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“What is beautiful is loved, and what is not is unloved.”
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“Give me a man who understands my moods, who brother-like, understands my grouchiness. If you will give your mind to what I say, dear friend, you will remember me one day.”
― Elegies of Theognis: A Revised Text Based on a New Collation of the Mutininensis MS
― Elegies of Theognis: A Revised Text Based on a New Collation of the Mutininensis MS
“Whatever fate ordains, danger or hurt, or death predetermined, nothing can avert.”
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“Not to have been born at all,
Never to have seen the light of the sun:
This is the best thing for mortals.
Or, if begotten, to have fallen from the womb
Straight into the grave,
And to be smothered, unknowing,
In the dirt of Hades.”
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Never to have seen the light of the sun:
This is the best thing for mortals.
Or, if begotten, to have fallen from the womb
Straight into the grave,
And to be smothered, unknowing,
In the dirt of Hades.”
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“I will blame no enemy that is a good man, nor yet praise a friend that is bad”
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“Best of all things is never to be born,
never to know the light of sharp sun.
But being born, then best
to pass quickly as one can through the gates of Hell,
and there lie under the massive shield of earth.”
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never to know the light of sharp sun.
But being born, then best
to pass quickly as one can through the gates of Hell,
and there lie under the massive shield of earth.”
―
“Happy the lover who exercises, then
Goes home to sleep all day with a handsome boy.”
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Goes home to sleep all day with a handsome boy.”
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“Easier to make bad out of good than good out of bad.
Don't try to teach me. I am too old to learn.”
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Don't try to teach me. I am too old to learn.”
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“I heard the voice of that bird, son of Polypas, whose piercing outcry
and whose arrival announces to men the season when fields
are plowed, and the voice of her broke the heart that darkens within me,
since other men posess my flourishing acres now,
and not for me are the mules dragging the plow through the grainland,
since I have given my heart to the restless seafarer's life.”
―
and whose arrival announces to men the season when fields
are plowed, and the voice of her broke the heart that darkens within me,
since other men posess my flourishing acres now,
and not for me are the mules dragging the plow through the grainland,
since I have given my heart to the restless seafarer's life.”
―
“I knew before, but I know better now, that there's no gratitude in the baser sort.”
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“I gave you wings to fly looming high and easy
over unboarded sea and the entire earth.
At every meal and banquet you will be present
on the lips of guests. Graceful young men
will sing of you in limpid lovely notes
to the clean piping of the flutes.
When you go under the dark vaults of earth
to the mournful chambers of sad Hell,
even when you lie dead you will not lose
your glory. Your name will be recalled
among men always, Kyrnos. You will wheel high
over the mainland and Greek islands
and cross the unharvested sea pulsing with fish,
not by horse but carried to those who love you
in the gifts of Muses capped in violet flowers.
You will be like a song to the living
as long as there is sun, earth. Yet you ignore me
and trick me as if I were a child.”
―
over unboarded sea and the entire earth.
At every meal and banquet you will be present
on the lips of guests. Graceful young men
will sing of you in limpid lovely notes
to the clean piping of the flutes.
When you go under the dark vaults of earth
to the mournful chambers of sad Hell,
even when you lie dead you will not lose
your glory. Your name will be recalled
among men always, Kyrnos. You will wheel high
over the mainland and Greek islands
and cross the unharvested sea pulsing with fish,
not by horse but carried to those who love you
in the gifts of Muses capped in violet flowers.
You will be like a song to the living
as long as there is sun, earth. Yet you ignore me
and trick me as if I were a child.”
―
“There is a certain exquisite pleasure in the wavering of the balance.”
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“The beautiful is good; and if a thing's not beautiful it isn't good.”
― Elegies; and other elegies included in the Theognidean sylloge. A rev. text based on a new collation of the Mutinensis M.S. with introd., commentary and appendices by T. Hudson-Williams
― Elegies; and other elegies included in the Theognidean sylloge. A rev. text based on a new collation of the Mutinensis M.S. with introd., commentary and appendices by T. Hudson-Williams
“we look for rams and stallions of fine stock, and one believes that good will come from good; yet a man minds not to wed the lewd daughter of an evil sire. Marvel not then, that the stock of our folk is tarnished; for the good now mingles with the base...”
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