This is a selection of fragments from Menander's plays, which have been preserved in quotations by other authors. Very short fragments have not been included. The numbers in red are the fragment numbers in the edition of T. Kock (1888); the numbers in green are the numbers in the edition of A. Koerte (1959). Most of the translations are by F.G.Allinson (1921).
[24] {24} from: HALIEIS
We are well off and in no mere average way. There is gold from Cyinda ; there is store of purple robes from Persia ; we have within, gentlemen, repoussé work, drinking-cups, and other silver ware, and masks of raised relief, goat-stag drinking horns, wide-eared vessels.
[65] {59} from: ARRĒPHOROS or AULĒTRIS
{A} You will not marry, if you've any sense,
And leave this life of yours. For I who speak to you
Have married. Therefore I advise you: "Do not wed!"
{B} The matter's voted and decreed. Let the dice be cast!
{A} Well then, go on. But heaven grant you come out safe.
On a real sea of troubles you're embarking now -
No Libyan, no Aegean, nor Sicilian sea
Where three boats out of thirty may escape from wreck -
There is no married man at all who has been saved!
[66] {60} from: ARRĒPHOROS or AULĒTRIS
But if one merely sets this Myrtile a-going or calls "nurse," she chatters to the limit. The Dodonaean bronze, which they say rings on throughout he day, if a passer-by does but touch it, you could stop sooner than this woman's chatter; for she takes up the night in addition.
[67] {61} from: ARRĒPHOROS or AULĒTRIS
Byzantium makes all the traders tipsy. The whole night through for your sake we were drinking, and, I think it was very strong wine too. At any rate I got up with a head for four.
[223] { - } from: THEOPHOROUMENĒ
If some god should come up to me and say "Crato, after your death you shall come alive again, and you shall be whatsoever you desire - a dog, sheep, goat, man, horse - for you have to live twice. This is decreed. Choose what you prefer." I think that I would promptly say: "Make me anything but human. That is the only living organism which unfairly gets its good or ill-fortune. The best horse receives more careful grooming than others. If you are a good dog you are held in far greater esteem than a bad dog. A noble rooster exists on special diet, while the cock of low degree actually lives in fear of his superior. A human being, even if he is good, high-bred, very nobly born, gets no good of that in this present day and generation! The flatterer fares best of all; the blackmailer comes next; the malignant man has the third place. It would be better to be born an ass than to see one's inferiors living in greater splendour than oneself."
[235] {198} from: THĒSAUROS
Is not, then, Eros greatest of the gods and anyhow by far the most esteemed of all? For no man is so very niggardly and none so painfully exact in habit, as not to share with this god a part of his property. At all events Eros orders those towards whom he is gentle to do this while they still are young, whereas those who make postponement till old age pay interest in addition for the lapse of time.
[923] {208} from: THYRŌROS
It is something strenuous to take the plunge into a family dinner-party where the paterfamilias, with cup in hand, first leads off the speech-making, full of advice; then the mother second; next a grandmother puts in her chatter: then an old man, father of the maternal aunt, with deep, bass voice: and then an old woman who calls the young man 'dearest.' The latter has to nod assent to all of these.
[245] {210} from: HIEREIA
No god, my wife, saves one man through another's help.
For if a human being can by cymbals' clash
Deflect the god to whatsoever he desires,
Then greater than the god is he that does this.
But these are ways and means for shameless livelihood,
Invented, Rhodē, for the needs of shameless men,
Contrived to make a mockery of human life.
[247] {210} from: IMBRIOI
There is nothing greater, father, in man's nature than reasoning power. By the rational disposition of affairs each man is according to character a ruler, a general, a popular leader, or, again, a councillor. He who excels in reasoning power controls all.
[249] {215} from: HIPPOKOMOS
{A} There was a certain Monimus, a wise man, Philo, but a little too paradoxical.
{B} The one with the wallet?
{A} The wallet! He was a three-bagger! But he uttered a saying not at all resembling, by Zeus, that maxim: "Know thyself," nor yet the others so often cited, but far beyond them, squalid beggar though he was. For he said that every single assumption was a delusion.
[281] { - } from: KITHARISTĒS
I used to think, Phanias, that the wealthy, who can live without borrowing money, do not groan in the night, nor even toss up and down exclaiming, "Oh, me ," but that they have a pleasant and tranquil sleep, whereas such evils as that belong to beggars.
But now I see that you, the so-called happy ones, have suffering like our own. In truth grief and life are in a certain way akin. Grief consorts with a life of luxury; it is present in a life of high repute; it grows old along with a life of straitened circumstances.
[301] {250} from: KYBERNĒTAI
Does money, young man, seem to you capable of furnishing the price not only of the daily necessities - bread, meal, vinegar, and oil - but also of something greater? There is no price for immortality, not even if you get together those storied talents of Tantalus; but you shall die and leave these things to others. What am I saying, then? Why, even if you are very well off yourself, do not trust to this, nor, again, despise us, the beggarly poor, but at least show yourself continuously worthy of good fortune in the eyes of beholders.
[302] {251} from: KYBERNĒTAI
How we do chatter, men thrice wretched that we are.
Yes, all of us, so much puffed up about ourselves!
For men themselves do not know the nature of mankind.
Now here's a man deemed happy in the market-place:
But when he opens his front door, thrice luckless one,
A woman rules supreme, gives orders, bickers on
And on. His griefs are more and many. But I have none!
[312] {258} from: LEUKADIA
Where it is said that Sappho was the first -
In her longing for Phaon the proud -
Who was stung by desire and ventured the leap
From the far-seen headland. But, O lord and master,
While we pray by thy will . . . . . . . . . . . . .
.. . . . . . . let fair silence enfold
Your precinct on Leucadia's foreland.
[319] {264} from: METHĒ
Do we not fare, then, as befits our method of offering sacrifice? Where, for example, I bring to the gods a scrawny sheep, costing scarcely ten drachmas, while the flute-girls and scented oil and harp-girls, wine of Mende or Thasos, eels, cheese, and honey cost all but a talent; there by analogy it is reasonable for us to receive only ten drachmas' worth of blessing even in the event that our sacrifice to the gods is auspicious, while in the reverse case it is reasonable for us to balance against this the loss accruing from them - how is not the evil from the sacrifices duplicated? I, at any rate, if I were the god, would never have allowed anyone to put a loin on the altar unless along with it he were dedicating an eel - in order to secure the death of Callimedon, one of his kinsmen.
[325] {276} from: MISOGYNĒS
Yes, for you take it in left-handed style.That is, you see in it the difficulties and things which annoy you, but you have given up looking further at the benefits. Now, Simylus, you'd not find a single one of all your blessings with which there is not also combined some evil.
For instance, a wealthy wife is an irksome thing, nor does she even allow the one who took her to wife to live as he likes. Yet there is a certain benefit accruing from her - for example, children; or, if her husband fall ill, she nurses him.
[348] {286} from: NAUKLĒROS
{A} O Straton, Theophilus has returned to us leaving the deep, Aegean brine! How fortunate it comes that I'm the first to tell you that your son is successful, he is safe and sound and your "gilt-edged" vessel too!
{STRATON} What sort of vessel?
{A} The boat! You poor fellow, you don't know a thing!
{STRATON} You mean my ship is safe and sound?
{A} Yes, at any rate I mean the ship built by Callicles of Calymna with Euphranor of Thurii as helmsman.
[349] {287} from: NAUKLĒROS
O land, O dearest mother mine, how very reverend a possession and worth how valuable you are in the eyes of the intelligent. How right indeed it were that anyone who inherited an ancestral estate and devoured it should from that time on sail forever
nor even set foot on land, so that he might come to see how good a thing he had wasted after obtaining it!
[355] {295} from: XENOLOGOS
So unexpectedly does Fortune bring about what's beneficial, as the case may be, in human life. She makes use of no fixed laws by which she decides circumstances. Nor is it even possible for anyone to say while life lasts: "That is something that I will not experience!"
[363] {303} from: ORGĒ
And yet, wife, I too was once a young man, but then I did not bathe five times a day. But now I do. Nor did I even have a fine over-cloak. But now I have. Nor even scented oil. But now I have. And I will dye my hair and I will pluck myself smooth, by Zeus, and in short shrift will turn into a Ctesippus, and be no more a man, and then, as he did, I will devour even the stone blocks one and all; at any rate I will not devour only the property in land.
[364] {304} from: ORGĒ
Not one whit different from Chaerephon is that man, whoever he is, who once upon a time, bidden to dine when the sun's shadow marks twelve feet, rising at the crack of dawn took a look at the shadow and ran by the light of the moon, as though late, and arrived along with the daylight.
[367] {309} from: ORGĒ
Here's a guest for you of the real sort! He does not ask, as others do, "At what hour is your dinner?" and "What's to hinder those who are here from dining?"- and then looks out for another dinner on the third and then again another for the fourth day and yet again for a funeral feast.
[402] {333} from: PLOKION
This fine heiress is likely now to sleep at ease on either cheek! A great and notorious deed has now been accomplished. Out from the house she has cast
the irksome woman whom she wished to banish, so that all may fix their eyes on the face of Crobyle and that she may be recognised as my wife, the mistress of the house- even that face which she won as her own, an ass among apes, as the saying goes. I prefer to stay silent about the night, which was the prime cause of many evils. Ah, me! To think that I took Crobyle to wife with her sixteen talents dowry - and her nose a cubit long! Now is this insolence in any way to be tolerated? No, by Olympian Zeus, by Athena, not at all! But this serving wench must be led off quicker than one can speak. Now then, let someone lead in here a second as her substitute!
[403] {334} from: PLOKION
{A} I have to wife a Lamia, an heiress. Have I not told you this? Have I not, really? We have her, and no mistake, as mistress of house and lands and of everything, O Apollo - the sorest sore of all. Sour is she towards all - not me alone - towards my son even more and towards my daughter.
{B} You tell of an affair where resistance is in vain.
{A} I know it well.
[404] {335} from: PLOKION
O thrice unlucky is he who though poor marries and begets children. How irrational is a man who has neither taken precaution for necessities, nor, if he meets with misfortune in the common events of life, would be able to veil it with money, but he lives storm-tossed in the midst of an unsheltered life of hardship, with his share of all distresses - but no share of blessings! For I, though suffering for one alone, admonish all.
[405] {336} from: PLOKION
Whoever wishes, though a poor man, to live in the city is willing to make himself still more despondent. For whenever he turns his eyes upon the luxurious man who is able to live at his ease, then it is possible for him to see what a life of wretched hardship he has himself.
. . .
Our master has counselled very badly. For while he lived in the country, he, as belonging to the class that has no definite position, was not open to much criticism but was protected by solitude.
[460] {395} from: TITTHĒ
They who raise their brows like dunces and say: "I will consider" - What, though human, you will consider? About what? You suffer mischance whenever it happens so, for the current of events, even if you sleep, automatically runs towards prosperity or, again, flows the other way.
[462] {397} from: TROPHŌNIOS
{A} The dinner is for the reception of a stranger,
{CATERER} Of whom? From what country? For this makes a difference to the cook. For instance: these precious guests from the islands, brought up on all kinds of fresh fish, are not very much captivated by salt sea-food but partake of it anyhow, whereas they are much more attracted to dressed meats, seasoned and served with savoury sauces. An Arcadian, on the other hand, as an inlander, is captivated by limpets. An Ionian is a wealthy wanton; for him I prepare jelly-soups, Lydian entrées, meats that irritate desire.
[466] {401} from: HYDRIA
How sweet a thing is solitude for someone who hates mean, bad ways; and for someone who has no evil designs, how adequate a possession is a farm that keeps him well. For from the throng arises rivalry, and luxury in this city is brilliant, it is true, but only for brief time.
[472] {407} from: HYMNIS
Uprightness, by Athena, is in all respects a blessed and marvellous support in life. After chatting with this man for a small part of a day I am now his well-wisher. To this some one of the sages might certainly say, "Eloquence is a persuasive thing." Why, then, do I feel a loathing for the others who talk well? It's the character of the speaker that does the persuading, not eloquence. For eloquent speech, if it causes damage, is something dire.
[481] {416} from: HYPOBOLIMAIOS
That man, O Parmenon, I count most fortunate
Who quickly returns whence he came, when he, unvexed,
Has looked on these majestic sights - the common sun,
Water and clouds, the stars and fire. Whether you live
For a hundred years, or very few, you will always see
These same sights - grander ones you never will behold.
So count this time I speak of as some festival
Or city visit, where one sees the market-place,
The crowd, the thieves, the dice, the loungers at the clubs,
Then, if you go off early to your lodging-place,
You will go with fuller purse and without any enemy,
While he that tarries longer grows weary, his money gone,
He becomes old and wretched and forever needy;
A vagrant he, the victim of enemies and plots.
Gaining no easy death, he drags out time till he returns.
[482] {417} from: HYPOBOLIMAIOS
Stop talking about intellect; for the human intellect amounts to nothing, while Fortune's - whether we call it divine spirit or intellect - this is what steers all and twists and saves, whereas mortal forethought is smoke and nonsense. Take my advice and you'll not blame me: everything that we think or say or do is Fortune, and we are but counter-signers.
. . . Fortune ever holds the tiller. This goddess alone we ought to speak of as both intellect and forethought unless we perversely take pleasure in empty names.
[484] {418} from: HYPOBOLIMAIOS
Woman should always take the second place in speaking and the man should take the lead in all. For every household, in which a woman holds first place in all things, goes to utter ruin.
[phasma-1] from: PHASMA , lines 27-43
{SERVANT} How is wheat selling to-day?
{PHEIDIAS} What does that matter to you?
{SERVANT} Oh, nothing,but I have a fancy to make use of the illustration to bring out the truth. If the price is high let this vex you on behalf of me, a poor man. Take notice, Pheidias, that you are human yourself, and that the wretched man is also human, in order that you may not covet what's beyond you. But when you say that you suffer from insomnia, you'll know the cause if you'll examine yourself what man you are. You take a stroll in the market-place; you come in forthwith; if your two legs are tired vou take a luxurious bath; you rise up and eat greedily at pleasure; your life itself is a sleep. In fine, you have no ill; your disease is luxury through which to you have passed- but something rather hackneyed, my young master, occurs to me - please excuse me - as the saying goes, you know, you are so crowded by your blessings, know it well, that you have no room to ease yourself!
[phasma-2] from: PHASMA , lines 47-56
{SERVANT} Your folly is weakness and incontinence.
{PHEIDIAS} Very well, then. What do you advise me ? For, I think, you've reasoned this out very carefully.
{SERVANT} What do I advise? I'll explain. If, Pheidias, you so had any real mistortune it would be necessary for you to seek some real remedy for it. But, as it is, you have none. For this empty ill, let us find also an empty remedy, and think up something to help you. Let the women stand round you, massage you thoroughly and fumigate you with brimstone. From three fountains sprinkle yourself with water after throwing in some salt and lentils . . .
[518] {451} from: PSEUDHĒRAKLĒS
Cook, you seem to me to be very disagreeable. This is the third time now that you ask me how many tables we intend to set. We are sacrificing only one little porker; but whether we are going to set eight tables or one, what difference does that make to you? Do serve up some time to-day! It is not a case of preparing Lydian entrées, nor even such sauces as you tend to mix up, of honey, flour and eggs, for now it is altogether the reverse. For the cook makes moulds, bakes flat cakes, boils groats and serves them after the smoked fish, and then a cheese-omelette and grapes. But the woman cook, arrayed as rival, roasts bits of meat and thrushes as if for dessert, and thereupon the banqueter nibbles away at them and, after anointing and decking himself with a wreath, settles down again to dine on the thrushes as if honey-cakes.
FRAGMENTS OF UNIDENTIFIED PLAYS
[531] {740} Plutarchus, Mor. 103 C
If you, young master, when your mother gave you birth, were born the only one of all mortals who could do forever what you please and always be prosperous, and if some one of the gods made with you this agreement, you do well to be indignant; for he has played you false and done a monstrous thing. But if you, under just the same conditions as all of us, breathe this common air of heaven - to employ a phrase that rather smacks of tragedy - then you must bear this better; you must use your reason. To sum up the whole argument, you are a human being, than which no living creature suffers more sudden change - now to high estate and then again to humiliation. And very justly. For, although by nature a human is exceedingly weak, it is steward over vast affairs and, whenever it takes a fall, it brings down with it very many noble things. But you, young master, have not lost blessings that exceed all measure, and these your present ills are of the average kind. In the future, therefore, strike an average somehow and endure.
[532] {581} Stobaeus, Ecl. 4.22.119
We ought to do our marrying - yes, all of us, by Zeus the saviour - as we do our shopping. We should not make scrutiny of useless details - "Who was the grandfather of the girl one is to marry; who was her grandmother?" - while failing either to examine or observe the character of the woman herself whom one intends to have as wife. Nor should a man carry the dowry to a bank, in order that an assayer may test it, to see if it is good, although the money will not remain for five months in his house; while he fails to appraise a single quality of her who will be for life encamped forever in his home, but recklessly takes on a woman who is inconsiderate, irritable, harsh - perhaps a chatterbox besides.
I will take my own daughter the rounds of the whole city: "You who are inclined to take her, talk to her; observe for yourselves beforehand how great an evil you'll receive." For a woman is necessarily an evil, but he that gets the most tolerable one is lucky.
[533] {612} Stobaeus, Ecl. 4.29.6a + 30
This "pedigree" will kill me, mother. Don't insist,
If you love me, on "pedigree" at every turn.
Those who by inherent nature have no worth,
They all in this take refuge - in their monuments
And pedigrees; they can recite a list of their forebears,
But they themselves have nothing more. Nor will you claim
That there's a man alive who has no father's sire.
For, come now, tell me this: How else could he be born ?
But those, who by some shift of home or lack of friends
Can mention none, are they for this more degenerate
Than those that can? The man whose natural bent is good,
He, mother, he, though an Aethiopian, is nobly bred.
"A Scythian," you say? But Anacharsis was a Scythian !
[534] {620} Stobaeus, Ecl. 4.34.7
All other living beings are most blessed, and are possessed of much more sense than man. For example, take this ass here. His lot is luckless, as is generally agreed. No evils have come to him through himself, but he has only those which Nature has imposed upon him. Whereas we, apart from necessary evils, ourselves and through ourselves contrive others in addition. Let someone sneeze and we're perturbed; if someone criticises us, we're vexed; if someone sees a vision we are greatly frightened; if an owl hoots, we are filled with fear. Contentions, reputations, ambitious rivalries, and laws - all these evils have been added to those that Nature has given.
[535] {718} [Lucianus], Amores, 43
Now is it not just that they depict Prometheus riveted fast upon the crags, and that he has a torch-race in his honour, but not one single benefit besides? He moulded women, O you reverend gods! - an abominable caste, hated by all the gods, I think. Is some man bent on marrying - on marrying? In the sequel evil passions lurk unseen - a paramour who revels in the marriage-bed; and poisons; and envy, most grim of all diseases - all these are lurking for the man who is to live with a woman for the whole of his life.
[536] {656} Alexander, de figures, 11
By Athena, gentlemen, I cannot devise a comparison that will match what has actually occurred, as I turn over with myself what brings me swiftly to my ruin. For instance, a cyclone, while it gathers strength, comes on; it strikes; it whirls off; an age goes by. Or on the sea when billows clash: there's breathing space to cry " Zeus Saviour! ", " Cling to the rigging! " or to await a second and again a triple surge, and on a piece of wreckage you my lay hold. But here no sooner have I grasped and kissed than I'm in an abyss!
[537] {614} Stobaeus, Ecl. 4.31.30
Epicharmus claims as gods Winds, Water, Earth, Sun, Fire, and Stars, whereas I think that Gold and Silver are for us the useful gods. Just dedicate their shrines within your house and say your prayers. What do you wish for? All things shall be yours: estate and houses, servants, silver-plate, friends, jurymen, and witnesses. Pay! pay! that's all. For you will have the gods themselves as your assistants.
[538] Comparatio Menandri et Philistionis
If you want to know yourself and who you are, look at the grave-stones as you pass by. There are the bones and unsubstantial dust of men who once were kings, of despots, of the wise, of men who prided themselves on noble birth, on wealth, and on their fame and their bodies beautiful! Yet none of these things gave them any protection against Time. Hades is the common lot of all mortals. Look at these grave-stones and know yourself, the man that you are.
[539] {622} Stobaeus, Ecl. 4.34.18
The man who is willing to suffer all toil may achieve every goal- he is in a fashion rich; or, by virtue of some knowledge is a philosopher; or by some regimen he is sound of body - yet, when all's said and done, one thing he cannot find: the way through which one may avoid sorrow. For it's not merely failure to fare as you would like that causes grief, but even blessings bring troubles with them.
[540] {538} Stobaeus, Ecl. 3.38.29
Young man, I think it has not dawned upon your mind
That everything is ruined by its own native ill,
That all that brings defilement comes from within.
For instance, if you'll notice, rust in iron tools;
In over-cloak the moths; the woodworm in the wood;
And then, again, there's envy, worst of all evils,
The impious propensity of evil souls,
Which has consumed, consumes, and always will consume.
[541] {568} Stobaeus, Ecl. 4.20.34
. . . It is worth our while
To wonder where Love's affairs have their origin.
. . . To what then is a man enslaved?
A face? That's nonsense! All would love the self-same girl,
Their eyes would be for them the same criterion.
Some pleasure in companionship entices love?
Why, then, in spite of this does one man suffer no ill,
But off he goes and mocks, while this man's quite done for?
Soul-sickness is the cause, and the stricken man,
We must conclude, is wounded by an inward blow.
[542] {543} Stobaeus, Ecl.4.1.30
If each of us were willing to join in the struggle and to unite in exacting a penalty from the offender, thinking that retribution for injustice was his duty also, and if we made common cause in the hardship, the mischief of bad men would not grow ever greater, but the wicked, held under close surveillance and receiving their due punishment, would be either very scarce or utterly eliminated.
[543] {639} Stobaeus , Ecl. 4. 48. 21
Dercippus and Mnesippus, for ill-words or ill-treatment suffered by any one of us, there is a refuge for us all, namely, in good friends. For then it is possible to take one's fill of lamentation without meeting ridicule, and then each one of us finds most release from vexation, whenever he sees a friend standing by him with kind sympathy.
[544] {754} Porphyrius, Abst. 4.15
Take the Syrians for example, since these men,
When they are led by intemperance to eat of fish,
Become swollen in their belly and their feet.
Then covered with a sack , in the public way
They sit on a dunghill, so that the Goddess may be
Appeased by their lowly state, and the crime forgiven.
[545] {717} Lucian, Pseudol. 4
Argument is my name, the friend of Truth and Frankness, and a deity close akin to Freedom, an enemy only to those men who fear my tongue, and one who both knows all things and makes all details clear, whatever evil of yours I perceive. I call a fig a fig, a spade a spade.
[546] {592} Stobaeus, Ecl. 4.23.11
You're overstepping, wife, a married woman's bounds -
The door of the courtyard! For a free-born woman
The street-door is the limit by convention fixed.
This chasing and this running out upon the street,
Still spewing out abuse, Rhode, is fit for dogs.
[547] {794} Strab. 7.296
All Thracians, and we Getae most especially -
(Yes "we," I say, for I myself claim origin
From those parts) - are not so very self-restrained.
. . . . . .
For not a single one among us marries, unless
He takes ten or else eleven wives - some indeed
Take twelve or more. Or if he weds but four or five
He then is called "a subverter of the state,
Unmarried, feckless, bachelor," by folks out there.
[549] Comparatio Menandri et Philistionis
Being a man, never ask the gods for a life set free
From grief, but ask for courage that will long endure.
For if you want to avoid all grief from first to last,
You must become a god or else perhaps a corpse!
Look on the ills of others, and take solace in your own.
[550] {714} Julianus Hal., in Job
( Fortune is an ally to the righteous-minded. )
By every one of us at birth forthwith there stands
A beneficent spirit guide, to lead us through
Life's uncertainties. For we are not to suppose
That this is an evil Genius to harm our mortal life,
Nor fraught with wickedness, but think that God is good
In everything. Yet those who turn out base themselves
In character and create great confusion in their life,
Or ruin everything through their heedlessness,
Declare and hold the god responsible and claim
That he is evil, when they are such themselves.
[562] {745} Plutarchus, Mor. 547 C
"How, pray, did you get this wound?" "From a javelin." "How, by the gods?" "While scaling the wall on a ladder." So I explain in all seriousness, but they for reply turned up their noses.
[598] Comparatio Menandri et Philistionis
Fellow, don't keep on groaning, do not grieve in vain. The things which fortune lent to you - money, and wile, and crop of many children - she has taken back again.
[613] {797} Strabo 10.486
That's a fine custom, Phanias, of the Ceians - that a man who can't live well does not continue to live wretchedly.
{ This refers to the custom in Ceos of putting to death all citizens over 60 years old: see Strabo. }
[-] {722} P. Freiburg 12 ; translated by M. Balme
Why do you talk so sadly to yourself and seem
To give the impression of a man in pain?
Make me your confidant, let me advise
You on your troubles. Don't despise advice
A servant gives. Often a slave who has
An honest character is wiser than
His master. And if Fortune has enslaved
His body, yet his mind still remains free.
{Greek: }
ὦ Ζεῦ, τί σύννους κατὰ μόνας σαυτῷ λαλεῖς,
δοκεῖς τε παρέχειν ἔμφασιν λυπουμένου;
ἐμοὶ προσανάθου· λαβέ με σύμβουλον πόνων·
μὴ καταφρονήσῃς οἰκέτου συμβουλίας.
πολλάκις ὁ δοῦλος τοὺς τρόπους χρηστοὺς ἔχων
τῶν δεσποτῶν ἐγένετο σωφρονέστερος.
εἰ δ᾿ ἡ τύχη τὸ σῶμα κατεδουλώσατο,
ὅ γε νοῦς ὑπάρχει τοῖς τρόποις ἐλεύθερος.
Attalus' home page | 03.02.25 | Any comments?