Death: My privilege means more to me when
They die young.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Post 4.25.2012.14
Thetis: Grieve no longer for the dead. After all,
This is what the gods have decreed for all
Mankind. Death
is the debt men have to pay.
Post 4.25.2012.13
Chorus: Numberless were the chariots with their noble horses
which
You yoked by the banks of the Simois
And you set men against each other in bloody contests
In which no garland was the prize.
The princes of Ilium
Are dead and gone
And fire blazes no longer
With its scented smoke for the gods
On the altars in Troy.
Post 4.25.2012.12
Orestes: God brings the fortunes of his enemies to ruin
And has no truck with pride.
Post 4.25.2012.11
Orestes: For there is a strange power in kinship and
When one is in trouble there is nothing better than
A friend from one’s family.
Post 4.25.2012.10
Orestes: It was a wise fellow who taught mortals
To listen to tales coming from the opposite side.
Post 4.25.2012.9
Nurse: Why do you torment yourself so? The gods send
Misfortunes to all mortals sooner or later.
Post 4.25.2012.8
Chorus: Time does not take away what good men leave
Behind them.
Even when they are dead, their virtue shines bright.
It is better not to win an ignoble victory
Than to bring down justice by the invidious use of power.
This is sweet to mortals in the short term,
But as time goes by it turns to ashes,
And disgrace engulfs the house.
The life I praise is this, this is the life I wish to win –
To use power within the confines of justice
Both in marriage and in politics.
Post 4.25.2012.7
Menelaus: Your talk doesn’t worry me. You
Are like a shadow, an empty reflection of
Reality. You
have a voice, but mere words
Are the only power you possess.
Post 4.25.2012.6
Andromache: is this what you who live by the Eurotas
Mean by political skill?
Menelaus: Yes, and those at Troy too – that people who
Have suffered should retaliate.
Post 4.25.2012.5
Andromache: O reputation, reputation, you puff
Up to greatness the lives of countless men
Who really amount to nothing!
Post 4.25.2012.4
Andromache: For the high and mighty take superior
Arguments badly when they are spoken by
Inferiors.
Post 4.25.2012.3
Chorus: How does it profit you in your numbing sorrow
To waste your body to disfigurement under your
Masters’ harsh control?
Force will overcome you. You are nothing.
Why do you put up this struggle?
Post 4.25.2012.2
Andromache:
…Because of her oppression
I have come as a suppliant to this statue of the goddess and
Carrying my arms around it
I melt away in tears like a trickle dripping from the
Rocks.
Post 4.25.2012.1
Andromache: No mortal should be called happy
Before he has died and you see how he passes
His final day and goes below.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Post 4.23.2012.14
Chorus: Like smoke on the wings of the breezes,
Our land, laid low in war, now vanishes into nothingness.
Post 4.23.2012.13
Hecuba: Go, bury the corpse in a wretched tomb
For he has the ornaments the dead should have.
I think it makes little difference to them
If they are given rich funeral honours. It is
Merely a vainglorious
display for the living.
Post 4.23.2012.12
Hecuba: A mortal who rejoices because he thinks
His prosperity is secure is a fool, for fortune,
Like an unstable man, has a way of jumping
This way and that, and no one is
Ever happy simply in himself.
Post 4.23.2012.11
Hecuba: O these hands, lying all broken at the joints,
Such sweet remembrances of your father’s hands!
This dear mouth was once so free with braggart
Promises, but it is silent now. You deceived me
When you clung tight to my robes and said, ‘O
Mother, when you are dead, I shall cut a big lock of
My hair and I shall bring troops of friends
To your grave and address you with loving words.’
But it is not you who will bury me. No it is
I who shall bury your pitiable corpse, an old
Woman, who has lost her city and her children,
Giving burial to a mere boy.
Alas! All those embraces, all the care I
Lavished on you, all those broken nights – gone,
Gone! What could
a poet write about you
On your grave?
‘The Argives once killed this
Child because they feared him’? An epitaph
To bring shame on Greece!
Post 4.23.2012.10
Hecuba: O you who support the earth and have
Your dwelling upon it, whoever you are, hart to
Guess at, hard to understand, Zeus, whether
You are the necessity imposed by nature, or
Human intelligence, I offer you my prayers.
For as you move with silent tread, you
Dispose all human affairs according to justice.
Post 4.23.2012.9
Chorus: But you keep your youthful face
Lovely in its calm
As you pay your graceful service by the throne of Zeus.
Yet the Greek spear
Has destroyed the land of Priam.
Monday, April 23, 2012
Post 4.23.2012.8
Talthybius: Do not cling on to the child but grieve
Over your woes with a noble heart. You have no
Power – so do not delude yourself that you have.
There is nowhere you can turn for help.
Post 4.23.2012.7
Andromache: I tell you that not to be born
Is the same as being dead, and that it is better
To die than to live in misery. The dead
Have experienced the miseries of life but feel its
Pain no more, while those who have fallen from
Good fortune into misery are heart-sore because
Of the prosperity they have lost.
Post 4.23.2012.6
Hecuba: Dying and living are very different things,
My child. The
former is nothing, but while
There’s life, there’s hope.
Post 4.23.2012.5
Chorus: When misfortunes come, how sweet are tears and
Sorrowful songs and grief-laden music!
Post 4.23.2012.4
Hecuba: O my children, your mother in her
Desolate city is robbed of you.
What lamentations, what sorrows,
What tears upon tears are poured forth
Over our homes.
Those who die forget their sorrows.
Post 4.23.2012.2
Cassandra: Farewell, my mother. Do not shed a tear.
O
My dear fatherland and my brothers beneath
The ground and our father who begat us, it
Will not be long before you greet me. I
Shall come among the dead as a victor.
I shall have laid waste the house of the
Sons of Atreus, the men who destroyed
Us.
Post 4.23.2012.1
Cassandra: I may have the god in me, but
Nevertheless I shall stand outside my
Frenzy to say this much. In their hunt
For Helen, the Greeks lost countless men –
Because of one woman, one love affair. In
A hateful cause, their clever general killed
What was dearest to him, sacrificing
For his brother his delight in children in
His house, for the sake of a woman –
And that a woman who had not been
Carried off by force.
No she went willingly.
Then,
after they came to the banks of
Scamander, they died one by one, though
They were being stripped of no boundary
Lands nor their native country with
Its high towers.
And those whom
The war god took never saw their
Children again.
They were not shrouded
In robes by their wives’ hands but they
Lie in a foreign land.
And it was a similar
Story back at home.
The wives died as
Widows, the fathers with no sons in their
Houses – they had brought up their children
In vain. And
there is no one who can let
Fall an offering of blood upon the earth at
Their graves.
As
for the Trojans, first of all – and this
Is the noblest fame – they died for their
Fatherland, and the corpses of any whom
The spear took were carried to their homes by
Their friends.
The earth of their native
Land embraced them and they were
Shrouded by the hands of their families,
As was proper.
And all the Phrygians
Who did not die in battle lived with
Their wives and their children day
After day. These
were pleasures which
The Achaeans missed,
And
listen to the truth about
Hector, whose story seems so tragic
To you. He has
departed this life with
The reputation of the noblest of men,
And it was the coming of the Achaeans
That caused this.
If they had stayed
At home, who would have known of
His courage?
Paris too – he married Zeus’
Daughter. If he
had not married her, he
Would have had in his house a wife
Whom no one talked of.
Yes,
anyone who is sane should
Avoid war. But
if it comes to that, it is
No shameful garland for his city if a man
Dies nobly, while if he dies ignobly, it
Brings disgrace.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Post 4.22.2012.28
Polymestor: You rejoice in your brutality to
Me. You will
stop at nothing.
Hecuba: Why shouldn’t I rejoice as I
Take my vengeance on you?
Post 4.22.2012.27
Hecuba: For while prosperity never lacks fair-
Weather friends, in bad times it is the good men
Who show true friendship.
Post 4.22.2012.26
Hecuba: Agamemnon, the tongue should never have
More influence among men than deeds. On the
Contrary, if a man has acted rightly, his words
Should have the ring of truth, while if he has
Acted badly, his words should sound a false
Note. And
injustice should never be able to
Speak well.
There are clever men who have
Mastered the subtle art but they
Cannot stay clever all the time. No, they
Come to a bad end.
Not one of them has yet
Avoided this.
Post 4.22.2012.25
Polymestor: But to put the matter briefly, if
Any man has spoken ill of women in times
Gone by, if any man speaks in this vein
Now or will do so in the future, I shall sum
Up the whole matter in these words:
Neither the earth nor the sea has produced
A race like them, and anyone who has
Ever come into contact with them knows
This well.
Post 4.22.2012.24
Chorus: When someone suffers misfortunes too
Heavy to bear, he can be forgiven if he
Rids himself of his wretched life.
Post 4.22.2012.23
Chorus: Wretched man, the evils that have
Been inflicted on you are certainly hard to
Bear, but a man who has done shameful
Things must pay a terrible reckoning.
Post 4.22.2012.22
Hecuba: None of the Greeks is in the tents,
Only us women.
But come inside—for the
Argives are eager to set sail from Troy –
So that you get everything you should and
Go back with your boys to the home you
Have given my child.
Post 4.22.2012.21
Polymestor: Alas, there is nothing in which we can
Find security, nothing—neither in good
Reputation nor in prosperity, for the
Prosperious man may fall upon hard times. The
Gods mix everything together in a topsy-turvy
Muddle, and the reason they cause this
Confusion is to make us worship them out of
Ignorance.
However, what is the point of
Lamenting these things when we cannot run
Ahead of our miseries?
Post 4.22.2012.20
Hecuba: Ha!
There is no mortal who is free.
Either he is the slave of money or of
Fortune, or the city mob or the written
Laws prevent him from behaving as
His judgement suggests.
Post 4.22.2012.19
Chorus: It is
strange how everything conspires
Together in human life and the laws of
Necessity determine men’s relationships,
Making friends of bitter enemies and
Enemies of those who once were friends.
Post 4.22.2012.18
Hecuba: For it is the mark of a good
Man to serve justice and never fail to
Treat bad men badly.
Post 4.22.2012.17
Hecuba: Well then, we are slaves and perhaps
We are weak. But
the gods and the principle
Of law that rules them are strong. It is
Because of this law that we believe in the
Gods and we can base our lives on a clear
Distinction between wrong
And right. If
you corrupt this when it
Is referred to you, and those who kill their
Guests and dare to violate what the gods
Hold sacred are not punished, nothing in
Our human life is safe.
Post 4.22.2012.16
Chorus: And by the fair-flowing Eurotas
A Spartan girl laments at home, with many
A tear, and a mother beats her grey
Head with her hand and tears her cheek,
Rending it with bloody nails, for her
Children are dead.
Post 4.22.2012.15
Hecuba: So why do we mortals swell
With conceit, one over the wealth of
His house, another over his reputation
For honour among the citizens? Wealth
And honour are nothing, nothing but
Ambitions for the heart and boasting
For the tongue.
The truly happy man
Is the one who meets with nothing bad
Form day to day.
Post 4.22.2012.14
Hecuba: In a vast army the mob is
Hard to control, the sailors’
Indiscipline blazes fiercer than fire,
And the man who commits no crime
Is seen as a criminal.
Post 4.22.2012.13
Talthybius: O Zeus, what am I to say? That
You have regard for men or that you have
Merely won this reputation which has no
Substance to it?
[It is false, and the
Race of gods merely appears to exist.] Is
It fortune that oversees all human
Affairs?
Post 4.22.2012.12
Polyxena: No, my dear mother, give me your
Sweet hand, and let me press my cheek to
Yours. For never
again shall I look upon the
Radiant circle of the sun. This is the final
Time. You are
listening to my last words.
O my mother who gave me birth, I am
Going away to the Underworld.
Post 4.22.2012.11
Polyxena: For those who are not accustomed
To the taste of calamity may endure it,
But they grieve as they put their neck
Beneath the yoke.
Death would be far
Happier for them than life. It is a great
Ordeal to live without honor.
Post, 4.22.2012.10
Hecuba: O my daughter, I have
Cast my words about your murder
Into thin air.
They have vanished
And are nothing.
Post 4.22.2012.9
Chorus: Alas! What a terrible thing it is to
Be a slave! This
always holds true.
What indignities we endure under the
Tyranny of force!
Post 4.22.2012.8
Odysseus: Does it not bring us shame if we
Make use of a man while he is alive but
No longer treat him as our friend
When he is dead?
Post 4.22.2012.7
Hecuba: For the same argument does not
Carry the same weight when it comes
From nonentities as it does on the lips of
Famous men.
Post 4.22.2012.6
Hecuba: It is wrong for those with power
To use it where they should not—
Wrong for those who have met
With success to think that they will
Always enjoy it.
For once I existed,
But that is over now.
A single day
Took from me all my prosperity.
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