Now since I am in any case going to breathe out my life,
I want to do something to my enemies before I die
so that I can repay with destruction those who have betrayed me 1165
and so that those who have made me miserable may smart for it.
ἐγὼ δὲ πάντως ἐκπνέων ψυχὴν ἐμὴν
δράσας τι χρῄζω τοὺς ἐμοὺς ἐχθροὺς θανεῖν,
ἵν᾿ ἀνταναλώσω μὲν οἵ με προύδοσαν, 1165
στένωσι δ᾿ οἵπερ κἄμ᾿ ἔθηκαν ἄθλιον.
"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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Thursday, October 12, 2017
Last Wishes
Euripides, Orestes 1163-1166 (tr. David Kovacs):