Key to Reading Unit 8

1. Only wickedness needs an excuse.

2. Changing place (lit. places) neither teaches prudence nor removes imprudence.

3. For a man saves a man and a city a city.

4. A bad end results (lit. comes into being) from a bad beginning.

5. A man's character is made known from his speech.

6. Some sow, others will reap.

7. For Love comes not upon men alone nor again (only) upon women, but also stimulates the souls of the gods above and goes over the sea (i.e. has an effect on creatures that live in the sea) And not even all-mighty Zeus has the power to prevent him (lit. this [god]), but yields and willingly gives way. (Sophocles fragment 684)

8. A fox cannot be (lit. is not) bribed.

9. They shouted, they hissed [me] off, and then they jeered; but you laughed, and neither were willing to listen nor wished to believe [i.e. me].

10. For the wise silence is an answer.

11. Indeed they say that Justice is the child of time.

12. Fine prizes are won (lit. beautiful things come into being) [only] with countless toils.

13. I think it is the duty of a man to do ill to his enemies.

14. Money brings not only pleasure to men beside the mixing-bowl and the feast, but also brings no little power in the midst of trouble(s).

15. Cyrus summoned his aides and said, 'Did you see Abradatas? For I am surprised that, although he used often to come to [visit] me (lit. us), now he is nowhere to be seen.' So one of the aides said, 'Master, he is not alive, but was killed in the battle after he drove his chariot into the [ranks of] the Egyptians. The rest of his men, with the exception of his [close] companions, they say, fled, when they saw the dense array of the Egyptians. And now it is said that his wife (lit. his wife is said) has his body in her carriage and is taking it to the River Pactolus (ἔφη need not be translated). They say that his eunuchs and servants are digging a grave for the dead man on a hill; and that his wife (λέγουσιν need not be translated) is sitting on the ground, holding (lit. and she has) her husband's head on her lap.' (Adapted from Xenophon Cyropaedia 7.3.2).

(c) Gavin Betts, Alan Henry 2001