Thursday, February 27, 2025
The Rot Within
Menander, fragment 761 Kassel and Austin (tr. Maurice Balme):
To the critical apparatus for line 8 add F.A. Paley's conjecture δυσγενὴς for δυσσεβής.
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Young man, I think you do not understandApparatus from Poetae Comici Graeci, edd. R. Kassel et C. Austin, Vol. VI 2: Menander: Testimonia et Fragmenta apud Scriptores Servata (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1998), p. 367:
That everything is rotted by its own
Peculiar vice and that which does the harm
Lies all within. For instance, if you look,
Iron is destroyed by rust and clothes by moths
And wood by worms. And as for you, it's envy,
Worst of all vices, that's made you waste away,
And does so now and will do so again,
The godless failing of an evil soul.
μειράκιον, οὔ μοι κατανοεῖν δοκεῖς, ὅτι
ὑπὸ τῆς ἰδίας ἕκαστα κακίας σήπεται,
καὶ πᾶν τὸ λυμαινόμενόν ἐστιν ἔνδοθεν.
οἷον ὁ μὲν ἰός τὸν σίδηρον, ἂν σκοπῇς,
τὸ δ' ἱμάτιον οἱ σῆτες, ὁ δὲ θρὶψ τὸ ξύλον. 5
ὃ δὲ τὸ κάκιστον τῶν κακῶν πάντων, φθόνος
φθισικὸν πεποίηκε καὶ ποιήσει καὶ ποιεῖ,
ψυχῆς πονηρᾶς δυσσεβὴς παράστασις.
