Asides

 I repeat myself: Greek tragedy is filled with wonderful lines that don’t have much to do with the theme of the play. They are just surprising asides.

I quoted a few lines from Euripides on Election Day. One character hoped that reason would prevail, while another doubted it would. Those lines seemed relevant on Election Day — and in the aftermath. In Euripides’ play, the Greeks chose disaster over reason.

Often lines from those ancient plays seem like timely advice on matters before us now.

I had a list of chores to do. As badly as I wanted to do them, I had to take a nap first. I thought of old Iolaus, wanting to fight his enemies but being so old he could hardly lift a sword. His attendant tried not to laugh.

 

Attendant

If only you could do what you dream.

 

Iolaus

Hurry! I can’t afford to miss the fight.

 

Attendant

You are the dawdler, though you think it’s I.

 

On Veterans Day, when those who once wore uniforms sometimes become insufferable, I thought of how Antigone, viewing the Argive army from the walls of Thebes, was amazed that her old pedagogue could identify soldiers by their togs. He replied:

 

I know them by their harness.

 

If old people spoke of their time in “harness,” rather than their service in “uniform,” the country might get more truthful war and sea stories.

I hear some lines from the Greek dramatic poets in my father’s voice. My father, an old newspaperman who became a teacher, used to read items in the paper, smile wanly, and say:

 

Spoken with more truth than kindness …

 

It took me a long time to realize he was quoting Euripides.

• Sources: The quotation on old age is from The Heracleidae, translated by Ralph Gladston, in Euripides I in The Complete Greek Tragedies, edited by David Grene and Richmond Lattimore; Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press, 1953, p. 144.

The quotation on uniforms is from The Phoenician Women, translated by Elizabeth Wyckoff, in Euripides V, p. 77.

The quotation my father liked is in Orestes, translated by William Arrowsmith, in Euripides IV, p. 118.