Simonides of Ceos
Topics
Simonides of Ceos
Quotations
Quotations
Simonides of Ceos was a Greek lyric poet.
Sourced
- ὦ ξεῖν', ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε
κείμεθα τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι. - O xein!, angellein Lakedaimoniois hoti teide
keimetha tois keinon rhemasi peithomenoi.- Go, tell the Spartans, stranger passing by
That here, obedient to their laws, we lie. - Epitaph on the Cenotaph of Thermopylae, recorded by Herodotus.
- Note: There is a long unsolved dispute around the interpretation of the word rhemasi, such as laws, words or orders.
- Variant translations:
- Go, tell the Spartans, stranger passing by
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- Go, tell the Spartans, thou who passest by,
That here obedient to their laws we lie. - Stranger, go tell the men of Lacedaemon
That we, who lie here, did as we were ordered. - Stranger, bring the message to the Spartans that here
We remain, obedient to their orders. - Oh foreigner, tell the Lacedaemonians
That here we lie, obeying those words.
- Go, tell the Spartans, thou who passest by,
- Here lies Megistias, who died
When the Mede passed Sephulchros' tide;
A Prophet, though he would not save
Himself, sharing the Spartan grave.- Epitaph of the Spartan Diviner, Megistias, at Thermopylae
- Not even the gods fight against necessity.
- Quoted by Plato in the Dialogue Protagoras.
- Variant translations:
- Variant translations:
- Quoted by Plato in the Dialogue Protagoras.
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- The gods do not fight against necessity.
- Not even the gods war against necessity.
- I praise and love all men who do no sin willingly; but with necessity even the gods do not contend.
- The gods do not fight against necessity.
- We did not flinch but gave our lives to save Greece when her fate hung on a razor's edge.
- From the Cenotaph at the Isthmos
- Painting is silent poetry, and poetry painting that speaks.
- Quoted by Plutarch
- Variant translations:
- Quoted by Plutarch
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- Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting with the gift of speech.
- Painting is silent poetry, poetry is eloquent painting.
- Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting with the gift of speech.
Unsourced
- A man gains no possession better than a good woman, nothing more horrible than a bad one.
- Variant translation: Of earthly goods, the best is a good wife; A bad, the bitterest curse of human life.
- Difficult, say you? Difficult to be a man of virtue, truly good, shaped and fashioned without flaw in the perfect figure of four-squared excellence, in body and mind, in act and thought?
- It is hard to be truly excellent, four-square in hand and foot and mind, formed without blemish.
- The city is the teacher of the man.
- There is no better test of a man's work than time, which also reveals the thoughts which lay hidden in his breast.
- We count it death to falter, not to die.
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