Those who would learn must suffer. In our own despair, against our will, wisdom comes to us.

So in the Libyan fable it is told That once an eagle, stricken with a dart, Said, when he saw the fashion of the shaft: With our own feathers, not by others' hands, Are we now smitten.

Chorus: Zeus, who guided men to think who laid it down that wisdom comes alone through suffering. Still there drips in sleep against the heart grief of memory; against our pleasure we are temperate.

The high strength of men knows no content with limitation.

For hostile word let hostile word be paid.

It is an easy thing for one whose foot is on the outside of calamity to give advice and to rebuke the sufferer.

Self-will in the man who does not reckon wisely is by itself the weakest of all things.