Clytemnestra: Mother and child! It is a strange relation.
A mother cannot hate the child she bore
even when injured by it.
—
Sophocles, Electra, 770–772
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First Woman: Hoy! Hoy there! Hoy!
He’s got my child, he’s got my darling, O!
He’s snatched my little baby from my breast.
O, stop him, stop him! O, he’s gone. O! O!
— Aristophanes, Thesmophoriazusae, p. 350
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Electra: She never could have it [the hair], she
who murdered him
and is my mother, but no mother in her heart
which has assumed God’s hate and hates her children. No.
—
Aeschylus, The Libation Bearers, 189–191
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Clytemnestra: Hold, my son. Oh take pity, child, before this breast
where many a time, a drowsing baby, you would feed
and with soft gums sucked in the milk that made you strong.
— Aeschylus, The Libation Bearers, 896-898
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Ion: I was
Deprived of my dear mother’s love throughout
The time I might have lain content and happy,
Held in her arms. My mother suffered too;
She lost the joy a child can bring.
—
Euripides, Ion, 1374–1379
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Clytemnestra: Now, I cannot
Hold them back, these streams of tears. I am lost,
Utterly.
Old Man: What greater cause, my lady,
For grieving than a child taken away?
Weep, weep.
— Euripides, Iphigenia in Aulis, 888
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Creusa: You are my son: a mother must
love her son.
— Euripides, Ion, 1409
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Electra: Women save all their love
for lovers, not for children.
— Euripides, Electra, 265
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This one life
Redeems the rest. She is my comfort, my Troy.
My staff, my nurse; she guides me on my way.She is all I have.
—
Euripides, Hecuba, 279–281
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All women are by nature fond of children.
—
Lycurgus, Against Leocrates, 99–101
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When they bear children, they dedicate
clothing to Artemis.
— Scholiast to Callimachus, Hymn to Zeus
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