Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights, BOOK XI, IV, section 1

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The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius: Book VI

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IN the Hecuba of Euripides there are some verses remarkable and brilliant in their diction, their thought and their terseness. Hecuba is speaking to Ulysses: ¹ [p. 309]

Thine high repute, how ill soe'er thou speak'st,
Shall sway them; for the same speech carrieth not
Like weight from men contemned and men revered.

These verses Quintus Ennius, when he translated that tragedy, rivalled with no little success. The verses of Ennius are the same in number, as follows: ²

Though thou speak'st ill, thou wilt the Achivi sway;
The selfsame words and speech have other weight
When spoken by the great and by the obscure.

Ennius, as I have said, did well; but yet ignobiles and opulenti do not seem to express the full force of ἀδοξούντων and δοκούντων; for not all who are obscure are contemned, nor are the great all revered.

1 v. 293; the translation is that of Way, L.C.L.

2 v. 165, Ribbeck3.

The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius. With An English Translation. John C. Rolfe. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1927.

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