playwrights-from-greece

"Ἡλίθιον εἶναι νοῦν τε πουλύποδος ἔχειν."

"W. R. Paton, tr. Greek Anthology, Vol. 2, LCL 68 (1917)"

"Καὶ ὑμῖν δέ, ὦ ἑταῖροι, λέγω ὅτι οὐδέν ἐστιν ὀφθαλμῶν οὕτως εὐφραντικὸν ὡς γυναικὸς κάλλος. ὁ γοῦν τοῦ τραγικοῦ Χαιρήμονος Οἰνεὺς περὶ παρθένων τινῶν διηγούμενος ὧν ἐθεᾶτό φησιν ἐν τῷ ὁμωνύμῳ δράματι:Ἔκειτο γὰρ ἡ μὲν λευκὸν εἰς σεληνόφως φαίνουσα μαστὸν λελυμένης ἐπωμίδος, τῆς δ᾽ αὖ χορεία: λαγόνα τὴν ἀριστερὰν ἔλυσε: γυμνή δ᾽ αἰθέρος θεάμασιν ζῶσαν γραφὴν ἔφαινε: χρῶμα δ᾽ ὄμμασι λευκὸν μελαίνης ἔργον ἀντηύγει σκιᾶς. ἄλλη δὲ ἐγύμνου καλλίχειρας ὠλένας, ἄλλης προσαμπέχουσα θῆλυν αὐχένα: ἡ δ᾽ ῥαγέντων χλανιδίων ὑπὸ πτύχας ἔφαινε μηρόν, κἀξεπεσφραγίζετοὥρας γελώσης χωρὶς ἐλπίδων ἔρως. ὑπνωμέναι δ᾽ ἔπιπτον ἑλενίων ἔπι, ἴων τε μελανόφυλλα συγκλῶσαι πτερὰ κρόκον θ᾽, ὃς ἡλιῶδες εἰς ὑφάσματα πέπλων σκιᾶς εἴδωλον ἐξωμόργνυτο, ἕρσῃ δὲ θαλερὸς ἐκτραφεὶς ἀμάρακος λειμῶσι μαλακοὺς ἐξέτεινεν αὐχένας."

"F. C. Babbitt, tr. Pluarch's Moralia, Vol. 2, LCL 222 (1928)"

"Τύχη τὰ θνητῶν πράγματ᾽, οὐκ εὐβουλία."

"C. B. Gurlick, tr. The Deipnosophists, Vol. 6, LCL 327 (1937)"

"Eὔβουλόν τέκνωσεν Ἀθηναγόρης περὶ πάντων ἥσσονα μὲν μοίρᾳ, κρέσσονα δ᾽ εὐλογίᾳ."

"Tοῖς Ἄργει Σπάρτηθεν ἶσαι χέρες, ἶσα δὲ τεύχη συμβάλομεν Θυρέαι δ᾽ ἦσαν ἄεθλα δορός. ἄμφω δ᾽ ἀπροφάσιστα τὸν οἴκαδε νόστον ἀφέντες οἰωνοῖς θανάτου λείπομεν ἀγγελίαν."

"Κλεύας Οὑτυμοκλεῖος, ὑπὲρ Θυρεᾶν δόρυ τείνας, κάτθανες ἀμφίλογον γᾶν ἀποτεμνόμενος."

"A. Nauck, ed. Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta (1888)"

"I have no desire to die, but I count my death as nothing."

"You’ll never fashion anything clever by drinking water!"

"...Each one of you is a bribe-taking fox."

"Let the person who wins be him who says what is most desirable for the city."

"Life in the past was happy for mortals as compared to now. Men led a life, gentle in mind with sweet-speaking wisdom, most beautiful of mortals."

"What a swarm of sophists you lot have swirled up!"

"Even to wise mortals Music carries unceasing feelings..."

"No man's more fortunate than he who's poor, Since for the worse his fortune cannot change."

"Long time thou'lt toil to gather up the heap Which thou canst scatter in a single day."

"Time is of every woe the healer."

"To man no suffering unexpected comes; We hold our fortune but from day to day."

"How senseless is the sordid love of gain; Blind to all else the mind that's set on profit."

"Were there no lust of gain none would be evil."

"Most wise men were agreed that it were best Not to be born, but if that may not be, Then with the least delay to reach the goal."

"Once thou art wed, no longer canst thou be Lord of thyself."

"Though Fortune now be smiling, it behoves To look ahead, nor e'er to trust in Fortune."

"Ἅπαντα τὰ ζητούμεν᾽ ἐξευρίσκεται, ἂν μὴ προαποστῇς μηδὲ τὸν πόνον φύγῃς· ὅπου γὰρ εὑρήκασιν ἄνθρωποί τινες μέρος τι τῶν θείων τοσοῦτο τῷ τόπῳ ἀπέχοντες, ἄστρων ἐπιτολάς, δύσεις, τροπάς, ἔκλειψιν ἡλίου, τί τῶν κοινῶν κάτω καὶ συγγενικῶν δύναιτ᾽ ἂν ἄνθρωπον φυγεῖν."

"Our life is like to dice, which ever fall In varying combinations; no one form Has man's existence, but 'tis full of change."

"Not in vain oaths should prudent men believe, But put their trust in actions."

"Of all thy blessings reckon wealth the least, For 'tis the least secure of our possessions."

"[...] a course laid between the seed and the snare"

"This is continuity, you travel, perhaps in your mind, a paper world real, God reeling up and down landscapes and buildings, knocks down, opens new roads, doesn’t like it, changes again, but there isn’t a seam, His world is onefold, and you perceive neither seam nor contradiction, continuity only."

"[...] your own are burning and your memories and you don't want to leave them. Everything will burn to the end, you suffer, but nobody is punishing you, they are just setting your soul free. Don't be afraid because while you fear death they will rend your soul like demons. Only calm down and you will see the angels who are setting you free and then you will be free."

"3:AM: To bring the conversation back down to earth, one thing I know, which is neither paradoxical nor contradictory, is your love of football and your team PAOK. Perhaps such simple pleasures can be considered a gentler form of hope?"

"And when you can no longer remember, just meaningless things here and there and you can't. But still try even then, as the twilight sets in, stand and look at the past, walk again along the corridors where your eyes used to wander, attentive ghosts, open the boxes, think of the other side of the wall. Sit at the side of the road and see yourself pass. See the web, see how the passages of the maze all lead again to the same point which does not exactly coincide with the exit."

"Since I started with an anecdote, let me continue with one more: There is a Roma friend of mine, Babis, whom I randomly meet around my neighbourhood when I am in Greece. I have him in a passage in Z213: EXIT, so, when I see him around I say that I owe him royalties and invite him for a drink. Last time I saw him he stayed with us in a tavern up to the early hours of the morning, at which point I offered to give him a lift. When, a few minutes later, he got out of the car on a dark nondescript street, he made an on the spot decision about where to go and what to do next. As I now recall his solitary figure in this dark street while driving away, I come to think of Keats’s “burden of the Mystery”. After we get out of the non-thinking room in the huge mansion of life, we reach the splendidly colourful maiden-room of thought which entices us with the discoveries we make there, before we see it darken from the discovery of pain and suffering; and, as we realise that, we see the doors around us opening to dark corridors leading to the unknown. Who dares follow them when nothing is given, abandon planning ahead and open up to whatever may come? We carry with us a backpack of ideas, theories, insecurities and the detailed scenarios we project onto the future. Unlike us, outcasts, fugitives and people in the margins are the ones possessing the negative capability, the power to bear the “burden of the mystery”; immigrants cross seas that might engulf them. Their fear is overcome not only by the hope of a better life but also by their acceptance of those darker alleys, where time and space are created at the moment in which they are experienced. Z213: EXIT is the journey of such a man, whom I don’t know if it is right to call a “character” – in order to call him that, one should know more than what is found in the book and, perhaps, more than I know about him myself. ."

"Say you are invited to dinner, you arrive and the table is set. A succulent piece of steak is served, a little blood oozes out of the tender meat. Has that piece become so alien to its “history” that you would never wonder about its past? If you did, how far back would you go? Certainly as far as the kitchen, that is easy to do, but how about what happened before? The slaughterhouse or, possibly, the gruesome life of the animal? There’s a story behind the little blood that you see, a residue hinting at the end of a life. A trace that has come to reach you, and you might want to follow the thread and think about life as part of a system—the prearranged context surrounding the chair you have sat on and the clean dish in which your dinner was served."

"Chremylus: [Wealth], the most excellent of all the gods. (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)"

"Chremylus: And what good thing can [Poverty] give us, unless it be burns in the bath, and swarms of brats and old women who cry with hunger, and clouds uncountable of lice, gnats and flies, which hover about the wretch's head, trouble him, awake him and say, “You will be hungry, but get up!” [...] Poverty: It's not my life that you describe; you are attacking the existence beggars lead. [...] The beggar, whom you have depicted to us, never possesses anything. The poor man lives thriftily and attentive to his work; he has not got too much, but he does not lack what he really needs. [...] But what you don't know is this, that men with me are worth more, both in mind and body, than with [Wealth]. With him they are gouty, big-bellied, heavy of limb and scandalously stout; with me they are thin, wasp-waisted, and terrible to the foe. [...] As for behavior, I will prove to you that modesty dwells with me and insolence with [Wealth]. [...] Look at the orators in our republics; as long as they are poor, both state and people can only praise their uprightness; but once they are fattened on the public funds, they conceive a hatred for justice, plan intrigues against the people and attack the democracy. [...] Chremylus: Then tell me this, why does all mankind flee from you? Poverty: Because I make them better. Children do the very same; they flee from the wise counsels of their fathers. So difficult is it to see one's true interest. (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)"

"Chorus: [We] must look beneath every stone, lest it conceal some orator ready to sting us. (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)"

"Agathon: One must not try to trick misfortune, but resign oneself to it with good grace. (tr. Athen. 1912, vol. 2, p. 278) (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)"

"Blepsidemus: There is no honest man! not one, that can resist the attraction of gold! (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)"

"What did they say when they slandered me? I must, as if they were my actual prosecutors, read the affidavit they would have sworn. It goes something like this: Socrates is guilty of wrongdoing in that he busies himself studying things in the sky and below the earth; he makes the worse into the stronger argument, and he teaches these same things to others. You have seen this yourself in the comedy of Aristophanes, a Socrates swinging about there, saying he was walking on air and talking a lot of other nonsense about things of which I know nothing at all. I do not speak in contempt of such knowledge, if someone is wise in these things—lest Meletus bring more cases against me—but, gentlemen, I have no part in it, and on this point I call upon the majority of you as witnesses. I think it right that all those of you who have heard me conversing, and many of you have, should tell each other if anyone of you has ever heard me discussing such subjects to any extent at all. From this you will learn that the other things said about me by the majority are of the same kind. Not one of them is true. And if you have heard from anyone that I undertake to teach people and charge a fee for it, that is not true either."

"Philokleon: Let each man exercise the art he knows. (tr. Rogers 1909, p. 110)"

"Youth ages, immaturity is outgrown, ignorance can be educated, drunkenness sobered, but stupid lasts forever."

"Phobokleon: Hunger knows no friend but its feeder. (embellished tr. Parker 1962, p. 55)"

"[909] Just Cause: You are debauched and shameless. [910] Unjust Cause: You have spoken roses of me. [910] Just Cause: And a dirty lickspittle. [911] Unjust Cause: You crown me with lilies. [911] Just Cause: And a parricide. [912] Unjust Cause: You don't know that you are sprinkling me with gold. [913] Just Cause: Certainly not so formerly, but with lead. [914] Unjust Cause: But now this is an ornament to me. (tr. Hickie 1853, vol. 1, Perseus — for comparison with tr. below)"

"Sosias: The love of wine is a good man's failing. (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)"

"Chorus: Under every stone lurks a politician. (tr. in Bartlett 1968, p. 91 or Archive.org)"

"Bdelycleon: It is so that you may know only those who nourish you (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)"