82 quotes
And fate? No one alive has ever escaped it,
neither brave man nor coward, I tell you—
it's born with us the day that we are born.
Iliad (-750)
Alike the idlers and the active die.
Iliad (-750)
Glory to him, but to us a sorrow.
Iliad (-750)
Always it is, that the hearts in the younger men are frivolous,
but when an elder man is among them, he looks behind him
and in front, so that all comes out far better for both sides.
Iliad (-750)
There shall be a dawn or an afternoon or a noontime
when some man in the fighting will take the life from me also
either with a spearcast or an arrow flown from the bowstring.
Iliad (-750)
The will of Zeus was accomplished.
Iliad (-750)
He spoke, the son of Kronos, and nodded his head with the dark brows,
and the immortally anointed hair of the great god
swept from his divine head, and all Olympos was shaken.
Iliad (-750)
Prayers are Jove's daughters, of celestial race,
Lame are their feet, and wrinkled is their face;
With humble mien, and with dejected eyes,
Constant they follow where Injustice flies.
Iliad (-750)
Then give him into the charge of swift messengers to carry him,
of Sleep and Death, who are twin brothers, and these two shall lay him
down presently within the rich countryside of broad Lykia.
Iliad (-750)
Who on earth could blame them? Ah, no wonder
the men of Troy and Argives under arms have suffered
years of agony all for her, for such a woman.
Beauty, terrible beauty!
A deathless goddess—so she strikes our eyes!
Iliad (-750)
Cursed is the man, and void of law and right,
Unworthy property, unworthy light,
Unfit for public rule, or private care,
That wretch, that monster, that delights in war:
Whose lust is murder, and whose horrid joy
To tear his country, and his kind destroy!
Iliad (-750)
So here the twins were laid low at Aeneas' hands,
down they crashed like lofty pine trees axed.
Iliad (-750)
He bent drooping his head to one side, as a garden poppy
bends beneath the weight of its yield and the rains of springtime;
so his head bent slack to one side beneath the helm's weight.
Iliad (-750)
I say further, and lay my saying to your heart, you too shall live but for a little season; death and the day of your doom are close upon you, and they will lay you low by the hand of Achilles son of Aiakos.
Iliad (-750)
Yet do not bring up against me the sweet favours of golden Aphrodite.
Never to be cast away are the gifts of the gods, magnificent,
which they give of their own will, no man could have them for wanting them.
Iliad (-750)
But when he let loose that great voice from his chest
and the words came piling on like a driving winter blizzard —
then no man alive could rival Odysseus! Odysseus...
we no longer gazed in wonder at his looks.
Iliad (-750)
The woodcutter is far better for skill than he is for brute strength.
It is by skill that the sea captain holds his rapid ship
on its course, though torn by winds, over the wine-blue water.
By skill charioteer outpasses charioteer.
Iliad (-750)
Shaker of the earth, you would have me be as one without prudence
if I am to fight even you for the sake of insignificant
mortals, who are as leaves are, and now flourish and grow warm
with life, and feed on what the ground gives, but then again
fade away and are dead.
Iliad (-750)
As stars in the night sky glittering
round the moon's brilliance blaze in all their glory
when the air falls to a sudden, windless calm...
all the lookout peaks stand out and the jutting cliffs
and the steep ravines and down from the high heavens bursts
the boundless, bright air and all the stars shine clear
and the shepherd's heart exults.
Iliad (-750)
So now I meet my doom. Well let me die—
but not without struggle, not without glory, no,
in some great clash of arms that even men to come
will hear of down the years!
Iliad (-750)