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Selected Poems
The only freedom the gods grant us
Is this: to submit
Of our own free will to their sovereignty.
We should do just that,
Since only in the illusion of freedom
Does freedom exist.
It is what the gods, subject
To eternal fate, do
To maintain their calm and unwavering
Ancient conviction
That their life is divine and free.
Imitating the gods,
Who are no freer on Olympus than we are,
Let’s build our lives
Like those who build castles of sand
To delight their eyes,
And the gods will know how to thank us
For being so like them.
Ricardo Reis
Fernando Pessoa, A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe. Selected Poems, Edited and Translated by Richard Zenith, London: Penguin Books, p. 93

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