“The sick state is ingenious at discovering crimes.”
δεινὴ πόλις νοσοῦσ’ ἀνευρίσκειν κακά.
I’m sure we can all think of events in our respective polities appropriate to this fragment from Euripides. The more things change…
But, here’s a useful reminder from Aeschylus on consequences (Eumenides, 644-651)
“After the dust has soaked up the blood
Of a dying man, there is no resurrection.
My father can’t cast a spell on this
But all other things he can turn back and forth
Without losing his breath at all.”
ἀνδρὸς δ’ ἐπειδὰν αἷμ’ ἀνασπάσῃ κόνις
ἅπαξ θανόντος, οὔτις ἔστ’ ἀνάστασις.
τούτων ἐπῳδὰς οὐκ ἐποίησεν πατὴρ
οὑμός, τὰ δ’ ἄλλα πάντ’ ἄνω τε καὶ κάτω
στρέφων τίθησιν οὐδὲν ἀσθμαίνων μένει.
The father in question in this passage is Zeus, the god of justice. The Greeks needed to believe that Zeus would support justice (ultimately) because they saw that men failed to. Since we’re playing Aristophanes here and having the old tragedians compete, I’ll give Euripides a final and sacrilegious word:
Euripides, fr. 292.6 (Bellerophon)
“If the gods do a shameful thing, they are not gods.”
εἰ θεοί τι δρῶσιν αἰσχρόν, οὐκ εἰσὶν θεοί.
Woah, I love Euripides in that last sentence! Great post!