Page:Val d'Arno (Ruskin, 1890).djvu/197

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VIII.—FRANCHISE.
165

198. Thy precepts:—Law, observe, being dominant over the Gothic as over the Greek king, but a quite different law. Edward III. feeling no anger against the Sieur de Ribaumont, and crowning him with his own pearl chaplet, is obeying the law of love, restraining anger; but Theseus, slaying the Minotaur, is obeying the law of justice, and enforcing anger.

The one is acting under the law of the charity, χάρις, or grace of God; the other under the law of His judgment. The two together fulfil His κρίσις and ἀγάπη.

199. Therefore the Greek dynasties are finally expressed in the kinghoods of Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Aeacus, who judge infallibly, and divide arithmetically. But the dynasty of the Gothic king is in equity and compassion, and his arithmetic is in largesse,

"Whose moste joy was, I wis,
When that she gave, and said, Have this."

So that to put it in shortest terms of all, Greek law is of Stasy, and Gothic of Ec-stasy; there is no limit to the freedom of the Gothic hand or heart, and the children are most in