“I am sore wounded but not slain
I will lay me down and bleed a while
And then rise up to fight again”

—  John Dryden

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I am sore wounded but not slain I will lay me down and bleed a while And then rise up to fight again" by John Dryden?
John Dryden photo
John Dryden 196
English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century 1631–1700

Related quotes

Aeschylus photo

“I think the slain care little if they sleep or rise again.”

trans. https://archive.org/stream/agamemnonofaesch015545mbp/agamemnonofaesch015545mbp#page/n38/mode/1up Gilbert Murray
Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon

Oliver Goldsmith photo

“For he who fights and runs away
May live to fight another day;
But he who is in battle slain
Can never rise and fight again.”

Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774) Irish physician and writer

The Art of Poetry on a New Plan (1761), vol. ii. p. 147.
The saying "he who fights and runs away may live to fight another day" dates at least as far back as Menander (ca. 341–290 B.C.), Gnomai Monostichoi, aphorism #45: ἀνήρ ὁ ϕɛύγων καὶ ράλίν μαχήɛṯαί (a man who flees will fight again). The Attic Nights (book 17, ch. 21) of Aulus Gellius (ca. 125–180 A.D.) indicates it was already widespread in the second century: "...the orator Demosthenes sought safety in flight from the battlefield, and when he was bitterly taunted with his flight, he jestingly replied in the well-known verse: The man who runs away will fight again".

Elizabeth Prentiss photo
Joyce Kilmer photo
Torquato Tasso photo

“I will rise again, a foe, fierce, bold,
Though dead, though slain, though burnt to ashes cold.”

Torquato Tasso (1544–1595) Italian poet

Risorgero nemico ognor piu crudo,
Cenere anco sepolto, e spirto ignudo!
Canto IX, stanza 99 (tr. Fairfax)
Gerusalemme Liberata (1581)

John Skelton photo
Rosa Luxemburg photo
Abigail Adams photo

“When he is wounded, I bleed. {page 262 of John Adams}”

Abigail Adams (1744–1818) 2nd First Lady of the United States (1797–1801)
Samuel Butler (poet) photo

“For those that fly may fight again,
Which he can never do that's slain.”

Samuel Butler (poet) (1612–1680) poet and satirist

Canto III, line 243
Source: Hudibras, Part III (1678)

Charles Bukowski photo

Related topics