The Abbreviated Plans of Humans and Gods: A Fragment for Valentine’s Day

Sophocles, fr. 941 [=Stobaeus 4, 20.6]

“Children, the Cyprian is certainly not only the Cyprian
But she is a being of many names.
She is Hades. She is immortal life.
She is mad insanity. She is desire undiluted.
She is lamentation. In her is everything
Earnest, peaceful, all that leads to violence
She seeps into the organs of everything
In which life resides. Who is ever sated by the goddess?
She enters into the fishes’ swimming race,
She is in the four-limbed tribe on the land
And guides her wing among the birds.

Among beasts, mortals, among the gods above.
Whom of the gods has she not thrown three times?
If it is right for me—if it is right to speak the truth,
She rules Zeus’ chest without a spear or iron
The Cyprian certainly cuts short
All the best plans of humans and gods.”

ὦ παῖδες, ἥ τοι Κύπρις οὐ Κύπρις μόνον,
ἀλλ᾿ ἐστὶ πολλῶν ὀνομάτων ἐπώνυμος.
ἔστιν μὲν Ἅιδης, ἔστι δ᾿ ἄφθιτος βίος,
ἔστιν δὲ λύσσα μανιάς, ἔστι δ᾿ ἵμερος
ἄκρατος, ἔστ᾿ οἰμωγμός. ἐν κείνῃ τὸ πᾶν
σπουδαῖον, ἡσυχαῖον, ἐς βίαν ἄγον.
ἐντήκεται γάρ †πλευμόνων† ὅσοις ἔνι
ψυχή· τίς οὐχὶ τῆσδε τῆς θεοῦ βορός;
εἰσέρχεται μὲν ἰχθύων πλωτῷ γένει,
χέρσου δ᾿ ἔνεστιν ἐν τετρασκελεῖ γονῇ,
νωμᾷ δ᾿ ἐν οἰωνοῖσι τοὐκείνης πτερόν.
* * *
ἐν θηρσίν, ἐν βροτοῖσιν, ἐν θεοῖς ἄνω.
τίν᾿ οὐ παλαίουσ᾿ ἐς τρὶς ἐκβάλλει θεῶν;
εἴ μοι θέμις—θέμις δὲ—τἀληθῆ λέγειν,
Διὸς τυραννεῖ πλευμόνων ἄνευ δορός,
ἄνευ σιδήρου· πάντα τοι συντέμνεται
Κύπρις τὰ θνητῶν καὶ θεῶν βουλεύματα.

Image result for Ancient Greek Aphrodite vase
Birth of Aphrodite, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Fragmentary Friday, Latin Edition: Accius’ Achilles

 

 Achilles Schools Antilochus in Word Choice (Accius, Myrmidons, 452-7)

“Antilochus, this behavior that you declare obstinacy
I call constancy and desire to practice it.
To conquer and to be called constant
Is something I suffer happily; but I do not tolerate being called obstinate.
Constancy qualifies the brave; untrained men are obstinate.
You add the sense of fault and erase what should be praised.”

Tu pertinaciam esse, Antiloche, hanc praedicas,
Ego pervicaciam aio et ea me uti volo;
Nam pervicacem dici me esse et vincere
Perfacile patior, pertinacem nihil moror.
Haec fortis sequitur, illam indocti possident.
Tu addis quod vitio est, demis quod laudi datur.

Accius, Lucius Accius? A Romen tragedian and scholar who was born before the third Punic War and lived through the time of Sulla.

AChillesAjax
“You go first.” “No, YOU go first”…

Fragmentary Friday: A Dead Husband Among the Living (Caecilius)

Caecilius, fr. of The Little Necklace 136-150

“It is a wretched man who doesn’t know how to hide his misery outside.
My wife, even if I am silent, gives away the secret with her body and deeds.
She has everything you wouldn’t wish except a dowry.
Whoever wishes to be wise should learn from me, a man free but enslaved to enemies
In a safe town and citadel. Why should I wish her safe when she deprives me
Of all joy? While I gasp for her death, I am dead among the living.
She claims that there is a secret affair between me and my serving-woman.
She accuses me of it—then by begging, insisting, and arguing, she convinced me to sell her.
Now, I believe she is planting this kind of rumor among her relatives:
“Of all you women, which one in the bloom of youth
Succeeded in taking from her own husband what I, merely an old hag,
Stole away from mine: his sweet girlfriend!”
These are the sort of meetings they will have this day: I will be torn apart by wretched rumor!”

is demum miser est, qui aerumnam suam nescit occultare
foris: ita me uxor forma et factis facit, si taceam, tamen indicium.
Quae nisi dotem, omnia, quae nolis, habet: qui sapiet, de me discet,
qui quasi ad hostes captus liber servio salva urbe atque arce.
Quae mihi, quidquid placet, eo privatu vim me servatum.
Dum ego eius mortem inhio, egomet vivo mortuus inter vivos.
Ea me clam se cum mea ancilla ait consuetum, id me arguit,
ita plorando, orando, instando atque obiurgando me obtudit,
eam uti venderem; nunc credo inter suas
aequalis et cognatas sermonem serit:
“quis vestrarum fuit integra aetatula,
quae hoc idem a viro
impetrarit suo, quod ego anus modo
effeci, paelice ut meum privarem virum?”
haec erunt concilia hodie, differor sermone miser.

Three Sophoklean Fragments on Not Living

Fr. 488 (Peleus)

“Not existing is better than living badly”

ὸ μὴ γὰρ εἶναι κρεῖσσον ἢ τὸ ζῆν κακῶς

Fr. 593 (Tereus)

Let any man who lives acquire however much
Pleasure each day offers. Tomorrow always comes upon him
Blind.

ζώοι τις ἀνθρώπων τὸ κατ’ ἦμαρ ὅπως
ἥδιστα πορσύνων• τὸ δ’ ἐς αὔριον αἰεὶ
τυφλὸν ἕρπει

fr. 698 (Philoctetes at Troy)

“Death is the final doctor for all disease”
ἀλλ’ ἔσθ’ ὁ θάνατος λοῖσθος ἰατρὸς νόσων

What Is Believed Overpowers the Truth: Sophoklean Fragments on Lies and Truth

Sons of Aleus

86

“Indeed, what is believed overpowers the truth”

Α. τό τοι νομισθὲν τῆς ἀληθείας κρατεῖ.

Eriphyle

201a
“Where it is not possible to speak what is best freely
The worse ideas often win out in the city
And mistakes undermine its safety.”

ὅπου δὲ μὴ τἄριστ’ ἐλευθέρως λέγειν
ἔξεστι, νικᾷ δ’ ἐν πόλει τὰ χείρονα,
ἁμαρτίαι σφάλλουσι τὴν σωτηρίαν

Creusa, fr. 352

“It is not noble to tell lies
But for whomever the truth has some terrible ruin in store
It is pardonable to utter even what isn’t noble.”

καλὸν μὲν οὖν οὐκ ἔστι τὰ ψευδῆ λέγειν•
ὅτῳ δ’ ὄλεθρον δεινὸν ἁλήθει’ ἄγει,
συγγνωστὸν εἰπεῖν ἐστι καὶ τὸ μὴ καλόν

No One Can Please Everyone: Three Sophoklean Fragments on Politics

fr. 524 (Polyxena, Agamemnon speaking)

“No helmsman of any army is able
To yield to everyone, to please them all.
Indeed, not even Zeus, who is better than me as king,
pleases all when he sends out rain or withholds it.
If he entered a mortal court, he would end up owing a lot.
How can I, born a mortal son of a mortal mother,
Manage to be better at governing than Zeus?”

οὐ γάρ τις ἂν δύναιτο πρῳράτης στρατοῦ
τοῖς πᾶσιν εἶξαι καὶ προσαρκέσαι χάριν.
ἐπεὶ οὐδ’ ὁ κρείσσων Ζεὺς ἐμοῦ τυραννίδι
οὔτ’ ἐξεπομβρῶν οὔτ’ ἐπαυχμήσας φίλος•
βροτοῖς δ’ ἂν ἐλθὼν ἐς λόγον δίκην ὄφλοι.
πῶς δῆτ’ ἔγωγ’ ἂν θνητὸς ἐκ θνητῆς τε φὺς
Διὸς γενοίμην εὖ φρονεῖν σοφώτερος;

Fr. 554 (Men of Skyros)

“War loves to stalk young men.”
φιλεῖ γὰρ ἄνδρας πόλεμος ἀγρεύειν νέους

Fr. 565 (Those Who Dine Together)

But, in a rage, he hurled at me and did not miss
With the foul-smelling pisspot. Around my head
The side shattered, stinking not of myrrh.
I was frightened by the wretched smell.

ἀλλ’ ἀμφὶ θυμῷ τὴν κάκοσμον οὐράνην
ἔρριψεν οὐδ’ ἥμαρτε• περὶ δ’ ἐμῷ κάρᾳ
κατάγνυται τὸ τεῦχος οὐ μύρου πνέον•
ἐδειματούμην δ’ οὐ φίλης ὀσμῆς ὕπο

What’s Special About Thebes? Two Fragments from Sophokles

Sophocles fr. 773

“Do you say to me concerning Thebes and its seven gates
That it is the only place where mortal women give birth to gods?

Θήβας λέγεις μοι καὶ πύλας ἑπταστόμους,
οὗ δὴ μόνον τίκτουσιν αἱ θνηταὶ θεούς

from Heraclides On the Cities of Greece, 1, 17

Fr. 799 (Odysseus to Diomedes)

“I will say nothing terrible to you, not how
You wander the earth an exile from your father hand,
Nor how your father killed a blood relative
And then settled as a foreigner in Argos or even
How right before the walls of Thebes he made a meal of human flesh
When he cut off the head of the child of Astacus.”

ΟΔΥΣΣΕΥΣ (τῷ Διομήδει)•
ἐγὼ δ’ ἐρῶ σοι δεινὸν οὐδέν, οὔθ’ ὅπως
φυγὰς πατρῴας ἐξελήλασαι χθονός,
οὔθ’ ὡς ὁ Τυδεὺς ἀνδρὸς αἷμα συγγενὲς
κτείνας ἐν ῎Αργει ξεῖνος ὢν οἰκίζεται,
οὔθ’ ὡς πρὸ Θηβῶν ὠμοβρὼς ἐδαίσατο
τὸν ᾿Αστάκειον παῖδα διὰ κάρα τεμών

Three Sophoklean Fragments on Parents and Children

Fr. 567 (Those Who Dine Together)
“Oh, you have your hands in everything, so much like
Sisyphus in you, and much of your mother’s father.”

ὦ πάντα πράσσων, ὡς ὁ Σίσυφος πολὺς
ἔνδηλος ἐν σοὶ πάντα χὠ μητρὸς πατήρ

Fr. 685 (Phaedra)

“Children are the anchors of a mother’s life”

ἀλλ’ εἰσὶ μητρὶ παῖδες ἄγκυραι βίου

Fr. 932

“A women flees the sharp pains of child birth
On oaths. But when she has stopped feeling the pain,
She is caught in those same nets, conquered
By desires’ present tense”

ὅρκοισι γάρ τοι καὶ γυνὴ φεύγει πικρὰν
ὠδῖνα παίδων• ἀλλ’ ἐπεὶ λήξῃ κακοῦ,
ἐν τοῖσιν αὐτοῖς δικτύοις ἁλίσκεται
πρὸς τοῦ παρόντος ἱμέρου νικωμένη

What Ails Awake Plagues in Sleep as Well: Accius on Dreams

Accius, Brutus 29-38

“King, it is not at all a surprise that the things men do in life, what they think
Worry over, see, what they do and pursue while awake, should plague each man
While sleeping too. But in this one, the gods present you something quite unexpected.
Be on guard that the many you consider an imbecile just like a sheep
Might actually possess a heart especially safeguarded with wisdom.
He may supplant you in this kingdom: for the sign which comes to you from the sun
Foretells of a great change in the near future for your people.
May these things actually be a good change for the people.
For, since the most powerful sign moved from left to right in the sky,
It has prophesied that the Roman Republic would reign on high.”

Rex, quae in vita usurpant homines, cogitant curant vident
Quaeque agunt vigilantes agitantque ea si cui in somno accidunt
Minus mirum est, sed di in re tanta haut temere inprovisa offerunt.
Proin vide ne quem tu esse hebetem deputes aeque ac pecus
Is sapientia munitum pectus egregie gerat,
Teque regno expellat; nam id quod de sole ostentum est tibi
Populo conmutationem rerum portendit fore
Perpropinquam. Haec bene verruncent populo! Nam quod ad dexteram
Cepit cursum ab laeva signum praepotens, pulcherrume
Auguratum est rem Romanam publicam summam fore

“No One is Pain-Free”: Four Sophoklean Fragments on Life and Pain

Fr. 356 (Creusa)

“The most noble thing is to be just.
The best thing is to live without sickness; the sweetest is when
A man has the ability to get what he wants each day.”

κάλλιστόν ἐστι τοὔνδικον πεφυκέναι,
λῷστον δὲ τὸ ζῆν ἄνοσον, ἥδιστον δ’ ὅτῳ
πάρεστι λῆψις ὧν ἐρᾷ καθ’ ἡμέραν

Fr. 375 (Laocoon)

“There is no account of pain that has gone by”

μόχθου γὰρ οὐδεὶς τοῦ παρελθόντος λόγος

Fr. 410 (The Mysians)

“No one is pain-free: the man who has the least
is the luckiest.”

ἄμοχθος γὰρ οὐδείς• ὁ δ’ ἥκιστ’ ἔχων
μακάρτατος

Fr. 434 (Nauplius)

“A single night seems like ten thousand for a man
Who suffers, but even daybreak surprises a man doing well.”

τῷ γὰρ κακῶς πράσσοντι μυρία μία
νύξ ἐστιν, εὖ παθόντα δ’ ἡμέρα φθάνει