Living
Maxims of Theognis: Choose also rather to live
Translated by Rev. J. Banks (Bohn, 1856) · From Hesiod, Callimachus and Theognis (Bohn, 1856)
Choose also rather to live religiously with small means, than to be rich, having gotten riches unjustly. In justice is all virtue collectively, yea, and every man, Cyrnus, if just, is good. Wealth indeed fortune gives even to a man wholly bad, but excellence attends few men, O Cyrnus.
This translation is printed as prose in its source edition.
Codex Note
Literal prose translation by the Rev. J. Banks (Bohn, 1856), printed as prose: the plain-sense companion to Frere’s verse version. Banks’s hyphenated compounds are his own.
Cite this poem
MLA
Megara, Theognis of. “Maxims of Theognis: Choose also rather to live.” Translated by Rev. J. Banks. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/theognis/130/.
Chicago
Megara, Theognis of. “Maxims of Theognis: Choose also rather to live.” Translated by Rev. J. Banks. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/theognis/130/.
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