Tuesday, October 17, 2023
From Good Stock
Horace, Odes 4.4.29-32 (tr. Niall Rudd):
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The brave are born from the brave and good. Their sire's valour comes out in young bulls and horses; ferocious eagles do not father timid doves.Plato, Menexenus 237 a (tr. Tom Griffith):
fortes creantur fortibus et bonis;
est in iuvencis, est in equis patrum
virtus, neque inbellem feroces
progenerant aquilae columbam.
Why were they good? Because they were born of good ancestry.Euripides, fragment 75 (tr. Christopher Collard and Martin Cropp):
ἀγαθοὶ δὲ ἐγένοντο διὰ τὸ φῦναι ἐξ ἀγαθῶν.
Son of Creon, how true then it has proved,
that from noble fathers noble children are born,
and from base ones children resembling their father's nature.
ὦ παῖ Κρέοντος, ὡς ἀληθὲς ἦν ἄρα,
ἐσθλῶν ἀπ᾿ ἀνδρῶν ἐσθλὰ γίγνεσθαι τέκνα,
κακῶν δ᾿ ὅμοια τῇ φύσει τῇ τοῦ πατρός.
