Stop It

Euripides, Suppliant Women 949-954 (tr. Edward P. Coleridge):

O wretched sons of men! Why do you get weapons and bring slaughter on one another? Cease from that, give over your toiling, and in mutual peace keep safe your cities. Short is the span of life, so it would be best to run its course as lightly as we may, free from trouble.

                                       ὦ ταλαίπωροι βροτῶν,
τί κτᾶσθε λόγχας καὶ κατ᾽ ἀλλήλων φόνους
τίθεσθε; παύσασθ᾽, ἀλλὰ λήξαντες πόνων        950
ἄστη φυλάσσεθ᾽ ἥσυχοι μεθ᾽ ἡσύχων.
σμικρὸν τὸ χρῆμα τοῦ βίου· τοῦτον δὲ χρὴ
ὡς ῥᾷστα καὶ μὴ σὺν πόνοις διεκπερᾶν.