And where can I go to escape death? Show me the country, show me the people to whom I may go, upon whom death does not come; show me a magic charm against it. If I have none, what do you wish me to do? I cannot avoid death.
καὶ ποῦ φύγω τὸν θάνατον; μηνύσατέ μοι τὴν χώραν, μηνύσατε ἀνθρώπους, εἰς οὓς ἀπέλθω, εἰς οὓς οὐ παραβάλλει, μηνύσατε ἐπαοιδήν· εἰ μὴ ἔχω, τί με θέλετε ποιεῖν; οὐ δύναμαι τὸν θάνατον ἀποφυγεῖν.
"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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Thursday, September 17, 2026
No Escape
Arrian, Discourses of Epictetus 1.27.9 (tr. W.A. Oldfather):