by Aeschylus
Thou needs must spit it out and make clean thy mouth.
Perrhaibides or Laïos Etymologicum Genuinum.
Those who committed murder by treachery sought to purify themselves by tasting, and then spitting out, the blood of their victims.
FRAGMENT 193
Plutarch, On the E at Delphi 9. 389A.
’Tis meet that the dithyramb, his fellow-reveller, half song, half shout, attend on Dionysus.
Neaniskoi Hermann, Êdônoi Hartung.
FRAGMENT 194
Plutarch, On the Cessation of Oracles 43. 434A.
For seizing a self-sharpened Euboean sword
Thrêssai Osann.
“Self-sharpened” is supposed to mean “cold-forged,” not “fire-forged” (cp. Seven against Thebes 942). artithêkton “just sharpened,” Sidgwick (after arti thêkton Blaydes) is the best of the many conjectures.
FRAGMENT 195
Plutarch, On the Restraint of Anger 4. 454E.
[The flame,] come to its youthful strength, consumed the lofty labour of the carpenters.
FRAGMENT 196
Plutarch, Table Talk i. 8. 1. p. 625D.
. . . But when old show thyself a clear scribe (?)
Salaminiai Hartung.
Cited by Plutarch to illustrate his remark that old men can read only when a book is held at a distance. The mangled passage eludes satisfactory emendation: su de (so Heath)| apothem eides auton ou gar egguthen | horan gerôn ktl. Dindorf; and so E. A. J. Ahrens, but reading horas. su d’ ex apoptou (cp. Sophocles, Philoctetes 446) Headlam. The second line seems to mean “when old, write a large, clear hand,” remembering that the aged read with difficulty.
FRAGMENT 197
Plutarch, On Monarchy, Democracy, Oligarchy 4. 827A, Life of Demetrius 35.
Thou indeed didst give me life, thou dost think to destroy me.
Pentheus Anonymous reported by Stanley, Xantriai Stanley, Niobê Hartung, a satyr-play Gomperz.
The reading su toi me phygas, su me kataithein dokeis, adopted by Perrin, means “Thou fannest indeed my flame, methinks thou dost quench me too.”
Demetrius Poliocetes quoted the verse in addressing Fortune.
FRAGMENT 198
Plutarch, That the Stoics speak greater Improbabilities than the Poets 2. 1057F.
[Changed from] a piteous old man with a stitch in his back and cramped by pain
Têlephos Schülz, Philoktêtês Butler, Dionysou trophoi Hartung.
FRAGMENT 199
Plutarch, Life and Poety of Homer 157 (Wyttenbach v. 1196). In l. 2 Wecklein read moira for terma.
A man dies not for the many wounds that pierce his breast, unless it be that life’s end keep pace with death, nor by sitting on his hearth at home doth he the more escape his appointed doom
Eleusinioi Hartung.
This is perhaps the nearest approach to pure fatalism in Greek tragedy. Cp. Demosthenes, On the Crown (18. 97) peras men gar apasin anthrôtois esti tou biou thanatos, kan en oikiskô tis auton katheirxas têrê, “for all men’s lives have a fixed limit in death, even though a man shut himself in a chamber and keep watch.”
FRAGMENT 200
Cited from Aeschylus by Aristophanes, Fragment 610 (Pollux, Vocabulary 6. 80).
Truly then thou shalt pick the seeds from out the bitter-sweet pomegranate.
Eleusinioi Butler.
FRAGMENT 201
Pollux, Vocabulary 7. 60; cp. Stephen of Byzantium, Lexicon 415. 10.
A fock that copies the Libyrnic cloak
Êdônoi Hartung, Oidipous others.
FRAGMENT 202
Pollux, Vocabulary 7. 78
And thou in a well-woven robe of drill
Êdônoi Hartung.
trimitos, “three-threaded,” having three threads in the warp.
FRAGMENT 203
Pollux, Vocabulary 7. 167, cp. 10. 46.
But easily from baths exceedingly large
Glaukos pontios Hermann.
FRAGMENT 204
Proclus, Commentary on Hesiod’s Works and Days 156.
A mortal woman from out a seed moulded of clay
Promêtheus lyomenos Butler, a Promêtheus Hermann.
After Prometheus had stolen fire, Zeus in revenge bade Hephaestus fashion Pandora out of earth.
FRAGMENT 205
Scholiast Ravennas on Aristophanes, Lysistrata 1257.
Froth from human blood streamed over their jaws.
Glaukos Potnieus Hartung.
FRAGMENT 206
Scholiast on Aristophanes, Clouds 1130, on Theocritus, Idyll xv. 48; and in collectors of proverbs: Zenobius iii. 37, Pseudo-Diogenianus iv. 35, Gregory of Cyprus (cod. Leid. 1. 88, Mosq. 2. 84), Macarius, Rose-bed iii. 21, and other late writers.
Truly at weaving wiles the Egyptians are clever.
Danaïdes Hermann, Thalamopoioi Oderdick.
FRAGMENT 207
Scholiast on Euripides, Orestes 25.
A device, irresistible and inextricable
In place of Choêphoroi l. 999 Wecklein, Prôteus Wilamowitz.
FRAGMENT 208
Scholiast B on Iliad X 200, Scholiasts DE on Odyssey a98.
Take ye your stand in a ring about yon altar and its gleaming fire, and with your band grouped in a circle offer up your prayers.
Hiketides (after l. 232) Burges, Danaïdes Hermann, Promêtheus lyomenos Hartung, Mysoi Droyson.
FRAGMENT 209
Scholiasts BLT on Iliad P 542.
For where might and justice are yoke-fellows – what pair is stronger than this?
Promêtheus lyomenos Hartung.
FRAGMENT 210
Scholiast and Tzetzes on Lycophron’s Alexandra 1247; cp. Harpocration, Glossary of the Ten Attic Orators 151. 5, Hesychius, Lexicon s.v. theoinia.
Father Theoinos, thou subduer of the Maenads!
From a Dionysiac drama, possibly the Xantriai, Butler; Neaniskoi Hartung.
FRAGMENT 211
Scholiast on Pindar, Nemean 10. 31 (18).
Hera, the Perfecter, wedded wife of Zeus
Compare Eumenides 214.
FRAGMENT 212
Scholiast on Pindar, Pythian 2. 18 (10).
O Hermes, lord of games, son of Maia and Zeus!
FRAGMENT 213
Scholiast on Sophocles, Electra 286, and Scholiasts TV on Iliad PS 10.
Truly lamentation is a prop of suffering.
FRAGMENT 214
Scholiast on Sophocles, Oedipus Coloneus 1047.
With bright flashes, the torches’ might.
Eleusinioi Pauw, Oidipous Lobeck, Iphigeneia or Hiereiai Fritzche.
Aeschylus may be speaking of Eleusis, where the initiates bore torches. But cp. Eumenides 1022.
FRAGMENT 215
Scholiast on Sophocles, Oedipus Coloneus 1049.
I thrill with the rapture of this mystic rite.
Eleusinioi Pauw, Bakchai (=Bassarai) Hartung.
FRAGMENT 216
Scholiast on Theocritus, Idyll ii. 36; cp. Aristeides, Athena 17 (vol i. 27).
Lady Hecate, before the portal of the royal halls
Aigyptioi Tittler, Dionysou trophoi Hartung.
FRAGMENT 217
Stobaeus, Anthology ii. 8. 10 (Wachsmuth ii. 155), Menander, Single-verse Maxims 679.
Fortune is for all, judgment is theirs who have won it for themselves.
FRAGMENT 218
Stobaeus, Anthology iii. 3. 11 (Hense iii. 194) MA, om. S.
Who knows things useful, not many things, is wise.
FRAGMENT 219
Stobaeus, Anthology iii. 3. 14 (Hense iii. 195) MA, om. S.
Truly even he errs that is wiser than the wise.
FRAGMENT 220
Stobaeus, Anthology iii. 4. 18 (Hense iii. 223).
Verily a prosperous fool is a heavy load.
FRAGMENT 221
Stobaeus, Anthology iii. 18. 12 (Hense iii. 515); cp. Athenaeus, Deipnosophists x. 31. p. 427F omitting the source.
Bronze is a mirror of the face,
wine of the mind.
Argô Hartung.
FRAGMENT 222
Stobaeus, Anthology iii. 27. 2 (Hense iii. 6110, Arsenius, Violet-bed in Paroemiographi Graeci i. 579. 25.
Oaths are not surety for a man, but the man for the oaths.
Perrhaibides Hartung.
FRAGMENT 223
Stobaeus, Anthology iii. 29. 31 (Hense iii. 630).
God loves to help him who strives to help himself.
From Euripides, according to Arsenius, Violet-bed in Paroemiographi Graeci ii. 712. 13.
FRAGMENT 224
Stobaeus, Anthology iii. 29. 24 (Hense iii. 632), Menander, Single-verse Maxims 297.
’Tis seemly that even the aged learn wisdom.
FRAGMENT 225
Stobaeus, Anthology iii. 34. 5 (Hense iii. 683) SM, om. A.
Ere thou utterest words such as these, thou must bite thy lips.
FRAGMENT 226
Stobaeus, Anthology iv. 4. 14 (Hense iv. 187).
For successful rascals are insufferable.
FRAGMENT 227
Stobaeus, Anthology iv. 34. 44 (Hense v. 838), Apostolius in Paroemiographi Graeci ii. 686. 3.
For mortal kind taketh thought only for the day, and hath no more surety than the shadow of smoke.
Niobê Hartung.
FRAGMENT 228
Stobaeus, Anthology iv. 50. 7 (Hense v. 1022).
For age is more just than youth.
FRAGMENT 229
Stobaeus, Anthology iv. 53. 17 (Hense v. 1102) SA, om. M, Menander, Single-verse Maxims 193.
Death is rather to be chosen than a toilsome life; and not to be born is better than to be born to misery.
Oidipous Hartung; Euripides, L. Dindorf.
FRAGMENT 230
Strabo, Geography vi. 6. p. 258.
Whence it shall bear the name Rhegium
Glaukos pontios Hermann, Promêtheus lyomenos Schültz.
At Rhegium Sicily was broken off (aporrhêgnym) from the mainland by an earthquake.
FRAGMENT 231
Strabo, Geography viii. 7. 5. p. 387 (ll. 2-3 in the Cozza-Luzzi MS.); l. 3 Stephen of Byzantium, Lexicon 707. 13; cp. Photius, Lexicon 492. 10.
Hallowed Bura and thunder-smitten Rhypae, and Dyme, Helice and Aegeira and precipitous, sacred Olenus
All these places are in Achaea.
Glaukos pontios Hartung, Kares ê Eurôpê Meineke, Danaïdes M. Schmidt.
FRAGMENT 232
Strabo, Geography ix. 1. 9. p. 393.
Aegina yonder lies towards the southern blasts.
Salaminiai Wagner. A description of the position of the ancient city of Salamis.
FRAGMENT 233
Anonymous Grammarian in Lexicon Vaticanum (cod. Vaticanus Graecus 12) s.v. akmên.
But as yet all the cymbals that raised a din
FRAGMENT 234
Aristophanes, Frogs 1431, Palatine Anthology x. 110, Suidas, Lexicon s.v. ou chrê and skymos; l. 1 Macarius, Rose-bed vi. 71; ll. 2-3 quoted by Plutarch in reference to Alcibiades in his Life 16.
One must not rear a lion’s whelp in the State [best of all not to rear a lion in the State]; but if one be reared to his full growth, we must humour his ways.
Compare Agam. 717 ff.
L1. 1 and 3 Danaïdes Hermann.
FRAGMENT 235
Thomas Magister, Collection of Attic Nouns and Verbs 238.8
Nobly to die were better than to save one’s life.
Hept epi Thêbas Thomas Magister, but mallon enoikôteros (cp. l. 673) is lacking in his citation.
FRAGMENT 236
Stobaeus, Anthology i. 3. 24 (Wachsmuth i. 56), Theophilus, To Autoloycus ii. 37. p. 176.
For, of a truth, the doer is bound to suffer.
Probably from Sophocles (Fragment 229 Jebb-Pearson), but ascribed to Aeschylus because of Choëph. 313.
FRAGMENT 237
Aristophanes, Frogs 704 with Scholiast.
With our lives in the clasp of the waves
Archilochus 25, but ascribed to Aeschylus by Didymus.
FRAGMENT 238
Strabo, Geography viii. 3. 8. p. 341, Eustathius on Iliad 305. 534.
Possessing as their allotted share all Cyprus and Paphos
Danaïdes or Thalamêpoloi (sic) Hartung; from Archilochus according to Meineke.
FRAGMENT 239
Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies v. 14. p. 727, Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel xiii. 13. p. 689B, [Justin Martyr,] On Monarchy 2. 130.
Set God apart from mortal men, and deem not that he, like them, is fashioned out of flesh. Thou knowest him not; now he appeareth as fire, unapproachable in his onset, now as water, now as gloom; and he, even himself, is dimly seen in the likeness of wild beasts, of wind, of cloud, of lightning, thunder, and of rain. Ministers unto him are sea, and rocks, and every spring, and gathered floods; before him tremble mountains and earth and the vast abyss of the sea and the lofty pinnacles of the mountains, whensoever the flashing eye of their lord looketh on them. For all power hath he; lo, this is the glory of the Most High God.
Aeschylean authorship has generally been rejected since Grotius.
The Fragment was ascribed to Aeschylus in antiquity probably because of its lofty conception of God.
FRAGMENT 240
Plutarch, Consolation to Apollonius 29. 116F, Stobaeus, Anthology iv. 4. 36 (Hense v. 967).
This is the mark of men just and wise as well – even in calamity not to cherish anger against the gods.
From Aeschylus (Plutarch), Myrmidones E. A. J. Ahrens, Niobê Burmeisters; from Euripides (Stobaeus: Nauck Frag. 1078).
FRAGMENT 241
Spoken by Aeschylus to Aristophanes, Frogs 886-7 (see Scholiast); l. 1 assigned to Aeschylus in inferior MSS. (not in Ven. or Rav.).
O Demeter, thou that didst nourish my soul, grant that I be worthy of thy Mysteries!
Eleusinioi Butler.
FRAGMENT 242
Athenaeus, Deipnosophists x. 85 p. 457B.
Having won a glorious victory in battle
Assigned to Aeschylus by Nauck.
FRAGMENT 243
Hesychius, Lexicon s.v. empedês.
May Hades, whose portion is the earth, seize and fetter thee!
Assigned to Aeschylus by Burges.
Text and application are uncertain. Possibly Hades is called “landowner” to contrast his distinctive domain from that of Zeus and of Poseidon.
FRAGMENT 244
Hesychius, Lexicon s.v. Tirynthion plintheuma and Kyklôpôn edos.
Walled Tiryns, the Cyclopes’ seat.
Assigned to Aeschylus by Nauck. The two glosses were joined by Meineke.
FRAGMENT 245
Lucian, The Fly 11 (Sommerbrodt iii. 121).
Shameful is it that the fly, with courageous might, should leap upon men’s bodies to glut itself with blood, yet men-at-arms should dread the foeman’s spear.
Assigned to Aeschylus by Bergk.
FRAGMENT 246
Marcus Antoninus, Meditations 7. 51.
When a storm bloweth, sent of the gods, we needs must endure it, toiling without complaint.
Assigned to Aeschylus by Wagner.
FRAGMENT 247
Plutarch, How a Young Man ought to hear Poems 13. 35E, How to Profit by our Enemies 5. 88F.
ALC. Thou art near akin to a woman that brought death upon her husband.
ADR. And thou, with thine own hand, didst slay the mother that bare thee.
Epigonoi Wagner. Brunck and Hermann ascribed the verses to Sophocles’ Epigonoi.
L. 1 spoken by Alcmeon, son of Amphiaraüs and Eriphyle, l. 2 by Adrastus, brother of Eriphyle. Eriphyle had been bribed by Polynices with the necklace of Harmonia to influence Amphiaraüs against his better judgment to join the first expedition against Thebes, from which he knew that he should not return alive (cp. Seven against Thebes l. 587). In the second expedition the most important person was Alcmeon, who killed his mother and went mad.
FRAGMENT 248
Athe
naeus, Deipnosophists xiii. 14. p. 584D.
Cursed boy! What word is this that thou hast uttered?
From the Epigonoi of Aeschylus or of Sophocles (Wagner).
FRAGMENT 249
Plutarch, On Superstition 3. 166A.
But either thou art frightened of a spectre beheld in sleep and hast joined the revel-rout of nether Hecate
Assigned to Aeschylus by Porson
FRAGMENT 250
Pluatch, On Love 15. 758B.
For Night brought me not forth to be the lord of the lyre, nor to be seer or leech, but to lull to rest men’s souls.
Assigned to Aeschylus by Hermann.
Spoken by Sleep.
FRAGMENT 251
Scholiast B on Iliad A 175, and cited by collectors of proverbs; Zenobius iv. 11, Gregory of Cyprus (cod. Leid. 2. 19, Mosq. 3. 53), Pseudo-Diogenianus iv. 95a.
Zeus looked late into his book.
Assigned to Aeschylus by Valckenaer.
A proverb concerning the delayed punishment of the wicked. The “book of Zeus” is the “book of life.” Cp. Eum. 275.
FRAGMENT 252
Stobaeus, Anthology i., proem 1a (Watchsmuth 1. 15); cp. Plato, Republic vii. 522D.
Thereafter I ordered the life of all Hellas and of the allies, the life aforetime confused and like to that of wild beasts. First I invented number, all-wise, chiefest of sciences.
Palamêdês, Wachsmuth. Cp. Frag. 96, from that play.
FRAGMENT 253
Stobaeus, Anthology i. 3. 98 (Wachsmuth i. 57), Theophilus, To Autolycus ii. 37. p. 178.
Justice, voiceless, unseen, seeth thee when thou sleepest and when thou goest forth and when thou liest down. Continually doth she attend thee, now aslant thy course, now at a later time.
Assigned to Aeschylus by Hermann.
FRAGMENT 254
Stobaeus, Anthology i. 6. 16 (Wachsmuth i. 87).
Sovereign of all the gods is Fortune, and these other names are given her in vain; for she alone disposeth all things as she wills.
Assigned to Aeschylus by Achsmuth.
Some “other names” of Tyche are praktêrios Suppliant Maidens 523, sôtêr Agam. 664, hê eu didousa Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrranus 1080.
FRAGMENT 255
Stobaeus, Anthology iii. 4. 16 (Hense iii. 223).
One must not have a manner too swift-paced.
Assigned to Phryges ê Hektoros lytra by Hermann, who made Priam speak this verse, followed (as in Stobaeus) by “For none who hath been overthrown deems that he has been counselled well;” and let Priam, after two verses by Achilles, continue his reproach with the lines: “For this hastiness and lightness of mind hath oft brought mortals to misery.”