“Chorus [leader]: Ye Children of Man! whose life is a span, / Protracted with sorrow from day to day, / Naked and featherless, feeble and querulous, / Sickly, calamitous creatures of clay!”

— Aristophanés , The Birds

heavily rewritten tr. Frere 1839, p. 38 http://books.google.com/books?id=Bk8JAAAAQAAJ&q=%22Sickly%2C+calamitous+creatures+of+clay%22
Birds (414 BC)

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Aristophanés 56

Athenian playwright of Old Comedy -448–-386 BC

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“Chorus [leader]: Come now, ye men, in nature darkling, like to the race of leaves, of little might, figures of clay, shadowy feeble tribes, wingless creatures of a day, miserable mortals, dream-like men.”

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tr. Hickie 1853, vol. 1, p. 338 http://books.google.com/books?id=Cm4NAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA338
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