Again, Epicharmas having said:
"As destined long to live, and yet not long,
Think of thyself,"—
Euripides writes:
"Why? seeing the wealth we have uncertain is,
Why don't we live as free from care, as pleasant
As we may?"
Similarly also, the comic poet Diphilus having said:
The life of men is prone to change,"—
Posidippus says:
"No man of mortal mould his life has passed
From suffering free. Nor to the end again
Has continued prosperous."
Similarly[1] speaks to thee Plato, writing of man as a creature subject to change.
Again, Euripides having said:
"Oh life to mortal men of trouble full,
How slippery in everything art thou!
Now grow'st thou, and thou now decay'st away.
And there is set no limit, no, not one,
For mortals of their course to make an end,
Except when Death's remorseless final end
Comes, sent from Zeus,"—
Diphilus writes:
"There is no life which has not its own ills,
Pains, cares, thefts, and anxieties, disease;
And Death, as a physician, coming, gives
Rest to their victims in his quiet sleep."[2]
Furthermore, Euripides having said:
"Many are fortune's shapes,
And many things contrary to expectation the gods perform,"—
The tragic poet Theodectes similarly writes:
"The instability of mortals' fates."
