Oh where is the noble face of modesty, or the strength of virtue, now that blasphemy is in power and men have put justice behind them, and there is no law but lawlessness, and none join in fear of the gods?
We’ll buy back our own harm with what is most dear to us.
We would have to think the gods had no minds, to pray for murderers.
Truly we are creatures of labor and suffering, and nothing for long. Labor and suffering, and the plain sight of our destiny is the cruelest thing of all.
It is the thoughts of men that are deceitful, Their pledges that are loose.
There be many shapes of mystery; And many things God brings to be, Past hope or fear. And the end men looked for cometh not, And a path is there where no man thought. So hath it fallen here.
Yet censure strikes hard at women, while men, the true agents of trouble, hear no reproach.
O Zeus, why is it you have given men clear ways of testing whether gold is counterfeit but, when it comes to men, the body carries no stamp of nature for distinguishing bad from good.
Love makes the time pass. Time makes love pass.
Not for the first time I find our lives are a shadow, and I am not afraid to say that people who think they have everything figured out and are masters of logic – they are responsible for the greatest folly. No human being is happy. Strike it rich and you are luckier than your neighbor – but happy, never.
I wish you joy. To spend life’s fleeting days mid joy that never meets an evil hour is to be blessed beyond compare.
Ah! there is not in the world a single man free; for he is either a slave to money or to fortune, or else the people in their thousands or the fear of public prosecution prevents him from following the dictates of his heart.
They did attack our herds: you could have seen a woman pull a calf to pieces as it bellowed alive in her bare hands!
Old ties give place to new ones.
Speak wisdom to a fool and he’ll think you have no sense at all.
Apollo, your voice hymned a justice I could not see clear, but all too clear the anguish you caused, the bloodhaunted, homeless future you’ve doled out.
Dionysus. Wilt thou be led By me, and try the venture?
For the discreet among mortals are such as pass through life correctly with wisdom.
Behold, I am silent: for what need is there that, falsely speaking, I add shamelessness to misfortune?
Bear witness for one who is loved and not loved: we cast the cloak gently around her, an end of great woe for our house.