Chorus: Wherever gleams bright the flame
And strength of youth,
A promise to the house of growth,
There a man has a fund
Of joy overflowing;
From the fathers the children will gather
Hereditary wealth, and in turn
Pass it on to their own.
They are a defense in adversity,
In happiness a delight,
And in war their country’s shield of safety.
For myself I would choose, rather than wealth
Or a palace of kings, to rear
And love my own children:
Shame to him who prefers
A childless life, hateful to me.
May I cling to the life of few possessions,
Enriched by children.
—
Euripides, Ion, 472–491
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Cinesias: Sweet little Myrrhine!
What do you mean? Come here.
Myrrhine: O no I won’t.
Why are you calling me? You don’t want me.
Cinesias: Not want you! with this week’s old length of
love.
Myrrhine: Farewell.
Cinesias: Don’t go, please don’t go, Myrrhine.
At least you’ll hear our child. Call your mother, lad.
Child: Mummy. Mummy. Mummy!
Cinesias: There now, don’t you feel pity for the child
He’s not been fed or washed now for six days.
Myrrhine: I certainly pity him with so heartless a father.
Cinesias: Come down, my sweetest, come for the child’s
sake.
Myrrhine: A trying life it is to be a mother!
— Aristophanes, Lysistrata, p. 316
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
And you remember how we said that the
children of the good parents were to be educated, and the children
of the bad seed secretly dispersed among the inferior citizens,
and while they were all growing up the rulers were to be on the
lookout, and to those among themselves who were unworthy were to
take the places of those who came up?
—
Plato, Timaeus, 18e–19a
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Heracles:
O my son, now truly be my true-born son
and do not pay more respect to the name of mother.
Bring her from the house with your own hands and put
her in my hands, that woman who bore you, that I may know
clearly whether it pains you more to see my body
mutilated or hers when it is justly tortured.
Come, my child, dare to do this. Pity me,
for I seem pitiful to many others, crying
and sobbing like a girl, and no one could ever say
that he had seen this man act like that before.
Always without a groan I followed my painful course.
Now in my misery I am discovered a woman.
— Sophocles, Women of Trachis, 1064–1080
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Again, all men love more what they
have won by labor; e.g. those who have made their money love it
more than those who have inherited it; and to be well treated seems
to involve no labor, while to treat others well is a laborious
task. These are the reasons, too, why mothers are fonder of their
children than fathers; bringing them into the world costs them
more pains, and they know better that the children are their own.
This last point, too, would seem to apply to benefactors.
— Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. 9, 1168a
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The lover then, it appears, Menexus, is a friend to the object
of his love, whether the object love, or even hate him. Just as
to quite young children, who are either not yet old enough to love,
or who are old enough to feel hatred when punished by father or
mother, their parents, all the time even that they are being hated,
are friends in the very highest degree.
—
Plato, Lysis, 212e–213a
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Boys: You are childless! childless!
and I,
Having lost my unhappy father, will dwell
An orphan in a house of loss,
Cut off from the man who gave me life.
—
Euripides, The Suppliant Women, 1132–1134
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
But there is another kind of friendship, viz. that which involves
an inequality, e.g. that of father to son and in general of elder
to younger, that of man to wife and in general that of ruler to
subject. And these friendships differ also from each other; for
it is not the same that exists between parents and children and
between rulers and subject, nor is even that of father to son the
same as that of son to father, nor that of husband to wife the
same as that of wife to husband. For the excellence and the function
of each of these is different, and so are the reasons for which
they love; the love and the friendship are therefore different
also. Each party, then, neither gets the same from the other, nor
ought to seek it; but when children render to parents what they
ought to render to those who brought them into the world, and parents
render what they should to their children, the friendship of such
persons will be lasting and excellent.
— Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. 8, 1158b
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Apollo: I will tell you, and I will
answer correctly. Watch.
The mother is no parent of that which is called
her child, but only nurse of the new-planted seed
that grows. The parent is he who mounts. A stranger she
preserves a stranger’s seed, if no god interfere.
I will show you proof of what I have explained. There can
be a father without any mother. There she stands,
the living witness, daughter of Olympian Zeus,
she who was never fostered in the dark of the womb
yet such a child as no goddess could bring to birth.
—
Aeschylus, The Eumenides, 657–666
* * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
A child in his present helplessness
loves and is loved by his parents, though he is likely to be at
odds with them at some future time.
— Plato, Laws, 6.754E
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|| back to top ||
