Duty, honor, country: those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. they are your rallying points: to build courage when courage seems to fail; to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith; to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.

use context clues or a dictionary to select the best definition for general macarther’s use of dictate.

to speak or read to a person
to state with authority or power
an order that must be obeyed.
to imply or suggest

The verb dictate means to give an order that must be obeyed. From the excerpt, we can assume that the words duty, honor, and country should be our guidelines. The ideas behind those words must be followed, for they tell us what we ought to be, what we can be, what we will be.

The verb dictate could also mean to speak or read to a person. In this excerpt, however, that meaning does not apply.

hi there!

one thousand and one nights, also called the arabian nights is a collection of middle eastern tales compiled in arabic during the islamic golden age, dated from the 8th to the 14th century. this collection was compiled of largely middle eastern and indian stories with an uncertain date and autorship whose tales such as aladdin, ali baba and sinbad the sailor -these ones were the most popular ones, the ones that have almost become part of western folklore.

as in much medieval european literature, the stories contained in this collection are set within a frame story. its scene is central asia, as known as "the islands or peninsulae of india and china", where king shahryar kills his wife after discovering her infidelities and as well as any other who betrayed him.   then, loathing all womankind, he marries and kills his new wife each day until no more candidates could have been found. his vizier had two daughters, scheherezade and dunyazad. the elder one -scheherezade- having devised a scheme to save herself and the others insisted that her father needed to give her in marriage to the king. each evening, she used to tell a story leaving it incomplete and promising to finish it the following night. the stories kept the king very interested, so eager to hear evey ending of each story, that he puts off her execution from day to day and finally he decided to give up with his plan. these stories are contained within the collection of 1001 nights, the bulk of the text is in prose, although verse is usually used for songs and riddles to express better the heightened emotion of them.