Tuesday, November 22, 2022
Blood for Blood
Euripides, Electra 1093-1094, tr. J.H. Kells, "Euripides, Electra 1093-5, and Some Uses of δικάζειν,"
Classical Quarterly 10.1 (May, 1960) 129-134 (at 130):
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... one murder is to bring another in its train, decreeing it ...Kells, p. 134:
... ἀμείψεται
φόνον δικάζων φόνος ...
The Greeks were perhaps more inclined to draw imagery from law and the administration of law than we are, because they had an almost romantic passion for law (cf. the wealth of legal reference and imagery in, say, Aeschylus). There is room for further exploration of this tendency.Euripides, Suppliant Women 614 (tr. Edward P. Coleridge):
Vengeance calls vengeance forth; slaughter calls for slaughter.Related post: Forgiving One's Enemies.
δίκα δίκαν δ' ἐκάλεσε καὶ φόνος φόνον.
