“No Help For the Man Who Grieves over What he Cannot Change” Bacchylides, Processions 1

“Men have one milestone, a single path for fortune:
To make it to life’s end with an unaggrieved heart.
And whoever harbors countless concerns in his thoughts
and wears down his spirit night and day over what’s to come
has a toil that bears no fruit.
What help is there for a man who drowns his heart
By grieving over the things he cannot change?”

 

Εἷς ὅρος, μία βροτοῖσίν ἐστιν εὐτυχίας ὁδός,
θυμὸν εἴ τις ἔχων ἀπενθῆ δύναται
διατελεῖν βίον· ὃς δὲ μυ-
ρία μὲν ἀμφιπολεῖ φρενί,
τὸ δὲ παρ’ ἆμάρ τε <καὶ> νύκτα μελλόντων
χάριν αἰὲν ἰάπτεται
κέαρ, ἄκαρπον ἔχει πόνον
τί γὰρ ἐλαφρὸν ἔτ’ ἐστὶν ἄ-
πρακτ’ ὀδυρόμενον δονεῖν
καρδίαν;

Homer, Odyssey 8.147-8

“For as long as he lives, a man has no greater glory

than that which he wins with his own hands and feet”

 

οὐ μὲν γὰρ μεῖζον κλέος ἀνέρος, ὄφρα κεν ᾖσιν,

ἢ ὅ τι ποσσίν τε ῥέξῃ καὶ χερσὶν ἑῇσιν.

 

Or so a Prince Dandy says to the long-suffering war veteran Odysseus. Sports and games are ritual substitutes for war and distractions from the fact that the soldier faces far higher stakes than the sportsman. It is no accident that this scene happens among the Phaeacians who live a charmed life far from all other men…until Poseidon drops a mountain on them.

(Does this prompt the type of strife Horace talks about?)