Monday, April 10, 2006
Death the Healer
Add these parallels to an earlier post on this topic.
Aeschylus, fragment 255 Nauck (tr. Herbert Weir Smyth):
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Aeschylus, fragment 255 Nauck (tr. Herbert Weir Smyth):
O death, the healer, reject me not, but come! For thou alone art the mediciner of ills incurable, and no pain layeth hold on the dead.Sophocles, Women of Trachis 1206-1209 (tr. Hugh Lloyd-Jones):
ὦ θάνατε παιάν, μή μ᾽ ἀτιμάσῃς μολεῖν·
μόνος γὰρ εἶ σὺ τῶν ἀνηκέστων κακῶν
ἰατρός, ἄλγος δ᾽ οὐδὲν ἅπτεται νεκροῦ.
HYLLUSEuripides, Hippolytus 1373:
Alas once more, what a demand you are making of me, father, to have the guilt of your murder on my hands!
HERACLES
Not I, but to be the healer and only curer of the ills from which I suffer!
Ὕλλος
οἴμοι μάλ᾽ αὖθις, οἷά μ᾽ ἐκκαλεῖ, πάτερ,
φονέα γενέσθαι καὶ παλαμναῖον σέθεν.
Ἡρακλῆς
οὐ δῆτ᾽ ἔγωγ᾽, ἀλλ᾽ ὧν ἔχω παιώνιον
καὶ μοῦνον ἰατῆρα τῶν ἐμῶν κακῶν.
And may death the healer come to me.
καί μοι θάνατος παιὰν ἔλθοι.
