Quotes that can be epicurean in Ancient Plays

    Hi, everybody!

    I was reading Plautus' play Trinummus ("The Three Coins"). Though it's not epicurean and there aren't specific epicurean characters, I found an interesting quote. I think it can be the description of an epicurean person:


    Hic homost omnium hominum praecipuos,
    voluptatibus gaudiisque antepotens:
    ita commoda quae cupio eveniunt,
    quod ago adsequitur, subest, subsequitur,
    ita gaudiis gaudium suppeditat.


    According to Perseus Translation: This individual is the very first of all men; excelling all in pleasures and delights.

    So truly do the blessings which I desire befal me, that whatever I undertake is brought about, and constantly succeeds: so does one delight succeed other delights.


    This is another translation: Here's the man that tops mankind entire in joys and delights beyond comparement!

    Ah, the glorious way my desires work out! The way the things I want troop up to me, stand by, troop after me, joy treading on the heels of joy!


    I'm interested in learning some latin, and also I think that it can be great to memorize this kind of quotes in order to have a reminder of pleasure, joy and happiness.

    So, hope you like it.

    That is a very good passage, thank you! I completely agree when it comes to memorization. I recall walking 18 blocks in the cold one morning with a socket set to change my sister's tire, and made the journey pleasant by silently reciting Lucretius.


    Thoreau records that on the desk in his cabin he kept open a copy of the Iliad, and turned it over in his mind while hoeing beans.


    Quote

    A long war, not with cranes, but with weeds, those Trojans who had sun and rain and dews on their side. Daily the beans saw me come to their rescue armed with a hoe, and thin the ranks of their enemies, filling up the trenches with weedy dead. Many a lusty crest—waving Hector, that towered a whole foot above his crowding comrades, fell before my weapon and rolled in the dust.

    I need something to displace in my mind: "Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra?"


    (From Cicero's first speech In Catilinam to the Roman Senate regarding the conspiracy of Catiline: Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra? ("For how much longer, Catiline, will you abuse our patience?").


    I started with trying to memorize the part of Lucretius book 1 that starts "Humana ante oculos", but I haven't make it much past the first line.


    I've also made some progress with Virgil's


    Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas

    Atque metus omnes, et inexorabile fatum

    Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari


    Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas - Wikipedia