“I claim and I will always claim
That excellence has the greatest glory.
Wealth will flock to worthless people
And always tends to swell a person’s thoughts.
But the one who does well for the gods
Has more glorious hopes
To settle their heart.
But if someone has health
Even if mortal
And can live through their own household
They rival the best.
Truly, all pleasure
In a person’s life
Comes apart from disease
And a poverty with no cure.
Rich people desire big things
No less than the poor something smaller,
And there’s nothing sweet for mortals
In being able to get everything at all
Because they’re always straining to catch
Whatever is getting away.”
“But now an evil death is indeed near me, not far off
And unavoidable. Truly, my life was once dear to Zeus’s heart
And Zeus’ son the far-shooter, those two who previously
Used to defend me. But now fate has overtaken me in its turn.
May I not die without a struggle, at least, and without glory,
But after doing something important for people in the future to learn”
“Why are you telling me to listen to thin-winged birds?
I don’t care about them at all or worry whether
they go to the right towards the dawn and the sun
Or drift to the left to the dark of dusk.
Let us obey the will of great Zeus who rules
Above all mortals and all gods.
One bird sign is best: defend your country.
Why then are you afraid of war and battle?”
“Now the army of the violent Kimmerians is advancing…”
νῦν δ᾿ ἐπὶ Κιμμερίων στρατὸς ἔρχεται
Ὀβριμοεργῶν,
Kallinos, fr. 1
How long will you wait? When will you embrace your brave heart,
Young men? Aren’t you ashamed to wait so long in front
Of your neighbors? You think that you are sitting back in peace
But war is overtaking the whole land.
[….]
Let each person take their last shot even as they die–
There’s real honor for someone to fight against enemies
For their land and their children and their wedded spouses.
Death will come whenever the fates decide it.
But let each one of us go forward, raising our spear high
And keeping a brave spirit behind our shield, now that war is whirling.
There’s no way for anyone to avoid death, at least
When its fated, not even if they’re offspring of the immortal gods.
Often, someone flees the strife and clash of spears
Only to have death’s fate overcome them at home.
That one isn’t forever loved or missed by the people.
But the small and great alike mourn the other, when something happens.
The whole people long for a strong-minded person
when they’re gone, someone the worth of living heroes.
The people look upon them like a mighty tower—
For they do the work of many, even when standing alone.
“I have many other reasons to hope for the outcome if you are willing not to grow your empire by warring more and not to add dangers of your own choosing. For I am much more afraid of our own mistakes than our enemies’ plans.
But these are topics which will be explained in another speech on those matters. For now, let use send them away with these answers, that we will allow the Megarians to use our marketplace and harbors provided that the Spartans do not continue their foreign actions against us or our allies—for nothing stops this action or that one in the treaties we have. In addition, we will leave cities independent if they were independent when we came into contact with them and when those cities did not give in to them, they should be independent too, as each of them desires.
Add as well that we are willing to submit to judgments according to the treaties and we will not begin the war, although we will defend against those who do start it. These answers are just and proper answers for the city. You need to understand that we must go to war—but if we welcome it willingly, we will have less enthusiastic opponents.
Remember also that the greatest honors come both in private and public from the greatest dangers. Didn’t our fathers stand up against the Medes even though they started from so unequal a position? And when they left everything they had behind, they fought off the barbarian with greater intelligence than luck and greater daring than power and raised our state to what it is today. For this reason, we must not fall back, but we must defend against our enemies in every way and strive to give to our descendants a state no weaker at all.”
“Homer said that speech pours forth from Nestor’s lips sweeter than honey—no greater pleasure can be formed than this. But when he is about to demonstrate the greatest ability and power in Ulysses, he grants him a voice, the strength of speech “like a winter blizzard” in its force and abundance of words.
Because of this, no mortal will compete with him and men gaze at him as a god. This is the force and speed Eupolis admioes in Pericles, this force Aristophanes compares to thunderbotls. This is truly the power of speaking.”
et ex ore Nestoris dixit dulciorem melle profluere sermonem, qua certe delectatione nihil fingi maius potest: sed summam expressurus in Ulixe facundiam et magnitudinem illi vocis et vim orationis nivibus 〈hibernis〉 copia [verborum] atque impetu parem tribuit. Cum hoc igitur nemo mortalium contendet, hunc ut deum homines intuebuntur. Hanc vim et celeritatem in Pericle miratur Eupolis, hanc fulminibus Aristophanes comparat, haec est vere dicendi facultas.
Thucydides 4.103
“It was winter and it was snowing”
χειμὼν δὲ ἦν καὶ ὑπένειφεν…
Hermippus 37 (Athenaeus 650e)
“Have you ever seen a pomegranate seed in drifts of snow?”
ἤδη τεθέασαι κόκκον ἐν χιόνι ῥόας;
Pindar, Pythian 1. 20
“Snowy Aetna, perennial nurse of bitter snow”
νιφόεσσ᾿ Αἴτνα, πάνετες χιόνος ὀξείας τιθήνα
Plutarch, Moralia 340e
“Nations covered in depths of snow”
καὶ βάθεσι χιόνων κατακεχωσμένα ἔθνη
Herodotus, Histories 4.31
“Above this land, snow always falls…
τὰ κατύπερθε ταύτης τῆς χώρης αἰεὶ νίφεται
Diodorus Siculus, 14.28
“Because of the mass of snow that was constantly falling, all their weapons were covered and their bodies froze in the chill in the air. Thanks to the extremity of their troubles, they were sleepless through the whole night”
“But what is the substance of the controversy? Some people were thinking that the title “war” should not be given in the statement; they were preferring to use the term “national emergency” because they are ignorant not only of the matter but of words too. For a war is possible without a “national emergency”, but a “national emergency”, however, cannot exist without a war. What thing could be a “national emergency” but a trouble so great that a serious fear arises?
This is where the terminology itself for “national emergency” [tumultus] comes from. For our ancestors used to say that there was a “national emergency” in Italy which was domestic or a “national emergency” in Gaul, which is on our border, but they used to call nothing else that. And that a “national emergency” is, moreover, more serious than a war can be understood from the fact that exemptions from service are valid in war but they are not in “national emergency”.
Therefore, as I was just saying, a war can exist without a “national emergency” but a “national emergency” cannot exist without a war. And since there can be no middle-ground between war and peace, it is true that a “national emergency”, if it is not part of a war, must be part of a peace. And what could be a crazier to say or imagine? But I have gone on too long about a word. Let’s look at the matter itself, Senators, which I do think often can become worse through language.”
At in quo fuit controversia? Belli nomen ponendum quidam in sententia non putabant: tumultum appellare malebant, ignari non modo rerum sed etiam verborum: potest enim esse bellum ut tumultus non sit, tumultus autem esse sine bello non potest. Quid est enim aliud tumultus nisi perturbatio tanta ut maior timor oriatur? Unde etiam nomen ductum est tumultus. Itaque maiores nostri tumultum Italicum quod erat domesticus, tumultum Gallicum quod erat Italiae finitimus, praeterea nullum nominabant. Gravius autem tumultum esse quam bellum hinc intellegi potest quod bello [Italico] vacationes valent, tumultu non valent. Ita fit, quem ad modum dixi, ut bellum sine tumultu possit, tumultus sine bello esse non possit.4Etenim cum inter bellum et pacem medium nihil sit, necesse est tumultum, si belli non sit, pacis esse: quo quid absurdius dici aut existimari potest? Sed nimis multa de verbo. Rem potius videamus, patres conscripti, quam quidem intellego verbo fieri interdum deteriorem solere.
Frank Schoonover. The scene depicts the bravery of Alvin C. York in 1918.
“I do not here or anywhere else claim that the powerful are strong, but instead that the strong are powerful. For I believe that power and strength are not the same thing. One of them—power—comes from knowledge, or from madness, or anger; strength, however, comes from nature and the nourishing of the body.
So, for the first quality, daring and bravery are not the same thing. It can be the case that the brave are in fact daring, but the daring are not all brave. For boldness also comes to men from some type of skill or rage or madness, just like power, whereas bravery comes from nature and the nurturing of the mind.”
He [Petrarch] was one of the world’s great letter-writers. “I can’t stop writing letters unless I stop living,” he said. He put a high value on his messages. When one was ready, a secretary was put to copying it, and woe to him if he erred or blotted! He could not bear to have his missives disregarded. He wrote to Laelius: “You’ve been idle about answering my letters. Well, dukes and monarchs answer them.” A letter was mislaid; the whole house was in a turmoil for a day while everyone hunted it in vain. “It was sweet to write, sweeter to read over, and very bitter to remember.”
The contents are extremely varied, in both substance and in style. Some are cheery anecdotes of daily life, comic incidents, news of his doings, his friends, his garden, his reading. Some are reflections on current events, and some political exhortations to Emperors and Popes. Many are moral essays, satires, portraits, having little to do with the concerns of his correspondent. Indeed, they may have been written with no correspondent in mind, and have been sent off when a messenger turned up on his way to some city where a friend dwelt. Most of them are deliberately literary in character and style. The writer was looking beyond the immediate addressee to the ultimate recipient, posterity.
For the modern reader, temporary posterity, his work has many faults. He is often intolerably garrulous, repetitive, sententious, obtuse. Some of his letters of consolation, recommending stoic insensibility, must have caused angry tears to flow. He even tells Philippe de Cabassoles that the death of his brother should be rather an occasion for rejoicing than grief. He stuffs his letters with quotations from the Roman classics, which fortunately are easy to skip. But of course such quotations were more honored and less accessible then than now.
[Morris Bishop, Petrarch and His World (Indiana University Press, 1963) p. 280]
Kalonikê: But what if our husbands leave us?
Lysistrata: To use Pherecrates’ term: flay the flayed dog.
Kalonikê: These words of nonsense are just counterfeit [sex].
“The word of Pherecrates: if our husbands despise us, then it is necessary to use dildos and to flog the flogged shaft. Pherecrates said this in a drama where the proverb is applied to those who are suffering something else in addition to what they have suffered.
Olisbos: Genitals made from leather which the Milesian women used to use as tribades(!) and shameful people do. Widowed women also use them. Aristophanes writes “I did not see an eight-fingered dildo*/ which might be our leathered aid.”** This second part is drawn from the proverb “fig-wood aid” applied to weak people.
“Courtesanizers: The women who are called ‘rubbers’” [or ‘grinders’? i.e. Lesbians] Ἑταιρίστριαι: αἱ καλούμεναι τριβάδες. See also Hesychius s.v. dietaristriai: “Women who rub themselves against girls in intercourse the way men do. For example, tribades.”
The Lexicographer Photius repeats only the following definition:
Olisboi: Leather dicks
῎Ολισβοι: δερμάτινα αἰδοῖα.
The Scholia to Aristophanes’ Lysistrata 109-110 basically presents the same information:
Olisbon: A leather penis. And that is for the Milesian women. He is joking that they use dildos. The next part, “leathery aid” plays upon the proverb “fig-tree aid”, used for the weak. He has changed it to “leathery” because dildos are made of leather. They are leather-made penises which widowed women use.”
