Utopia

innocence, blessed, living a life that is in some way celestial, and thus, like the heaven above, it is above the turmoil of this known world. Which, in the studies of so many mortals—as sharp and intense as they are vain and fruitless—is swept tumultuously and feverishly toward a precipice. Therefore, we owe the knowledge of that island to THOMAS MORE, who in our age promulgated an example of a blessed life and a prescription for living, discovered, as he himself states, by Hythloday, to whom he gives all credit. For, just as he built a state for the Utopians and established rites and institutions for them—that is, he borrowed from there and brought to us an argument for a blessed life—MORE certainly illustrated the island and its holy institutions with his style and speech, and polished the city of the Hagnopolitans citizens of the holy city to a standard and rule. He added everything that gives a magnificent work beauty, grace, and authority, even though in carrying out that work he claimed for himself only the role of a builder; for it was a matter of religious respect to assume for himself a larger part in that work, lest Hythloday could rightly complain that the glory he had earned and discussed was being stolen by MORE, if he should ever decide to commit his own labors to writing. original Greek: "Εὐλαβouμένος δῆθεν αὐτὸς, μὴ Ἡθλόδαιος αὐτὸς ὁ τῇ οὐδεποτίᾳ γε νήσῳ ἐμφι-" (Fearing, as it were, lest Hythloday himself, who is involved with the island of Nowhere...)