Hippolytus
(Ἱππολυτος) Euripides 429 BC (Disaster ensues when Phaedra falls for her stepson!) The gods will have their play, and we piteous humans must suffer in double jeopardy. First, vice will eventually bring destruction, and yet we are by nature weak and prone to vice. Second, everyone is subject to fate, which is not kinder to […]
Sappho’s poetic fragments
Sappho 7th-6th centuries BC (The tenth muse expresses beauty, love, and the contents of her heart.) Αιαι. Aiai! If only our dinner hosts still upheld the custom of ordering beautiful recitations over the wine! So it was in the days when some, at least, still believed in the Muses. On one of these evenings, Solon the […]
Apology of Socrates
October 3, 2014 / Leave a comment
(Απολογια Σωκρατους) Plato 4th century BC (An innocent man delivers an inspiring speech to the court before he is executed.) Socrates is a bit of a mystery, if you insist on being a real evidentiary hardliner. He wrote nothing himself, so we have to rely on others’ characterizations of him. Xenophon paints him as the […]
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