must it exist at all?  Why is the thought of lashing out with the intent of crippling or killing another of my own kind something that crosses my mind at all...

What did Shakespeare say of the idea?  How about Tennyson?  The Academy of American Poets maintains a web page.  I plugged in this thought and received a reply that includes some of the world's greatest poems.  Near or at the top of the reply was this:

From Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene II [I know that virtue to be in you, Brutus]. Authored by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616).

[Cassius speaks to Brutus]

"I know that virtue to be in you, Brutus,
As well as I do know your outward favor.
Well, honor is the subject of my story.
I cannot tell what you and other men
Think of this life; but, for my single self,
I had as lief not be as live to be
In awe of such a thing as I myself.
I was born free as Caesar; so were you;
We both have fed as well, and we can both
Endure the winter’s cold as well as he.
For once, upon a raw and gusty day,
The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores,
Caesar said to me “Dar’st thou, Cassius, now
Leap in with me into this angry flood
And swim to yonder point?” Upon the word,
Accoutered as I was, I plungèd in
And bade him follow; so indeed he did.
The torrent roared, and we did buffet it
With lusty sinews, throwing it aside
And stemming it with hearts of controversy.
But ere we could arrive at the point proposed,
Caesar cried “Help me, Cassius, or I sink!”
I, as Aeneas, our great ancestor,
Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder
The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber
Did I the tired Caesar. And this man
Is now become a god, and Cassius is
A wretched creature and must bend his body
If Caesar carelessly but nod on him.
He had a fever when he was in Spain,
And when the fit was on him, I did mark
How he did shake. ’Tis true, this god did shake.
His coward lips did from their color fly,
And that same eye whose bend doth awe the world
Did lose his luster. I did hear him groan.
Ay, and that tongue of his that bade the Romans
Mark him and write his speeches in their books,
“Alas,” it cried “Give me some drink, Titinius”
As a sick girl. You gods, it doth amaze me
A man of such feeble temper should
So get the start of the majestic world
And bear the palm alone."


                                                                                                          This poem is in the public domain.

I suppose that it is a good thing that we discuss the idea.  And yet, I am not even sure about this.  Let us move forward.  Let us keep the physical acts of temper between us be kept at an absolute minimum.  I, for one, would not be at all upset if the absolute minimum we achieve is, in reality, no physical acts at all.