“All a man can betray is his conscience.” - Joseph Conrad
Betrayal is hard to cope with, but it is perhaps felt even more sharply and keenly when it is combined with ingratitude on the part of the traitor. Such behaviour can highlight the worse in human beings and shows the basest kinds of motivations and urges that people can display. While we may all have been betrayed to an extent at one or another stage of our life, major forms of disloyalty and treachery that affect us can crush us and have widespread effects, psychologically and emotionally.
THE WORLD
BY day she woos me, soft, exceeding fair:
But all night as the moon so changeth she;
Loathsome and foul with hideous leprosy
And subtle serpents gliding in her hair.
By day she woos me to the outer air,
Ripe fruits, sweet flowers, and full satiety:
But through the night, a beast she grins at me,
A very monster void of love and prayer.
By day she stands a lie: by night she stands
In all the naked horror of the truth
With pushing horns and clawed and clutching hands.
Is this a friend indeed; that I should sell
My soul to her, give her my life and youth,
Till my feet, cloven too, take hold on hell?
Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)
Betrayal of any kind, by anyone is hard to deal with. I defy anyone who says that a betrayal would not affect them.
ReplyDeleteI sincerely hope that betrayal is not something you are experiencing now.
To be betrayed by a partner is a devastating experience. To be betrayed by a friend is terrible, especially if he/she is a close one.
ReplyDeleteAs Bee says above, I hope this has not happened to you, Nicholas
and as per Oscar...Yet each man kills the thing he loves
ReplyDeleteBy each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!