Laudator Temporis Acti

Euripides, Rhesus 360-369 (tr. Richmond Lattimore):

Will it ever happen again that our ancient Troy
will know the day-long revelries,
the love pledge and companionship,
the strumming on the lyres and the wine cups circling,
passed to the right, in sweet contention,
while on the open water the sons
of Atreus make for Sparta,
gone from the shores of Ilium?
O friend, could it only be
that with hand and spear you would do
this before you leave us!

ἆρά ποτ᾽ αὖθις ἁ παλαιὰ Τροΐα        360
τοὺς προπότας παναμερεύ-
    σει θιάσους ἐρώτων
ψαλμοῖσι καὶ κυλίκων οἰνοπλανήτοις
ὑποδεξίαις ἁμίλλαις
κατὰ πόντον Ἀτρειδᾶν        365
Σπάρταν οἰχομένων
Ἰλιάδος παρ᾽ ἀκτᾶς;
ὦ φίλος, εἴθε μοι
σᾷ χερὶ καὶ σῷ δορὶ πρά-
    ξας τάδ᾽ ἐς οἶκον ἔλθοις.

Almut Fries ad loc.:

The joys of feasting and the symposium are regularly opposed to the grimness of war: Pi. Pyth. 10.29-46 (of the Hyperboreans, who live in a sort of paradise), Bacch. Pae. 4.61-80, Phoen. 784-92, E. frr. 369, 453 (cf. West, Ancient Greek Music, 13-14). But our passage appears to be connected with the third stasimon of Ajax (1185-1222), where the Salaminian sailors (another chorus of simple soldiers) bemoan the absence of drink, music and love in much the same way as the sentries here (Ai. 1199-1205) and eventually wish they were at home in Attica (1216-22). Correspondingly, the Trojans hope for the Greeks to depart so that they can resume their previous life.