Oh, oh! you tribes of short-lived men, full of tears, full of suffering, see how fate runs counter to your hopes! All receive in turn their different troubles in length of time; and the whole of mortal life is uncertain.
ἰὼ ἰώ, πανδάκρυτ᾽ ἐφαμέρων
ἔθνη πολύπονα, λεύσσεθ᾽, ὡς παρ᾽ ἐλπίδας
μοῖρα βαίνει.
ἕτερα δ᾽ ἕτερος ἀμείβεται
πήματ᾽ ἐν χρόνῳ μακρῷ· 980
βροτῶν δ᾽ ὁ πᾶς ἀστάθμητος αἰών.
"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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Tuesday, November 21, 2023
Life
Euripides, Orestes 976-981 (tr. Edward P. Coleridge):