The Annotated 'Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes'/Velay

by Robert Louis Stevenson

Velay

"Many are the mighty things, and nought is more mighty than man. . . . He masters by his devices the tenant of the fields."^[1]

--Sophocles.

"Who hath loosed the bands of the wild ass?"^[2]

--Job.

Notes

1. Antigone (442 BC), second chorus:

   There are many strange and wonderful things,

   but nothing more strangely wonderful than man.

   He moves across the white-capped ocean seas

   blasted by winter storms, carving his way

   under the surging waves engulfing him.

   With his teams of horses he wears down

   the unwearied and immortal earth,

   the oldest of the gods, harassing her,

   as year by year his ploughs move back and forth.

   (translation by Ian Johnston, 2003)

2. or "Who hath sent out the wild ass free?" Job 39:5 (KJV).