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Homér Quotes
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Homer is the legendary author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two epic poems that are the central works of ancient Greek literature. The Iliad is set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek kingdoms. It focuses on a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles lasting a few weeks during the last year of the war. The Odyssey focuses on the ten-year journey home of Odysseus, king of Ithaca, after the fall of Troy. Many accounts of Homer's life circulated in classical antiquity, the most widespread being that he was a blind bard from Ionia, a region of central coastal Anatolia in present-day Turkey. Modern scholars consider these accounts legendary.The Homeric Question – concerning by whom, when, where and under what circumstances the Iliad and Odyssey were composed – continues to be debated. Broadly speaking, modern scholarly opinion falls into two groups. One holds that most of the Iliad and the Odyssey are the works of a single poet of genius. The other considers the Homeric poems to be the result of a process of working and reworking by many contributors, and that "Homer" is best seen as a label for an entire tradition. It is generally accepted that the poems were composed at some point around the late eighth or early seventh century BC.The poems are in Homeric Greek, also known as Epic Greek, a literary language which shows a mixture of features of the Ionic and Aeolic dialects from different centuries; the predominant influence is Eastern Ionic. Most researchers believe that the poems were originally transmitted orally. From antiquity until the present day, the influence of Homeric epic on Western civilization has been great, inspiring many of its most famous works of literature, music, art and film. The Homeric epics were the greatest influence on ancient Greek culture and education; to Plato, Homer was simply the one who "has taught Greece" – ten Hellada pepaideuken. Wikipedia  

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Homér Quotes

“Be both a speaker of words and a doer of deeds.”

Homér Iliad

IX. 443 (tr. Andrew Lang).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

“Iron has powers to draw a man to ruin.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

XIX. 13 (tr. Robert Fagles); Odysseus to Telemachus.
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

Drawing

“It is the god who accomplishes all things.”

Homér Iliad

XIX. 90 (tr. R. Lattimore).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

God

“There shall be a dawn or an afternoon or a noontime
when some man in the fighting will take the life from me also
either with a spearcast or an arrow flown from the bowstring.”

Homér Iliad

XXI. 110 (tr. R. Lattimore); spoken by Achilles.
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

Life , Fight

“Clearly doing good puts doing bad to shame.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

XXII. 374 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

“How ill, alas! do want and shame agree!”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

XVII. 347 (tr. Alexander Pope).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

“Long nights the now declining year bestows;
A part we consecrate to soft repose,
A part in pleasing talk we entertain;
For too much rest itself becomes a pain.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

XV. 392–394 (tr. Alexander Pope).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

Pain , Parting , Night

“The time for trusting women's gone forever!”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

XI. 456 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Alexander Pope's translation:
: For since of womankind so few are just,
Think all are false, nor even the faithful trust.
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

Women , Time

“To some the powers of bloody war belong,
To some, sweet music, and the charm of song;
To few, and wondrous few, has Jove assigned
A wise, extensive, all-considering mind.”

Homér Iliad

XIII. 730–733 (tr. Alexander Pope).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

War , Music

“Victory passes back and forth between men.”

Homér Iliad

VI. 339 (tr. R. Lattimore); Paris contemplates the fickleness of victory as he prepares to go into battle.
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

Men , Victory

“Life and death are balanced as it were on the edge of a razor.”

Homér Iliad

X. 173–174 (tr. Samuel Butler).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

Life , Death

“So nothing is as sweet as a man's own country,
his own parents, even though he's settled down
in some luxurious house, off in a foreign land
and far from those who bore him.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

IX. 34–36 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

Parent , Housing , Country

“In form of Stentor of the brazen voice,
Whose shout was as the shout of fifty men.”

Homér Iliad

V. 785–786 (tr. Lord Derby).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

Men

“Welcome words on their lips, and murder in their hearts.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

XVII. 66 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

Heart

“But the gods give to mortals not everything at the same time.”

Homér Iliad

IV. 320 (tr. R. Lattimore).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

God , Time

“My soul
Shall bear that also; for, by practice taught,
I have learned patience, having much endured.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

V. 222–223 (tr. William Cowper).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

Soul , Learning , Patience

“Now down in the Ocean sank the fiery light of day,
drawing the dark night across the grain-giving earth.”

Homér Iliad

VIII. 485–486 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

Light , Drawing , Night

“Now sure enough the vile man leads the vile!
As ever, god brings like and like together!”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

XVII. 217–218 (tr. G. H. Palmer).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

God

“She who is only a little thing at the first, but thereafter
grows until she strides on the earth with her head striking heaven.”

Homér Iliad

IV. 442–443 (tr. R. Lattimore).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

“Once a thing has been done, the fool sees it.”

Homér Iliad

XVII. 32 (tr. R. Lattimore).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

Fools

“Sweet oblivion, sleep
dissolving all, the good and the bad, once it seals our eyes.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

XX. 85–86 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

Sleep

“If I hold out here and I lay siege to Troy,
my journey home is gone, but my glory never dies.”

Homér Iliad

IX. 413 (tr. Robert Fagles); spoken by Achilles.
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

Home

“Here let us feast, and to the feast be joined
Discourse, the sweeter banquet of the mind;
Review the series of our lives, and taste
The melancholy joy of evils passed:
For he who much has suffered, much will know,
And pleased remembrance builds delight on woe.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

XV. 398–401 (tr. Alexander Pope).
E. V. Rieu's translation:
: Meanwhile let us two, here in the hut, over our food and wine, regale ourselves with the unhappy memories that each can recall. For a man who has been through bitter experiences and travelled far can enjoy even his sufferings after a time.
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

Suffering , Evil , Joy

“Helios, Sun above us, you who see all, hear all things!”

Homér Iliad

III. 277 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

Sun

“Jove weighs affairs of earth in dubious scales,
And the good suffers, while the bad prevails.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

VI. 188 (tr. Alexander Pope).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

Suffering

“It's wrong, my friend, to send any stranger packing—
even one who arrives in worse shape than you.
Every stranger and beggar comes from Zeus
and whatever scrap they get from the likes of us,
they'll find it welcome.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

XIV. 56–59 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

“I hope nothing valuable may have been taken from the house in spite of you, but you know what women are—they always want to do the best they can for the man who marries them, and never give another thought to the children of their first husband, nor to their father either when he is dead and done with.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

XV. 19–23 (tr. Samuel Butler).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

Women , Children , Hope , Housing

“Among all creatures that breathe on earth and crawl on it
there is not anywhere a thing more dismal than man is.”

Homér Iliad

XVII. 446–447 (tr. R. Lattimore); Zeus.
Robert Fagles's translation:
: There is nothing alive more agonized than man
of all that breathe and crawl across the earth.
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

“Glory to him, but to us a sorrow.”

Homér Iliad

IV. 197 (tr. R. Lattimore).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

“We two have secret signs,
known to us both but hidden from the world.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

XXIII. 109–110 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

Secret , World

“I'll fling a spear myself and leave the rest to Zeus.”

Homér Iliad

XVII. 515 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

“See now, how men lay blame upon us gods for what is after all nothing but their own folly.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

I. 32–34 (tr. Samuel Butler).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

Men , God

“Who, on his own,
has ever really known who gave him life?”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

I. 216 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

Life

“He in the turning dust lay
mightily in his might, his horsemanship all forgotten.”

Homér Iliad

XVI. 775–776 (tr. R. Lattimore).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

“The proof of battle is action, proof of words, debate.”

Homér Iliad

XVI. 630 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

“The fleeting shadows of the dead.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

X. 521 (tr. G. A. Schomberg).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

Dead

“The gods don't hand out all their gifts at once,
not build and brains and flowing speech to all.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

VIII. 167–168 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

God

“He kissed his son, and a tear fell from his cheek on to the ground, for he had restrained all tears till now.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

XVI. 190–191 (tr. Samuel Butler).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

Kiss , Tear

“I far excel every one else in the whole world,
of those who still eat bread upon the face of the earth.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

VIII. 221–222 (tr. Samuel Butler).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

World

“Sleep, universal king of gods and men.”

Homér Iliad

Iliad (c. 750 BC)

Men , God , Sleep , Universe

“Such desire is in him
merely to see the hearthsmoke leaping upward
from his own island, that he longs to die.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

I. 58–59 (tr. Robert Fitzgerald).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

“If indeed there be a god in heaven.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

XVII. 484 (tr. S. H. Butcher and Andrew Lang).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

God

“Bird-signs!
Fight for your country—that is the best, the only omen!”

Homér Iliad

XII. 243 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

Bird , Fight , Country

“Man, supposing you and I, escaping this battle,
would be able to live on forever, ageless, immortal,
so neither would I myself go on fighting in the foremost,
nor would I urge you into the fighting where men win glory.
But now, seeing that the spirits of death stand close about us
in their thousands, no man can turn aside or escape them,
let us go on and win glory for ourselves, or yield it to others.”

Homér Iliad

XII. 322–328 (tr. R. Lattimore); Sarpedon to Glaukos.
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

Death , Men , Fight

“Hardship can age a person overnight.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

XIX. 360 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

Age , Personality

“It's light work for the gods who rule the skies
to exalt a mortal man or bring him low.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

XVI. 211–212 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

God , Light

“There she encountered Sleep, the brother of Death.”

Homér Iliad

XIV. 231 (tr. R. Lattimore).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

Death , Sleep

“And may the gods accomplish your desire:
a home, a husband, and harmonious
converse with him – the best thing in the world
being a strong house held in serenity
where man and wife agree. Woe to their enemies,
joy to their friends! But all this they know best.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

VI. 180–185 (tr. Robert Fitzgerald); Odysseus to Nausicaa.
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

God , World , Home , Strong

“Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns
driven time and again off course, once he had plundered
the hallowed heights of Troy.
Many cities of men he saw and learned their minds,
many pains he suffered, heartsick on the open sea,
fighting to save his life and bring his comrades home.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

I. 1–5 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

Life , Men , Pain , Home