Friday, January 05, 2007
Pitfalls
Seneca, Hercules Furens 735-736 (spoken by Theseus recently escaped from the underworld, tr. John G. Fitch):
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What each man did, he suffers: the crime recoils on its perpetrator, and the criminal is plagued by the precedent he set.The same notion appears here and there in Psalms, e.g. at 7.15-16:
quod quisque fecit, patitur; auctorem scelus
repetit, suoque premitur exemplo nocens.
He made a pit, and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made. His mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down upon his own pate.A comforting thought at first, until I remembered the pits dug not by others, but by me.
