Quotes from The Suppliants

Quotations follow the David Grene translation (University of Chicago Press, 2013) — our recommended edition.

1. 2

   Zeus! Lord and guard of suppliant hands / Look down benign on us who crave / Thine aid—whom winds and waters drave / From where, through drifting shifting sands, / Pours Nilus to the wave.

2. 3

   Though the deep will of Zeus be hard to track, / Yet doth it flame and glance, / A beacon in the dark, 'mid clouds of chance / That wrap mankind.

3. 4

   Foul is the bird that rends another bird, / And foul the men who hale unwilling maids, / From sire unwilling, to the bridal bed.

4. 5

   And in our hands aloft we bear— / Sole weapon for a suppliant's wear— / The olive-shoot, with wool enwound!

5. 6

   I would far rather be ignorant than knowledgeable of evil.

6. 7

   'Reverence for parents' stands written among the three laws of most revered righteousness.

7. 8

   When a tongue at the wrong moment shoots off sharp-pointed words to rouse and hurt the spirit, speech may well soothe speech.

8. 9

   Mankind's troubles flicker about, and you'll nowhere see misery fly on the same wings.