“Let no one honor me with tears nor celebrate my funeral
with weeping. Why? Alive I fly on the mouths of men.”
Nemo me lacrimis decoret nec funera fletu
faxit. cur? volito vivos per ora virum.
Ennius was a wannabe Homer, like so many; though, like Homer, we still talk about him.
“Alas, I am a wretch: because of the terrors I have suffered
I bring pleasure to my enemies and toil to my friends.”
῎Ωιμοι ἐγὼ δειλός· καὶ δὴ κατάχαρμα μὲν ἐχθροῖς,
τοῖσι φίλοις δὲ πόνος δεινὰ παθὼν γενόμην.
“These are the only paths of investigation to contemplate: how it both is and is not possible not to be…and how it is both unnecessary and necessary not to be”
αἵπερ ὁδοὶ μοῦναι διζήσιός εἰσι νοῆσαι·
ἡ μὲν ὅπως ἔστιν τε καὶ ὡς οὐκ ἔστι μὴ εἶναι, ….
ἡ δ’ ὡς οὐκ ἔστιν τε καὶ ὡς χρεών ἐστι μὴ εἶναι
Some great structure in this piece. The stripped down version on the twitter-feed (“the only paths of investigation: how it is and isn’t possible not to be; and how it is isn’t and is necessary not to be”) seems vaguely (and haphazardly) Heraclitean.
“The victor and the vanquished alike will mingle among the shades.”
Victor cum victis pariter miscebitur umbris.
“I fear the very foolish fate of the moth.”
δέδοικα μῶρον κάρτα πυραύστου μόρον.
The English doesn’t reflect the Greek word here for “moth” which indicates the way that it dies….”burnt by fire”.
Health is the finest thing for mortal man, the second finest is to bear noble children, third to win riches without fraud, and fourth to be young among one’s friends.
ὑγιαίνειν μὲν ἄριστον ὰνδρὶ θνητῷ,
δεύτερον δὲ καλὸν φυὰν γενέσθαι,
τὸ τρίτον δὲ πλουτεῖν ὰδόλως,
καὶ τὸ τέταρτον ἡβᾶν μετὰ τῶν φίλων.
“Fortune is glass; just when it shines bright it breaks.”
Fortuna vitrea est: tum cum splendet frangitur.
palaiophron
sententiaeantiquae