Chorus [leader]: Ye Children of Man! whose life is a span, / Protracted with sorrow from day to day, / Naked and featherless, feeble and querulous, / Sickly, calamitous creatures of clay!
(heavily rewritten tr. Frere 1839, p. 38)Aristophanes
Chorus [leader]: Come now, ye men, in nature darkling, like to the race of leaves, of little might, figures of clay, shadowy feeble tribes, wingless creatures of a day, miserable mortals, dream-like men.
(tr. Hickie 1853, vol. 1, p. 338)Aristophanes
Leader of the Chorus: Weak mortals, chained to the earth, creatures of clay as frail as the foliage of the woods, you unfortunate race, whose life is but darkness, as unreal as a shadow, the illusion of a dream.
(tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)Aristophanes
In sorrow I am sending a feeble voice, O Six Powers of the World. Hear me in my sorrow, for I may never call again. O make my people live!
Black Elk
Epops: The wise can often profit by the lessons of a foe, for caution is the mother of safety. It is just such a thing as one will not learn from a friend and which an enemy compels you to know. To begin with, it's the foe and not the friend that taught cities to build high walls, to equip long vessels of war; and it's this knowledge that protects our children, our slaves and our wealth.
Leader of the Chorus [leader]: Well then, I agree, let us first hear them, for that is best; one can even learn something in an enemy's school.
(tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)Aristophanes
"Enlarge my life with multitude of days!"
In health, in sickness, thus the suppliant prays:
Hides from himself his state, and shuns to know
That life protracted is protracted woe.Samuel Johnson
Aristophanes
Aristotle
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