John Norman - Marauders of Gor

Those who best know how to live, sometimes it seems to me, are those least likely to be articulate in such skills. It is not that they have not learned, but, having learned, they find they cannot tell what they know, for only words can be told, and what is learned in living is more than words, other than words beyond words. We can say, "This building is beautiful," but we do not learn the beauty of the building from the words; the building it is which teaches us its beauty; and how can one speak the beauty of the building, as it is? Does one say it has so many pillars, that it has a roof of a certain type, and such? Can one simply say, "The building is beautiful?" Yes, one can say that, but what one learns when one sees the beauty of the building cannot be spoken; it is not words; it is the buildings beauty.

The morality of Earth, from the Gorean point of view, is a morality which would be viewed as more appropriate to slaves than free men. It would be seen in terms of the envy and resentment of inferiors for their superiors. It lays great stress on equalities and being humble and being pleasant and avoiding friction and being ingratiating and small. It is a morality in the best interest of slaves, who would be only too eager to be regarded as the equals of others. We are all the same. That is the hope of slaves; that is what it is in their best interests to convince others of.

The Gorean morality on the other hand is more one of inequalities, based on the assumption that individuals are not the same, but quite different in many ways. It might be said to be, though this is oversimple, a morality of masters. Guilt is almost unknown in Gorean morality, though shame and anger are not. Many Earth moralities encourage resignation and accommodation: Gorean morality is bent more towards conquest and defiance; many Earth moralities encourage tenderness, pity and gentleness, sweetness; Gorean morality encourages honor, courage, hardness and strength. To Gorean morality, many Earth moralities might ask "Why so hard?". To these Earth moralities, the Gorean ethos might ask, "Why so soft?".

I have sometimes thought that the Goreans might do well to learn something of tenderness, and, perhaps, that those of Earth might do well to learn something of hardness. But I do not know how to live. I have sought the answers, but I have not found them. The morality of slaves says, "You are equal to me; we are both the same"; the morality of masters says, "We are not equal; we are not the same; become equal to me; then we will be the same." The morality of slaves reduces all to bondage; the morality of masters encourages all to attain, if they can, the heights of freedom.

I know of no prouder, more self-reliant, more magnificent creature than the free Gorean, male or female: they are often touchy, and viciously tempered, but they are seldom petty or small: moreover they do not hate and fear their bodies or their instincts; when they restrain themselves it is a victory over titanic forces; not the consequence of a slow metabolism; but sometimes they do not restrain themselves; they do not assume that their instincts and blood are enemies and spies, saboteurs in the house of themselves; they know them and welcome them as part of their persons; they are as little suspicious of them as the cat of its cruelty, or the lion of its hunger; their desire for vengeance, their will to speak out and defend themselves, their lust, they regard as intrinsically and gloriously a portion of themselves as their thinking or their hearing.

Many Earth moralities make people little; the object of Gorean morality, for all its faults, is to make people free and great. These objectives are quiet different it is clear to see. Accordingly, one would expect that the implementing moralities would, also be considerably different.

I sat in the darkness and thought on these things. There were no maps for me.

I, Tarl Cabot, or Bosk of Port Kar, was torn between worlds.

I did not know how to live.

I was bitter.

But the Goreans have a saying, which came to me in the darkness, in the hall, "Do not ask the stones or the trees how to live; they cannot tell you; they do not have tongues; do not ask the wise man how to live, for, if he knows, he will know he cannot tell you; if you would learn how to live, do not ask the question; its answer is not in the question but in the answer, which is not in words; do not ask how to live, but, instead, proceed to do so."

I do not fully understand this saying. How, for example, can one proceed to do what one does not know how to do? The answer, I suspect, is that the Gorean belief is that one does, truly, in some way, know how to live, though one may not know that one knows. The knowledge is regarded as being somehow within one. Perhaps it is regarded as being somehow innate, or a function of instincts. I do not know. The saying may also be interpreted as encouraging one to act, to behave, to do and then, in the acting, the doing, the behaving, to learn. These two interpretations, of course, are not incompatible. The child, one supposes, has the innate disposition, when a certain maturation level is attained, to struggle to its feet and walk, as it did to crawl, when an earlier level was attained, and yet it truly learns to crawl and to walk and then to run, only in the crawling, in the walking and running.

The refrain ran through my mind. "Do not ask how to live, but, instead, proceed to do so."

But how could I live, I, a cripple, huddled in the chair of a captain, in a darkened hall?

I was rich, but I envied the meanest herder of verr, the lowest peasant scattering dung in his furrows, for they could move as they pleased.

I tried to clench my left fist. But the hand did not move.

How should one live?

In the codes of the warriors, there is a saying, "Be strong, and do as you will. The swords of others will set your limits."

I had been one of the finest swordsmen on Gor. But now I could not move the left side of my body.

But I could still command steel, that of my men, who, for no reason I understood, they Goreans, remained true to me, loyal to a cripple, confined to a captain's chair in a darkened hall.

I was grateful to them, but I would show them nothing of this, for I was a captain.

They must not be demeaned.

"Within the circle of each man's sword," say the codes of the warrior, "therein is each man a Ubar."

"Steel is the coinage of the warrior," say the codes, "With it he purchases what pleases him."

When I had returned from the northern forests I had resolved not to look upon Talena, once daughter of Marlenus of Ar, whom Samos had purchased from panther girls.

But I had had my chair carried to his hall.

"Shall I present her to you" asked Samos, "naked and in bracelets?"

"No," I had said. "Present her in the most resplendent robes you can find, as befits a high-born woman of the city of Ar."

"But she is a slave," he said. "Her thigh bears the brand of Treve. Her throat is encircled in the collar of my house."

"As befits," said I, "a high-born woman of the city of glorious Ar."

And so it was that she, Talena, once daughter of Marlenus of Ar, then disowned, once my companion, was ushered into my presence.

"The slave," said Samos.

"Do not kneel," I said to her.

"Strip your face, Slave," said Samos.

Gracefully the girl, the property of Samos, first slaver of Port Kar, removed her veil, unfastening it, dropping it about her shoulders.

We looked once more upon each other.

I saw again those marvelous green eyes, those lips, luscious, perfect for crushing beneath a warrior's mouth and teeth, the subtle complexion, olive. She removed a pin from her hair, and, with a small movement of her head, shook loose the wealth of her sable hair.

We regarded one another.