Will and Power

Smashing the glass

So he took the glass and smashed it as a demonstration for doing something surprising.


And there are those people who would smash glasses to confirm a toast.

So the result is the same: the glass is smashed and nobody will ever drink from it again.

Yet one is a sacrifice and has all the air of presenting a gift to the gods and the other is but a display of will and power. Whereas the one is done out of abundance and joy, the other shows off out of pure mischief (German: Mutwille).

And then there was my eldest daughter, who wept inconsolably because she had broken a glass - a pretty ordinary one - by accident.