Poets From Greece

"Dicaeopolis: Well, how are things at Megara? Megarian: We are crying with hunger at our firesides. Dicaeopolis: The fireside is jolly enough with a piper. But what else is doing at Megara, eh? Megarian: What else? When I left for the market, the authorities were taking steps to let us die in the quickest manner. Dicaeopolis: That is the best way to get you out of all your troubles. Megarian: True. Dicaeopolis: What other news of Megara? What is wheat selling at? Megarian: With us it is valued as highly as the very gods in heaven! (tr. Athen. 1912, vol. 1, Perseus)"

"Demosthenes: Do you dare to accuse wine of clouding the reason? Quote me more marvellous effects than those of wine. Look! when a man drinks, he is rich, everything he touches succeeds, he gains lawsuits, is happy and helps his friends. Come, bring hither quick a flagon of wine, that I may soak my brain and get an ingenious idea. (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)"

"Praxagora: I want all to have a share of everything and all property to be in common; there will no longer be either rich or poor; [...] I shall begin by making land, money, everything that is private property, common to all. [...] Blepyrus: But who will till the soil? Praxagora: The slaves. (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)"

"Æschylus: High thoughts must have high language. (rewritten and embellished tr. Fitts 1955, p. 108)"

"Demosthenes: A demagogue must be neither an educated nor an honest man; he has to be an ignoramus and a rogue. (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)"

"Just Discourse: Do not bandy words with your father, nor treat him as a dotard, nor reproach the old man, who has cherished you, with his age. (tr. Athen. 1912, vol. 1, p. 359)"

"Just Cause: [Learn] not to contradict your father in anything; nor by calling him Iapetus, to reproach him with the ills of age, by which you were reared in your infancy. (tr. Hickie 1853, vol. 1, Perseus)"

"Old age is second childhood."

"Strepsiades: ‘Tis the Whirlwind, that has driven out Zeus and is King now. (tr. Athen. 1912, vol. 1, p. 350)"

"Strepsiades: Whirl is King, having driven out Zeus. (tr. in Lippmann 1929, p. 1 and 4)"

"Unjust Cause: This art is worth more than ten thousand staters, that one should choose the worse cause, and nevertheless be victorious. (tr. Hickie 1853, vol. 1, Perseus)"

"Pisthetaerus: By words the mind is winged. (tr. unknown, seen in Airpower Journal 1990, and in Macmillan Dictionary of Political Quotations 1993, Google Books Search)"

"Informer: My friend, I am asking you for wings, not for words. Pisthetaerus: It's just my words that gives you wings. Informer: And how can you give a man wings with your words? Pisthetaerus: They all start this way. [...] Informer: So that words give wings? Pisthetaerus: Undoubtedly; words give wings to the mind and make a man soar to heaven. Thus I hope that my wise words will give you wings to fly to some less degrading trade. (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)"

"Strepsiades: But come, by the Earth, is not Zeus, the Olympian, a god? Socrates: What Zeus? Do not trifle. There is no Zeus. (tr. Hickie 1853, vol. 1, Perseus)"

"Strepsiades: Vortex reigns, having expelled Zeus. (tr. Hickie 1853, vol. 1, Perseus)"

"Poet: “Straton wanders among the Scythian nomads, but has no linen garment. He is sad at only wearing an animal's pelt and no tunic.” Do you get what I mean? Pisthetaerus: I understand that you want me to offer you a tunic. Hi! you (To the acolyte.) take off yours; we must help the poet. (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)"

"Unjust Discourse: To invoke solely the weaker arguments and yet triumph is a talent worth more than a hundred thousand drachmae. (tr. Athen. 1912, vol. 1, p. 361)"

"Lamachus: Ah! the Generals! they are numerous, but not good for much! (tr. Athen. 1912, vol. 1, Perseus)"

"Epops: Come let me see, what shall the name be for our city? [...] Euelpides: Hence, from the clouds, and these meteoric regions, some all-swelling name. Pisthetaerus: Would you “Cloud-cuckoo-land?” (tr. Warter 1830, p. 215)"

"Praxagora: Woman is adept at getting money for herself and will not easily let herself be deceived; she understands deceit too well herself. (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)"

"Aeschylus: It is the compelling power of great thoughts and ideas to engender phrases of equal size. (tr. Dillon 1995, Perseus)"

"Leader of the Chorus: Let's see. What shall our city be called? [...] Euelpides: Some name borrowed from the clouds, from these lofty regions in which we dwell — in short, some well-known name. Pisthetaerus: Do you like Nephelococcygia? (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)"

"Art loves chance, and chance loves art."

"It is a part of probability that many improbable things will happen."

"μόνου γὰρ αὐτοῦ καὶ θεὸς στερίσκεται, ἀγένητα ποιεῖν ἅσσ᾽ ἂν ᾖ πεπραγμένα."

"Every ruler must remember three things. Firstly, that he rules man; secondly, that he rules according to law, and thirdly, that he does not rule for ever."

"I created you while I was happy, while I was sad, with so many incidents, so many details.And, for me, the whole of you has been transformed into feeling."

"The days of the future stand in front of us Like a line of candles all alight — Golden and warm and lively little candles."

"You won't find a new country, won't find another shore. This city will always pursue you. You'll walk the same streets, grow old in the same neighbourhoods, turn grey in these same houses. You'll always end up in this city. Don't hope for things elsewhere: there's no ship for you, there's no road. Now that you've wasted your life here, in this small corner, you've destroyed it everywhere in the world."

"The Spartans weren't to be led and ordered around like precious servants. Besides, they wouldn't have thought a pan-Hellenic expedition without a Spartan king in command was to be taken very seriously. Of course, then, "except the Lacedaimonians." That's certainly one point of view. Quite understandable."

"I look before me at my lighted candles, I don’t want to turn around and see with horror How quickly the dark line is lengthening, How quickly the candles multiply that have been put out."

"And from this marvellous pan-Hellenic expedition, triumphant, brilliant in every way, celebrated on all sides, glorified incomparable, we emerged: the great new Hellenic world."

"He wasn’t completely wrong, poor old Gemistus (let Lord Andronicus and the patriarch suspect him if they like), in wanting us, telling us to become pagan once again."

"The focal point of Greek-American cultural interest has definitely shifted in recent decades. Where formerly there was a somewhat affected and strained focus on classical Hellas, the contemporary awareness is much more in tune with the literature of modern Greece. This shift has almost been entirely due to the increasing availability of English translations of modern Greek writings, for not many American-born Greeks comfortably read novels or poetry in the original Greek. The beginnings of the new mood can be traced to the translations of the novels of Nikos Kazantzakis in the 1950s. These also stimulated interest in other Greek writers, notably the poets Constantine P. Cavafy, a product of the Greek diaspora in Alexandria, Egypt, and George Seferis, who won the Nobel literature prize in 1963."

"He was a man who starts at a certain age with all signs showing that he's unable to produce anything of importance. And then, by refusing and refusing things which are offered him, in the end he finds, he sees, as they say; he becomes certain that he's found his own expression. It's a splendid example of a man who, through his refusals, finds his way."

"He wrote consistently but almost never published through traditional means. There is nothing more detrimental to art, he maintained, than succumbing to “how the public thinks and what it likes and what it will buy.” … Whether Cavafy is describing an ancient political intrigue or an erotic encounter that occurred last week, his topic is the passage of time. … Earlier translators have, to varying degrees, rightly emphasized the prosaic flatness of Cavafy’s language; the flatness is crucial to the emotional power of the poems, since it prevents their irony from seeming caustic, their longing from seeming nostalgic."

"In his poems about the relations between Christians and Pagans in the age of Constantine, Cavafy takes no sides. Roman Paganism was worldly in the sense that the aim of its ritual practices was to secure prosperity and peace for the state and its citizens. … after Constantine, it was the Christian who had a better chance than the Pagan of getting on in the world, and the Pagan, even if not persecuted, who became the object of social ridicule."

"From his biographers we know how cautious and reserved Cavafy was, how reluctant to talk about himself. Although he frequented cafes and saw many people, his loneliness remained unalleviated. This poem is a rather unusual confession for the poet, especially since it comes so early in his life: Now that you've wasted your life here, in this small corner, you've destroyed it everywhere in the world. The "City" is a summing up of the poet's life, starting with the desire for escape, for a journey, the last hope for a new beginning and ending with the realization that the journey is impossible because once a life has been ruined in one city it will be the same in any other. What separates him from society will not change from city to city."

"Cavafy is intrigued by the comic possibilities created by the indirect relation of poets to the world. While the man of action requires the presence of others here and now, for without the public he cannot act, the poet fabricates his poem in solitude."

"We for the best will strive. And always more defective, more perplexing than before, shall all things fare; until, as in a mist, we stray bewildered. Then we shall desist. For in that helpless hour the gods attend. They always come, the gods. They will descend from their machines, and straightway liberate some and as suddenly exterminate others; and having reformed us, they will go. — And afterward, one will act so; and so another; and in time the rest will do as they needs must. And we shall start anew."

"Cavafy has three principal concerns: love, art, and politics in the original Greek sense. … As a witness, Cavafy is exceptionally honest. He neither bowdlerizes nor glamorizes nor giggles. The erotic world he depicts is one of casual pickups and short-lived affairs. Love, there, is rarely more than physical passion, and when tenderer emotions exist, they are almost always one-sided. At the same time, he refuses to pretend that his memories of sensual pleasure are unhappy or spoiled by feelings of guilt."

"He has the strength (and of course the limitations) of the recluse, who, though not afraid of the world, always stands at a slight angle to it."

"Cavafy's attitude toward the poetic vocation is an aristocratic one. His poets do not think of themselves as persons of great public importance and entitled to universal homage, but, rather, as citizens of a small republic in which one is judged by one's peers and the standard of judgment is strict."

"As the shores of Ithaca gradually Faded away behind him And he sailed swiftly westward Toward Iberia and the Pillars of Hercules, Far from every Achaean sea, He felt he was alive once more, Freed from the oppressive bonds Of familiar, domestic things. And his adventurous heart rejoiced Coldly, devoid of love."

"Now the longed-for signal has appeared. Yet when happiness comes it brings less joy than one expected. But at least we've gained this much: we've rid ourselves of hope and expectation."

"How much we’ll tell down there, how much, and how very different we’ll appear. What we protect here like sleepless guards, wounds and secrets locked inside us, protect with such great anxiety day after day, we’ll disclose freely and clearly down there."

"He was a quiet, gentle man, a man who loved peace (his country had suffered much from the wars of his predecessor), he behaved graciously toward everyone, humble and great alike. Never high-handed, he always sought advice in the kingdom’s affairs from serious, experienced people. Just why his nephew killed him was never precisely explained."

"On hearing about powerful love, respond, be moved like an aesthete. Only, fortunate as you’ve been, remember how much your imagination created for you."

"The greatest gods of our glorious Greece appeared before you. And if they left, don’t think for a minute that they were frightened by a gesture."

"So let's not exaggerate. The light is good; and those coming are good, their words and actions also good. And let's hope all goes well. But Argos can do without the house of Atreus. Ancient houses are not eternal."