Sublime

Each has his own tastes, Gods and men alike.

(Euripides–Hippolytus 104, from Erasmus)

For certainly old age has a great sense of calm and freedom; when the passions relax their hold, then, as Sophocles says, we are freed from the grasp not of one mad master only, but of many. The

paltry

I will assuredly not wrong myself. I will not say of myself that I deserve any evil, or propose any penalty. Why should I? because I am afraid of the penalty of death which Meletus proposes? When I do not know whether death is a good or an evil, why should I propose a penalty which would certainly be an evil?

It is said that when Pausanias came to him and complained of his treatment, Alexander answered him by quoting the line from the Medea of Euripides, in which she declares that she will be revenged upon “The guardian, and the bridegroom, and the bride,” alluding to Attalus, Philip, and Kleopatra.

Bassus me semblait suivre ses propres obsèques et s'enterrer, et comme se survivre, et agir en sage qui se regrette sans faiblesse. Car la mort est son texte ordinaire ; et il met tous ses soins à nous persuader que s'il y a du dommage ou de la crainte à éprouver dans cette affaire, c'est la faute du mourant, non de la mort ; qu'il n'y a en elle