HECUBA: The clear actions of a man,
Agamemnon, should speak louder than any words.
good words should get their goodness from our lives
and nowhere else; the evil we do should show,
a rottenness that festers in our speech
and what we say, in capable of being glozed
with a film of pretty words.
There are men, I know,
sophists who make a science of persuasion,
glozing evil with the slick of loveliness;
but in the end a speciousness will show.
The imposters are punished; not one escapes
his death.[ἙΚΆΒΗ: Ἀγάμεμνον, ἀνθρώποισιν οὐκ ἐχρῆν ποτε
τῶν πραγμάτων τὴν γλῶσσαν ἰσχύειν πλέον:
ἀλλ᾽, εἴτε χρήστ᾽ ἔδρασε, χρήστ᾽ ἔδει λέγειν,
εἴτ᾽ αὖ πονηρά, τοὺς λόγους εἶναι σαθρούς,
καὶ μὴ δύνασθαι τἄδικ᾽ εὖ λέγειν ποτέ.
σοφοὶ μὲν οὖν εἰσ᾽ οἱ τάδ᾽ ἠκριβωκότες,
ἀλλ᾽ οὐ δύνανται διὰ τέλους εἶναι σοφοί,
κακῶς δ᾽ ἀπώλοντ᾽: οὔτις ἐξήλυξέ πω.]Euripides (485?-406? BC) Greek tragic dramatist
Hecuba [Hekabe; Ἑκάβη], l. 1186ff (c. 424 BC) [tr. Arrowsmith (1958)]
(Source)
Hecuba to Agamemnon, after Polymestor tried to defend his actions in murdering her son and stealing the Trojan treasure.
(Source (Greek)). Alternate translations:O Agamemnon, never ought the tongue
To have a greater influence o'er mankind
Than actions; but whoever hath done well
Ought to speak well; and he whose deeds are base,
To use unseemly language, nor find means
By specious words to colour o'er injustice.
Full wise indeed are they to whom such art
Is most familiar: but to stand the test
Of time not wise enough; for they all perish,
Not one of them e'er scapes.
[tr. Wodhull (1809)]Agamemnon, it never were fitting among men that the tongue should have greater force than actions. But if a man has acted well, well should he speak; if on the other hand basely, his words likewise should be unsound, and never ought he to be capable of speaking unjust things well. Perhaps indeed they who have brought these things to a pitch of accuracy are accounted wise, but they can not endure wise unto the end, but perish vilely, nor has any one yet escaped this.
[tr. Edwards (1826)]Agamemnon, never should this thing have been,
That words with men should more avail than deeds,
But good deeds should with reasonings good be paired,
And caitiff deed be ranged by baseless plea,
And none avail to gloze injustice o'er.
There be whose craft such art hath perfected;
Yet cannot they be cunning to the end:
Foully they perish: never one hath 'scaped.
[tr. Way (Loeb) (1894)]Agamemnon, never ought the tongues of men
To plead more eloquently than the truth.
Good men should prove good speakers, and the bad,
Their very argument grown rank, should find
No specious words to colour evil deeds.
Oh, they are strict professors of the art,
And they are wise; yet in the end of all,
Not wise enough. They perish. None escapes.
[tr. Sheppard (1924)]Never ought words to have outweighed deeds in this world, Agamemnon. No! if a man's deeds were good, so should his words have been; if, on the other hand, evil, his words should have been unsound, instead of its being possible at times to speak injustice well. There are, it is true, clever persons, who have made a science of this, but their cleverness cannot last for ever; a miserable end awaits them; no one ever yet escaped.
[tr. Coleridge (1938)]Agamemnon,
A man should talk as he acts.
Good speaks for itself --
The best make bad liars.
The opposite is also true,
Though it ought not to be.
Men with brains can conceal
Whatever they want concealed.
But the brain grows weary.
A bad end's in.
[tr. McGuinness (2004)]Agamemnon, men shouldn't believe a speech counts for far more than actions ever did. If a man is good in deed, he's good in word. But bad deeds make a man's word rotten, too, and he can't give his injustice a fair gloss. They're clever with their tongues so finely tuned but you couldn't call them clever in the end. Their punishment will come. No one escapes.
[tr. Harrison (2005)]Never, Agamemnon, should words have greater sway for men than do their deeds. When a man does good, his words ought to be good; when he does evil then his words should be unsound. No one should speak well of injustice. About this last thing, there are those clever fellows who have performed it to perfection but they will all, in the end, be destroyed. None of them have escaped so far.
[tr. Theodoridis (2007)]Agamemnon, never in the affairs of men
Should the tongue have more power than facts,
Rather, when someone acts well, he should speak well,
And if the opposite, his words should be rotten.
Glib rhetoric may win us over for a while,
but in the end the smooth talkers die foully.
[tr. Karden/Street (2011)]
