13

Shameless

To be in favor or disgrace
is to live in fear.
To take the body seriously
is to admit one can suffer.

What does that mean,
to be in favor or disgrace
is to live in fear?
Favor debases:
We fear to lose it,
fear to win it.
So to be in favor or disgrace
is to live in fear.

What does that mean,
To take the body seriously
is to admit one can suffer?
I suffer because I'm a body;
If I weren't a body,
how could I suffer?

So people who set their bodily good
before the public good
could be entrusted with the commonwealth,
and people who treated the body politic
as gently as their own body
would be worthy to govern the commonwealth.