Men must needs bear the fortunes given by the gods; but when they cling to self-inflicted miseries, as thou dost, no one can justly excuse or pity them.Related posts:
ἀνθρώποισι τὰς μὲν ἐκ θεῶν
τύχας δοθείσας ἔστ᾽ ἀναγκαῖον φέρειν·
ὅσοι δ᾽ ἑκουσίοισιν ἔγκεινται βλάβαις,
ὥσπερ σύ, τούτοις οὔτε συγγνώμην ἔχειν
δίκαιόν ἐστιν οὔτ᾽ ἐποικτίρειν τινά.
"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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Saturday, June 01, 2024
Self-Inflicted Miseries
Sophocles, Philoctetes 1316-1320 (Neoptolemus to Philoctetes; tr. Richard Jebb):