“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 <br class="br">Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon
“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 <br class="br">Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon
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 (1818–1878) American musician, hymnwriter
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 543.
Joyce Kilmer (1886–1918) American poet, editor, literary critic, soldier
Main Street and Other Poems (1917), The Robe of Christ
“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 (1460–1529) English poet
Source: Jane Scroop (her lament for Philip Sparrow) (likely published c. 1509), Lines 17-27.
“When he is wounded, I bleed. {page 262 of John Adams}”
Abigail Adams (1744–1818) 2nd First Lady of the United States (1797–1801)
“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)