Almost 2500 years old, and going strong

Some quotations from Euripides that still apply today:

Mindless, all of you, who in the strength of spears
and the tearing edge win your valors
by war, thus stupidly trying
to halt the grief of the world.
For if bloody debate shall settle
the issue, never again
shall hate be gone out of the cities of men.

Helen, 1151-1157, Richmond Lattimore translation

               O gods, spare me the sight
of this thankless breed, these politicians
who cringe for favors from a screaming mob
and do not care what harm they do their friends,
providing they can please a crowd!

Hecuba, 255-259, William Arrowsmith translation

O Zeus, what can I say?  That you look on man
and care?  Or do we, holding that the gods exist,
deceive ourselves with unsubstantial dreams
and lies, while random careless chance and change
alone control the world?

Hecuba, 488-492, William Arrowsmith translation

Euripides has quickly become my favorite of the great Greek tragedians.  I didn’t think he would be – at first he seemed to me like the Ovid to Sophocles’ Virgil.  But Euripides has an almost modern sensibility.  Unlike Aeschylus and Sophocles, his tragedy does not center around divine justice or even the overpowering action of the gods, but is more like “shit happens… and then people step in it.”