bogus Aeschylus quote?

[Jonathan Lighter]

Two more translations from _Agamamnon_:

1975 Robert Fagles, trans. _The Oresteia_ (rpt. N.Y.: Bantam Books, 1982)
112: [W]e must suffer, suffer into truth.

1991 Frederick Raphael & Kenneth McLeish, trans. _Aeschylus: Plays: Two_
(rpt. London: Methuen,1993) 9: Knowledge is born of suffering.

Neither version has the cynical ring of "The reward of suffering is
experience."

Different _Zeitgeist_, I guess. But apparently no Greek scholar has actually
translated the words as quoted by MacNamara and many others.

JL



On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 7:35 PM, Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: bogus Aeschylus quote?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> > YBQ contains no quotations from Aeschylus. But never mind that. One of
> the
> > quotations from Aeschylus that it doesn't contain may be a quotation from
> > somebody else.
> >
> > In his 1995 memoir, _In Retrospect_, Robert MacNamara seems to have
> helped
> > popularize the saying, which he attributes to Aeschylus, that "The reward
> of
> > suffering is experience."
> >
> > Nifty. Unfortunately, neither I nor Wikiquotes can find a citation of
> this
> > saying earlier than roughly the 1980s.
>
> I cannot find an early quotation and attribution. Here are some partial
> matches:
>
> The Journal of Hellenic Studies in 1884 says this:
>
> We may now approach the Oresteia of Aeschylus and see how he adapts
> his trichotomy to the three moments of a deep moral doctrine which is
> the Grundgedanke of this trilogy. …
> (3) the object of suffering is experience, to teach.
>
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=6UYUAAAAYAAJ&q=%22is+experience%22#v=snippet&
>
> The words appear as part of a literary and moral analysis, and the
> author does not claim to be quoting Aeschylus.
>
>
> In 1907 A Book of Quotations, Proverbs and Household Words by W.
> Gurney Benham contains:
>
> [[Four words of Greek]] –Suffering brings experience. — (Greek,
> Aeschylus. Agamemnon, 185.)
>
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=0gQ9AAAAYAAJ&q=%22suffering+brings%22#v=snippet&
>
>
> In 1922 Hoyt's New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations contains:
>
> Suffering brings experience.
> Aeschylus—Agamemnon.
>
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=vusHEymIuvwC&q=%22Suffering+brings%22#v=snippet&
>
>
> In 1953 (according to the often incorrect Google Books metadata)
> Volume 31 of the Rosicrucian Digest was released by the Supreme
> Council of the Rosicrucian Order. The volume contains the following
> text:
>
> An ancient mystical proverb says: "Every cross has its crown." This
> means that the reward of suffering is: experience, illumination
> (Brahma-vidya), purification, the abandonment of sin, reincarnation,
> that is, the working off of Karma — in other words, liberation.
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=6ArRAAAAMAAJ&q=Brahma#search_anchor
>
> Conclusion, Robert McNamara is surreptitiously injecting Rosicrucian
> doctrine into the public sphere by hiding its provenance with a
> semi-plausible misattribution to a prestigious Greek playwright.
> (Given decades of experience with electronic communication I know that
> I must say: The previous statement was a joke.)
>
> (continuing the message of J. Lighter)
>  > What earlier authorities credit Aeschylus with saying (in _Prometheus
> > Bound_) was, essentially, that suffering brings wisdom.
> > There is a huge difference in my mind between the two versions of
> Aeschylus'
> > words.  If suffering brings wisdom, then it has some value. If its
> "reward"
> > is *mere* "experience," however, why bother? You could be as dumb as
> > before, just more wretched.
> >
> > Another question is whether Aeschylus (not a native speaker of Modern
> > English) was actually able to verbalize the difference between "wisdom"
> and
> > "experience" or whether, in accordance with Whorf-Sapir, that
> > distinction would have been less than obvious. My Ancient Greek is too,
> er,
> > "rusty" for me to comment.
> >
> > If  the Greek vocabulary didn't distinguish, which word in context seems
> > more likely to reflect his intention? (My SWAG is "wisdom": Aeschylus was
> a
> > pessimist but not, AFAIK, a nihilist.)
> >
> > Moreover, several websites credit "The reward of suffering is experience"
> to
> > the precocious Harry Truman, said to have uttered it in "1884," as soon,
> > presumably, as he popped from the womb. God knows what his mom thought.
> >
> > JL
> > --
> > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org