When the brothers were conversing king Shahrayar said to his brother king Shahzaman:

Brother, you were fortunate in  killing your           wife and her lover, who gave you good reason      to feel troubled, careworn, and ill. In my                opinion, what happened to you has never            happened to anyone else. By God, I had been      in your place, I would have killed a hundred        or even a thousand women.

I dont believe that someone can just kill because of adultery. However it is unpredictable when a person is covered with strong negative emotions. King Shahzaman must blocked out when he sliced up the lover and his wife and then threw them out the balcony. It’s very hard to imagine what will be the reaction when you caught someone red handed. It’s really a matter of flight or fight.

King Shahrayar is showing of to his brother that this will never happened to him because if it did he will kill them all. His wife will not going to dare to do it or even think about it because she knows her place. No one should assume they know everything that is going on in his/her life. In addition if you believe you are doing great be humble

I can see in this excerpt the foreshadowing of king Shahrayar. He had it so bad. His wife was having an orgy in his palace while he is gone. It’s more than an orgy because it has role playing, heterogeneous and homogeneous sexual intercourse, mix racial and mix social class.

War is the worst part of human kind history. It is very hard to describe what happens in war and no one will ever know what really happens during war. If a veteran or a firsthand witness from war told us the stories, we will not be able to relate nor understand the inhumane detail. Based on the previous stories we read specifically Iliad, we can learn how they disrespect the defeated party in the war. For example, Hector wanted to take Patroclus body when he was murdered but the Greek were able to recover Patroclus body. Achilles disrespected Hector’s corpse but was recovered by Priarm. Both situations were able to divert from disrespect. It is not uncommon for them to make sure that they will show how powerful they are by torturing the dead and disrespecting their mourning rituals.

In contrast, the decline of Zhou had a different discipline in war defeat. They had an arrangement “Battle started with an agreement on both sides, states that were in mourning for their rulers were not attacked, and, if a state was defeated, the conqueror respectfully continued the ancestral sacrifices for the vanquished ruling lineage.”(Early Chinese Literature, 1314). Zhou is in throne but slowly taken over by Chu, Wu and Yue in the South and Qin in the west. All parties have their unique discipline to follow through their agreement.

For some reason, I do see that Asians have more discipline throughout history. Like Japanese military leader, when they fail or did something wrong, they will take their life away. They cannot live with their failure and it is respectful for them to honor their family by killing themselves.

I do hope the war will end soon. I do hope we can live harmoniously. However, we all have different perspective in life that sometimes we all clash. I just hope that the winning party can humbly take their winning and do not mangle the dead bodies, let them come home to their native soil. There is no point of rubbing it to the losers. We need to follow Zhou’s agreement with their enemy. We should be able to bring home all fallen soldiers or civilians caught in the horrific war.

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Zeus is trying to hide Thetis from Hera because he knows that she will throw a fit. However, Hera found out and she lost her nerve. The gods was about to have a feast so Hephaestus said “Mother, please, I don’t have to tell you, You have to be pleasant to our father Zeus So he won’t be angry and ruin our feast.” (Homer, Book 1-610). It looks like that Zeus is afraid of Hera and the irony is everyone is afraid of Zeus. This gives me a picture of a father and a mother having a quarrel and the child is trying to mediate the situation.

How could Zeus have a small problem like this if he if the top dog? I wonder where he consul for advice if he is able to do everything with all his might. I do believe that everyone has a match as Zeus found his match, which is Hera. This shows that Zeus is not perfect at all.

This part really standout for me. We have been speaking that women is just an object or a possession. The woman needs to be protected because of honor. Man does not want anybody to touch his property. It seems like woman does not have any say and they are being pass around like a piece of object or a prize. In contradiction, in Zeus household Hera has a say on everything Zeus does. I do think that most of Zeus decision in the book comes from Hera.