Best of all not to force the gods,
but to be content with one's lot. Desire for the impossible
makes many lose what they have now.
πάντων ἄριστον μὴ βιάζεσθαι θεούς,
στέγειν δὲ μοῖραν· τῶν ἀμηχάνων δ᾿ ἔρως
πολλοὺς ἔθηκε τοῦ παρόντος ἀμπλακεῖν.
"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, April 04, 2026
Contentment
Euripides, fragment 1076 Kannicht (tr. Christopher Collard and Martin Cropp):