Cost

There's a cost to everything we do,
Its an integral part of life;
Only babes and fools expect pure
Joy without a hint of strife.

How many  "born with a Silver Spoon

Really live lives of total bliss,
Their existence one of contentedness,
Never having to dodge the Abyss?

And when someone does you a good turn,
That, too, is not without price,
Even if payment for the altruistic one
is just to be considered as nice.

Born in innocence, taught cynicism
By merely learning to survive;
The pragmatic ones go through life
Knowing theyll never get out of it alive.

Come The Final Trump, therell still be a cost
In deciding ones eventual fate:
For, ultimately, its better to have
Been associated with The Graces than with Ate.
©11/4/2003 Thurman P. Woodfork

In Greek mythology, the Three Graces are three goddesses of happiness, beauty and feasts. The nymph Eurynome and Zeus were their parents and their names were Aglaia (Splendor), Euphrosyne (Delight) and Thalia (Blossom). They served Aphrodite and Eros and sang and danced for the gods together with the Muses to the music of Apollo's lyre.  

Ate is the Greek personification of infatuation, the rash foolishness of blind impulse, usually caused by guilt and leading to retribution. The goddess of discord and mischief, she tempted man to do evil, and then lead him to ruin. She once even managed to entrap Zeus, but he hurled her down from the Olympus. Now she wanders the earth, as a kind of avenging spirit, but still working her mischief among mankind. Her sisters, the Litai, follow her and repair the damage she has wrought to mortals.

Ate is regarded as the daughter of Zeus and Eris, the goddess of strife. In Shakespeare's play, "Julius Caesar," part of Mark Anthony's speech to the dead Caesar went, "...and Caesar's spirit, ranging for revenge with Ate by his side come hot from Hell, shall, in these confines, with a monarch's voice cry Havoc! and let slip the Dogs of War, that this foul deed shall smell above the earth with carrion men groaning for burial." I may not have quoted that exactly, but you get the idea. That old Will Shakespeare had a way with words, didn't he?