Quotes from Open Horizons

They stepped the mast and spread the glistening sails, and the wind blew gusts in the middle of the sail, and around the cutwater the bow wave, shimmering dark, sang loud as the ship proceeded.

Homer. The Iliad, 480–83 (2017 edition, translated by Caroline Alexander). Random House

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…we who dwell between the pillars of Hercules and the river Phasis live in a small part of it about the sea, like ants or frogs about a pond, and many other people live in many other such regions.

Plato, Phaedo 109 a–b

Plato in Twelve Volumes, vol. 1 (1966 edition, translated by Harold North Fowler). Harvard University Press and William Heinemann

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To the Sirens first shalt thou come, who beguile all men whosoever comes to them. Whoso in ignorance draws near to them and hears the Sirens' voice, he nevermore returns, that his wife and little children may stand at his side rejoicing, but the Sirens beguile him with their clear-toned song...

Homer. The Odyssey, Book 12 (1919 edition, translated by A. T. Murray). Harvard University Press and William Heinemann, 39–44

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Beware of the sharp-beaked hounds of Zeus that do not bark, the griffins...

Aeschylus. Prometheus Bound. In Aeschylus (1926 edition, translated by Herbert Weir Smyth). Harvard University Press, 803–04

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Our city is thrown open to the world, and we never expel a foreigner or prevent him from seeing or learning anything of which the secret if revealed to an enemy might profit him.

Thucydides, Pericles’ Funeral Oration, Book Β, 39

Thucydides translated into English; with introduction, marginal analysis, notes, and indices, vol. 1 (1881 edition, translated by Benjamin Jowett). Clarendon Press

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And so far has our city distanced the rest of mankind in thought and in speech that her pupils have become the teachers of the rest of the world; and she has brought it about that the name Hellenes suggests no longer a race but an intelligence, the title Hellenes is applied rather to those who share our culture than to those who share a common blood.

Isocrates, Panegyricus. In Isocrates, vol 1 (1928 edition, translated by George Norlin). Loeb Classical Library no. 209

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…they call the power which is assigned to direct the revolution of the Sun Horus, but the Greeks call it Apollo; and the power assigned to the wind some call Osiris and others Serapis

Plutarch. De Iside et Osiride. In Moralia vol. 5, (1936 edition, translated by Frank Cole Babbitt). Harvard University Press and William Heinemann, 375-76

For reference see: https://www.loebclassics.com/view/LCL306/1936/volume.xml

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Tell me, O Muse, of the man of many devices, who wandered full many ways after he had sacked the sacred citadel of Troy. Many were the men whose cities he saw and whose mind he learned, aye, and many the woes he suffered in his heart upon the sea, seeking to win his own life and the return of his comrades.

Homer. The Odyssey with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, PH.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1919.

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