credibly dangerous[1] tendency to misfortune. For those who meet with unlooked success beyond their expectations, are for the most part wont to turn to insolence." Again, Euripides having written:
"For children sprung of parents who have led
A hard and toilsome life, superior are;"
Critias writes: "For I begin with a man's origin: how far the best and strongest in body will he be, if his father exercises himself, and eats in a hardy way, and subjects his body to toilsome labour; and if the mother of the future child be strong in body, and give herself exercise."
Again, Homer having said of the Hephæstus-made shield:
"Upon it earth and heaven and sea he made,
And Ocean's rivers' mighty strength portrayed,"—
Pherecydes of Syros says: "Zas makes a cloak large and beautiful, and works on it earth and Ogenus, and the palace of Ogenus."
And Homer having said:
"Shame, which greatly hurts a man or helps,"[2]—
Euripides writes in Erechtheus:
"Of shame I find it hard to judge;
'Tis needed. 'Tis at times a great mischief."
Take, by way of parallel, such plagiarisms as the following, from those who flourished together, and were rivals of each other. From the Orestes of Euripides:
"Dear charm of sleep, aid in disease."
From the Eriphyle of Sophocles:
"Hie thee to sleep, healer of that disease."
And from the Antigone of Sophocles:
"Bastardy is opprobrious in name; but the nature is equal;"[3]
- ↑ The text has, ἀσθαλέστερα παρὰ δόξαν καὶ κακοπραγίαν; for which Lowth reads, ἐπισθαλέστερα πρὸς κακοπραγίαν, as translated above.
- ↑ Iliad, xxiv. Clement's quotation differs somewhat from the passage as it stands in Homer.
- ↑ The text has δοίη, which Stobæus has changed into δ' ἵση, as above. Stobæus gives this quotation as follows:
"The bastard has equal strength with the legitimate;
Each good thing has its nature legitimate."
