Monday, November 30, 2015

 

Complaining

Callimachus, fragment 714 (tr. C.A. Trypanis):
Worries then weigh less on a man, and of thirty parts one is removed, when he blurts out his troubles to a friend, or a fellow-traveller, or even finally to the deaf gusts of wind.

κουφοτέρως τότε φῶτα διαθλίβουσιν ἀνῖαι,
    ἐκ δὲ τριηκόντων μοῖραν ἀφεῖλε μίαν,
ἢ φίλον ἢ ὅτ᾿ ἐς ἄνδρα συνέμπορον ἢ ὅτε κωφαῖς
    ἄλγεα μαψαύραις ἔσχατον ἐξερύγῃ.
In general, however, the Greeks considered complaining like this unmanly. See, e.g., K.J. Dover, Greek Popular Morality (1974; rpt. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1994), p. 101 (on differences between men and women).

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