Monday, October 22, 2018
To Drive Away Cares
Cypria, fragment 18 (tr. M.L. West):
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Wine, Menelaus, is the best thing the gods have madeEuripides, Bacchae 278-283 (tr. David Kovacs):
for mortal men for dispelling cares.
οἶνόν τοι, Μενέλαε, θεοὶ ποίησαν ἄριστον
θνητοῖς ἀνθρώποισιν ἀποσκεδάσαι μελεδώνας.
The son of Semele, discovered ... the drink that flows from the grape cluster and introduced it to mortals. It is this that frees trouble-laden mortals from their pain—when they fill themselves with the juice of the vine—this that gives sleep to make one forget the day's troubles: there is no other treatment for misery.Horace, Odes 2.11.17-18 (tr. Niall Rudd):
... ὁ Σεμέλης γόνος
βότρυος ὑγρὸν πῶμ᾿ ηὗρε κἀσηνέγκατο
θνητοῖς, ὃ παύει τοὺς ταλαιπώρους βροτοὺς
λύπης, ὅταν πλησθῶσιν ἀμπέλου ῥοῆς,
ὕπνον τε λήθην τῶν καθ᾿ ἡμέραν κακῶν
δίδωσιν, οὐδ᾿ ἔστ᾿ ἄλλο φάρμακον πόνων.
Euhius dispels
gnawing anxieties.
dissipat Euhius
curas edaces.
