Nicolas Chamfort [Quoted in Maximes, Pensées, Caractères et Anecdotes, 1796]:
“In sum,” he added, “I was reminded of Seneca, and in honor of Seneca, I wanted to open my veins. But he was rich, that one. He had everything he wanted – a well-warmed bath, and in truth, every comfort available. But me, I am a poor devil, and I didn’t have any of that stuff. I hurt myself pretty badly, and here I am still. But I have the bullet in my head, that is the main thing. A little bit earlier, a little bit later – that would have done it!”
«Enfin, ajouta-t-il, je me suis souvenu de Sénèque, et en l’honneur de Sénèque j’ai voulu m’ouvrir les veines; mais il était riche, lui ; il avait tout à souhait, un bain bien chaud, enfin toutes ses aises; moi je suis un pauvre diable, je n’ai rien de tout cela : je me suis fait un mal horrible, & me voilà encore ; mais j’ai la balle dans la tête, c’est-là le principal. Un peu plus tôt, un peu plus tard, voilà tout. »
“Some report that Homer was older by birth than Hesiod—among this number are Philochorus and Xenophanes. But others say he was younger, including the poet Lucius Accius and Ephorus the historian. In the first book of On Images, however, Marcus Varro says that there is little agreement about which was born first, but that what is not in bout is that they lived at the same time. Evidence from this comes from the inscription on the tripod which was allegedly put on Mt. Helikon.
Accius, still, in book one of the Didasalica uses somewhat superficial arguments…he continues ‘since Homer, when he recounts at the start of his poem that Achilles is the son of Peleus and does not add who Peleus is—which is something he would have added if he had not seen it already explained by Hesiod (Fr. 211). Similarly, when it comes to the Cyclops’ Accius says, ‘Homer would have highlighted the fact that he was one-eyed and would not have passed over such a marvelous detail if it had not already been popularized in the older poems of Hesiod.”
(2) alii Homerum quam Hesiodum maiorem natu fuisse scripserunt, in quis Philochorus et Xenophanes; alii minorem, in quis L. Accius poeta et Ephorus historiae scriptor. (3) M. autem Varro in primo De imaginibus, uter prior sit natus, parum constare dicit, sed non esse dubium, quin aliquo tempore eodem vixerint; idque ex epigrammate ostendi, quod in tripode scriptum est, qui in monte Helikone ab Hesiodo positus traditur. (4) Accius autem in primo didascalico levibus admodum argumentis utitur … (5) quod Homerus, inquit, cum in principio carminis Achillem esse filium Pelei diceret, quis esset Peleus, non addidit; quam rem procul, inquit, dubio dixisset, nisi ab Hesiodo iam dictum videret. de Cyclope itidem, inquit, vel maxime quod unoculus fuit, rem tam insignem non praeterisset, nisi aeque prioris Hesiodi carminibus involgatum esset.
Eratosthenes says that the poet aims entirely at persuasion, not at education. On the other hand, the ancients said that poetry was originally a kind of philosophy, leading us to life from childhood and teaching us character, emotion, and deeds through the pleasure it gave us. But people of our time say that the poet is the only wise person. For this reason, the cities of the Greeks educated their children through poetry first, not for the sake of the pleasant amusement to be gained from it, but for the sake of moral instruction. Even the musicians teaching them to play the harp or lyre or flute pretend to be involved in this virtue: for they say that they are educational and instructive of character.
“The time to bring a wife to your home
is when you are not too many years under thirty,
or just a few years older. This is the season for marriage.
Your wife should be four years in puberty and married in the fifth.
Marry a virgin so you may teach her proper habits,
And marry a woman who lives nearby, making sure you check
every detail so that you won’t be wed to a joke for your neighbors.
For nothing is better for a man than a wife,
a good one, and nothing is more horrible than a bad one,
one who lies down to eat, and who can cook her husband without a fire,
even though he is a strong man, she makes him age when he’s young.”
“But I am considered well-married, because I am called Hercules’ wife
And because my father-in-law is the one who sounds deeply with swift steeds.
Yet, this is how the unequal colts arrive unhappily at the plow,
The way that a lesser bride matches to a great husband.
This isn’t an honor but merely the appearance of it which pains who carries it more;
If you want to be married happily, marry your equal.
My husband is always absent—he’s more famous as my guest than husband
As he pursues is terrible monsters and beasts.”
At bene nupta feror, quia nominer Herculis uxor,
sitque socer, rapidis qui tonat altus equis.
quam male inaequales veniunt ad aratra iuvenci,
tam premitur magno coniuge nupta minor.
non honor est sed onus species laesura ferentes:
siqua voles apte nubere, nube pari.
vir mihi semper abest, et coniuge notior hospes
monstraque terribiles persequiturque feras.
Hipponax, Fr. 68
“A woman has two days which are the sweetest:
When someone marries her and when someone carries her out dead.”
δύ᾿ ἡμέραι γυναικός εἰσιν ἥδισται,
ὅταν γαμῇ τις κἀκφέρῃ τεθνηκυῖαν.
Red-figure skyphoid pyxis by the Adrano Group, ca 330-320 BC, today at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow. Image shown under Creative Common License: shakko, Pyxis01 pushkin, CC BY-SA 3.0 (Thanks to Commenter Marcus Cyron for reminding me to post this credit)
Today’s monstrous news shows Russian soldiers mutilating and killing prisoners of war. Homeric epic features its ‘hero’ doing the same thing, and few respondents over time have worried about what that means.
Homer, Odyssey 22.474-477
“They took Melanthios out through the hall and into the courtyard.
They cut off his nose and ears with pitiless bronze.
Then they cut off his balls and fed them raw to the dogs;
And they cut off his hands and feet with an enraged heart.”
“If this one defeats you and proves stronger,
I will send you to the shore, throw you in a black ship,
And ship you off to king Ekhetos, the most wicked man of all.
He will cut off your nose and ears with pitiless bronze
And after severing your balls, he will feed them raw to his dogs.”
“Ekhetos was the son of Boukhetos, after whom there is also a city named in Sicily. He is said to have been tyrant of the Sicilians. The story is that he did every kind of mischief to the inhabitants of his land and killed foreigners by mutilating them. He exhibited so much wickedness that even those who lived far off would send people to him to kill when they wanted to punish someone. He developed all kinds of unseemly methods. This is why the people would not endure so bitter a tyranny, and they killed him by stoning.”
A lingering interpretive problem for the Odyssey is why the epic introduces this torture and attributes it to a very bad person, only to have Odysseus commit the very same act later in the epic. A pressing question for modern readers of Homer is why so few of us have bothered to worry about this at all.
Combined with the hanging of the enslaved women, this should be an indictment of Odysseus and support for the rebellion against him in book 24.
From the Suda:
“Tyrannos: The poets before the Trojan War used to name kings (basileis) tyrants, but later during the time of Archilochus, this word was transferred to the Greeks in general, just as the sophist Hippias records. Homer, at least, calls the most lawless man of all, Ekhetos, a king, not a tyrant. Tyrant is a a name that derives from the Tyrrenians because these men were quite severe pirates.* None of the other poets uses the name tyrant in any of their works. But Aristotle in the Constitution of the Cumaeans says that tyrants were once called aisumnêtai, because this name is a bit of a euphemism.”
Isaac Casaubon, Letter to Claude Saumaise (DXLIII)
“I received your letters, and the ancient epigrams which you added. How can I show my gratitude for these? To be sure, you can guess how grateful I am from my almost shameless petition for them. So, I’m ashamed of myself for giving you so much vexation. I do not understand the method and aim of your studies. And so, believe me, I am concerned about you and your health – I think of you as a brother. I exceed you in age, but you have outstripped me with the miraculous gifts which instilled in me long ago a marvelous expectation for you. Just spare your intellect, have some concern for your health, enjoy the joy of your age and preserve yourself in this, your youth, so that you can when you are older complete those studies which cannot be completed except by you.
I seem to see you like Tantalus in the middle of the water, for you cannot enjoy all of the riches of the Palatine Library. I can sense your avidity from your letters, and I also know with what violent force you are driven on to your studies. This makes me fear for your little body. Otherwise, I will write at another time about the poems which you sent – now I am extremely busy. If you see the [???] of Bongars, you will know from it what my cares are. For I have set aside my Polybius for the meantime. Farewell, my dearest friend.”
His priestess-mother got the killing going,
attacking him. He tore off his headdress
so she would know him and not kill him,
poor Agave. Touching her face, he said:
“It’s me, mother. Your son, Pentheus.
You bore me in Echion’s house.
O mother, have mercy on me.
Don’t kill your son over his mistake.”
Foaming at the mouth and wild eyes whirling,
she did not think as thinking requires:
in thrall to Bacchus, she was unmoved.
She gripped his left arm below the elbow,
jammed her foot against the poor man’s ribs,
then ripped arm from shoulder with strength not her own.
The god had made it easy for her hands.
Ino all the while worked his other arm,
ripping flesh. Autone and the Bacchic pack
grabbed at him too, screaming in unison.
While he groaned (all that his breathing allowed)
theirs were shouts of joy. One left with his arm;
one his foot, the shoe still on. The mauling
exposed his ribs. And then, with hands blood stained,
as they would a ball, they tossed around his flesh.
“What is life? What enjoyment is there without golden Aphrodite?
May I die when these things no longer interest me:
Secret sex and its moving gifts in bed,
Those blossoms of youth that tug
At men and women alike.
…But then painful old age
Presses down and makes a man ugly and embarrassing.
Cruel thoughts are always wearing down his mind
And he takes no pleasure seeing the sunrise.
No, he’s disgusting to boys and a joke to women too.
That the hard old age god makes for us.”
“I was once with Sophocles when someone asked him, ‘O Sophocles, how do things stand with you in the old love-making line? Can you still lie with a woman?’ Sophocles responded, ‘Ah man, you should sing a song of triumph for me – for indeed, I have most gladly fled from love as though I had gotten away from a cruel and raving master.’
It seemed to me at the time that he had spoken well on the subject, and I think so no less even today. Indeed, we are granted a certain peace and freedom from such concerns in old age. When our desires relent and finally cease to draw us out, then indeed does Sophocles’ saying come true, and we are entirely freed from many a raving master.
But respecting these things, and our relationships with our friends, my dear Socrates, there is one cause to consider – not old age, but rather the person’s character. If they have their lives well-ordered and are easily contented, then old age is a moderate burden. But to a man of the opposite character, both old age and youth happen to be burdensome affairs.
“Phandicus, in his Deliakon says that Daedalus embarked on a ship in flight for the reasons I mentioned earlier and when those who were following got close, he spread out a large cloth to get the winds to help them and escaped in this way. When his pursuers returned, they announced that “he escaped with wings”.
Phanodicos Deliacon Daedalum propter supradictas causas fugientem navem conscendisse et, cum imminerent qui eum sequebantur, intendisse pallium ad adiuvandum ventos et sic evasisse: illos vero qui insequebantur reversos nuntiasse pinnis illum evasisse.
Kylix from the British Museum, Attic 520 BCE (1867,0508.963)
