Clement of Alexandria: STROMATA (MISCELLANIES), Part IV, Complete

Translated by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson.

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Page 74

Diphilus writes:--

"There is no life which has not its own ills,

Pains, cares, thefts, and anxieties, disease;

And Death, as a physician, coming, gives

Rest to their victims in his quiet sleep." [3225]

Furthermore, Euripides having said:--

"Many are fortune's shapes,

And many things contrary to expectation the gods perform,"--

The tragic poet Theodectes similarly writes:--

"The instability of mortals' fates."

And Bacchylides having said:--

"To few [3226] alone of mortals is it given

To reach hoary age, being prosperous all the while,

And not meet with calamities,"--

[3225] The above is translated as amended by Grotius.

[3226] pauroisi, "few," instead of parhoisi and prassontas instead of prassonta, and duais, "calamities," instead of dua, are adopted from Lyric Fragments.

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