To die gloriously, if die one must,
though it is of course painful to him who dies,
is a source of magnificence for the survivors and a glory to their houses.
θανεῖν γὰρ εὐκλεῶς μέν, εἰ θανεῖν χρεών,
λυπρὸν μὲν οἶμαι τῷ θανόντι — πῶς γὰρ οὔ; —
τοῖς ζῶσι δ᾽ ὄγκος καὶ δόμων εὐδοξία.
"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, August 26, 2025
Death with Glory
Euripides, Rhesus 758-760 (tr. David Kovacs):