Homer Quotes

Μή μ' ἄκλαυτον ἄθαπτον ἰὼν ὄπιθεν καταλείπειν
νοσφισθείς.

So now I meet my doom. Well let me die—
but not without struggle, not without glory, no,
in some great clash of arms that even men to come
will hear of down the years!

The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, as it pleases him, for he can do all things.

Πάντες μὲν στυγεροὶ θάνατοι δειλοῖσι βροτοῖσι,
λιμῷ δ' οἴκτιστον θανέειν καὶ πότμον ἐπισπεῖν.

Ἐχθρὸν δέ μοί ἐστιν
αὖτις ἀριζήλως εἰρημένα μυθολογεύειν.

It is entirely seemly for a young man killed in battle to lie mangled by the bronze spear. In his death all things appear fair.

I say further, and lay my saying to your heart, you too shall live but for a little season; death and the day of your doom are close upon you, and they will lay you low by the hand of Achilles son of Aiakos.

Take courage, my heart: you have been through worse than this. Be strong, saith my heart; I am a soldier; I have seen worse sights than this.

Scepticism is as much the result of knowledge, as knowledge is of scepticism.

Sleep, delicious and profound, the very counterfeit of death

Come then, put away your sword in its sheath, and let us two go up into my bed so that, lying together in the bed of love, we may then have faith and trust in each other.

Ἀλλ' αἰεί τε Διὸς κρείσσων νόος ἠέ περ ἀνδρῶν.

Vain is your boast in that you have scratched the sole of my foot... A worthless coward can inflict but a light wound. When I wound a man, though I but graze his skin, it is another matter, for my weapon will lay him low. His wife will tear her cheeks out for grief and his children will be fatherless: there he will rot, reddening the earth with his blood, and vultures, not women, will gather round him.

The Odyssey of Homer, trans. Samuel Butcher and Andrew Lang (1879)

Sing, O muse, of the rage of Achilles, son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans.