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What does "Unequal laws unto a savage race" mean?

 
 
Reply Fri 28 Mar, 2014 10:05 pm
Does it mean "(I distribute a small portion of) different laws (or unfair laws) to govern those savage people?"

Plus, what does "That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me" mean?
Does it mean "te savage people do not know me, yet I give them peace (give them property, sleeptime and food"?

Context:

It little profits that an idle king,By this still hearth, among these barren crags,Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race,That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.I cannot rest from travel; I will drinklife to the lees. All times I have enjoyedGreatly, have suffered greatly, both with thosethat loved me, and alone; on shore, and whenThrough scudding drifts the rainy HyadesVexed the dim sea. I am become a name;For always roaming with a hungry heartMuch have I seen and known---cities of menAnd manners, climates, councils, governments,Myself not least, but honored of them all---And drunk delight of battle with my peers,Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.I am part of all that I have met;Yet all experience is an arch wherethroughGleams that untraveled world whose margin fadesForever and forever when I move.How dull it is to pause, to make an end.To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!As though to breathe were life! Life piled on lifeWere all too little, and of one to meLittle remains; but every hour is savedFrom that eternal silence, something more,A bringer of new things; and vile it wereFor some three suns to store and hoard myself,And this gray spirit yearning in desireTo follow knowledge like a sinking star,Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.This is my son, my own Telemachus,To whom I leave the scepter and the isle---Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfillThis labor, by slow prudence to make mildA rugged people, and through soft degreesSubdue them to the useful and the good.Most blameless is he, centered in the sphereOf common duties, decent not to failIn offices of tenderness, and payMeet adoration to my household gods,When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail;There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me---That ever with a frolic welcome tookThe thunder and the sunshine, and opposedFree hearts, free foreheads---you and I are old;Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.Death closes all; but something ere the end,Some work of noble note, may yet be done,Not unbecoming men that strove with gods.The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deepMoans round with many voices. Come, my friends.'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.Push off, and sitting well in order smitethe sounding furrows; for my purpose holdsTo sail beyond the sunset, and the bathsOf all the western stars, until It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;It may be that we shall touch the Happy Isles,And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.Though much is taken, much abides; and
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Type: Question • Score: 2 • Views: 920 • Replies: 1
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oristarA
 
  1  
Reply Sat 29 Mar, 2014 05:41 am
@oristarA,
La la la, it is a hopeless case.
Let's forget it?
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