Friday, June 12, 2009
Inexorable Death
Aeschylus, fragment 161 Nauck (tr. Andrew Lang):
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Of all Gods Death aloneThe same, tr. Herbert Weir Smyth:
Disdaineth sacrifice:
No man hath found or shown
The gift that Death would prize.
In vain are songs or sighs,
Paean, or praise, or moan,
Alone beneath the skies
Hath Death no altar-stone!
μόνος θεῶν γὰρ Θάνατος οὐ δώρων ἐρᾷ
οὐδ᾽ ἄν τι θύων οὐδ᾽ ἐπισπένδων ἄνοις,
οὐδ᾽ ἔστι βωμὸς οὐδὲ παιωνίζεται·
μόνου δὲ Πειθὼ δαιμόνων ἀποστατεῖ.
For alone of gods Death does not love gifts, nor by sacrificing or by pouring libations could you accomplish anything. He has no altar and the paean is not sung to him; of the gods, from him alone Persuasion stands apart.Already in Homer, Iliad 9.158:
Hades is unyielding and not to be prevailed over.Related post: Ineffectual Prayers.
Ἀΐδης τοι ἀμείλιχος ἠδ᾽ ἀδάμαστος.
