Why, what do mortals need but just two things, Demeter's grain and running water to drink—things which are at hand and were made to give us nourishment? But their abundance does not satisfy us; we are choosy and hunt for ways of contriving different foods.Related post: Bread and Water.
ἐπεὶ τί δεῖ βροτοῖσι πλὴν δυοῖν μόνον,
Δήμητρος ἀκτῆς πώματός θ' ὑδρηχόου,
ἅπερ πάρεστι καὶ πέφυχ' ἡμᾶς τρέφειν;
ὧν οὐκ ἀπαρκεῖ πλησμονή· τρυφῇ δέ τοι
ἄλλων ἐδεστῶν μηχανὰς θηρεύομεν.
"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
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Sunday, February 09, 2014
Bread and Water Again
Euripides, fragment 892 (tr. Christopher Collard and Martin Cropp):