Quote#Friendship
Saw you perchance before the Trojan wall
Quote byJohn William Mackail · 1859–1945
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: The Odyssey (1910), Book VIII.
English (original)
Saw you perchance before the Trojan wall A sister's husband or wife's father fall, A valiant man? for next one's kin and blood Is such affinity most close of all:Or one knit close to you in friendship's bands, Gracious of heart and mighty of his hands? Since nowise lesser than a brother born The comrade is who wisdom understands.
— John William Mackail
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Even as when the maid of Pandarus The greenwood nightingale melodious, Amid the thickening leafage sits and sings When the young spring is waving over us:And she with many a note and hurrying trill Pours forth her liquid voice, lamenting …
O Muse, instruct me of the man who drew His changeful course through wanderings not a few After he sacked the holy town of Troy, And saw the cities and the counsel knewOf many men, and many a time at sea Within his heart he bore calamity, …
Still . . . fair, though scarce less old than Rome. Now once again at rest from wandering Across the high Alps and the dreadful sea, In utmost England let it find a home.
And the sun left the lovely lake and clomb Upward across the sky's brass-paven dome, To light the deathless gods, and mortal men That have the acres of the corn for home.
The soul beyond her knowing seems to sweep Out of the deep, fire-winged, into the deep.
To act the part of a true friend requires more conscientious feeling than to fill with credit and complacency any other station or capacity in social life.
