Sublime

but now old age, The common lot of mortals, weighs thee down;

The Platonic Socrates anticipates both the Stoics and the Cynics. The Stoics held that the supreme good is virtue, and that a man cannot be deprived of virtue by outside causes; this doctrine is implicit in the contention of Socrates that his judges cannot harm him. The Cynics despised worldly goods, and showed their contempt by eschewing the comfo

It

Mercy triumphs over judgment.

(in the manner of Francis Newman’s wonderfully unreadable and peculiar translation)

‘Ancient Tragedy is loss of life, modern Tragedy is loss of

Then he would leave for the underworld, where I could never go, for gods are the opposite of death.

For