He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.
Justice, voiceless, unseen, seeth thee when thou sleepest and when thou goest forth and when thou liest down. Continually doth she attend thee, now aslant thy course, now at a later time. These lines are from a section of doubtful or spurious fragments.
Yet though a man gets many wounds in breast, He dieth not, unless the appointed time, The limit of his life's span, coincide; Nor does the man who by the hearth at home Sits still, escape the doom that Fate decrees.
It is like a woman indeed
To take rapture before the fact is shown for true.
They believe too easily, are too quick to shift
From ground to ground; and swift indeed
The rumor voiced by a woman dies again.
Of all the gods, Death only craves not gifts: Nor sacrifice, nor yet drink-offering poured Avails; no altars hath he, nor is soothed By hymns of praise. From him alone of all The powers of heaven Persuasion holds aloof.