-SM Stirling, Snowbrother (New York, 1985), Chapter 12, p. 168.
That reminds me of something in Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series but for once I cannot find it: Anderson quoting a Greek or Roman historian who wrote that men did what they could and suffered what they had to...?
The Time Patrol series may be the major source of quotations and comparisons on Poul Anderson Appreciation. A similar passage although not, I think, the right one is:
"As for the Ampsivarii, they wandered year after year, sometimes briefly finding refuge, sometimes harries onward, until, Tacitus wrote, 'all their young were killed in a foreign country, and those who could not fight were shared out as booty.'"
-Poul Anderson, "Star Of The Sea" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 467-640 AT p. 557.
9 comments:
Paul:
I, too, haven't found an Anderson passage quoting it, but the line appears to come from the Athenian general Nicias, who died in the expedition against Sicily, 415-413 BC. References in other works say Nicias made a speech to his "doomed" army, telling them that they had "no course left open except, having done what men may, to endure what men must."
Kaor, Paul and DAVID!
I'm almost sure, in the bit Paul quoted from SNOWBROTHER, that Stirling was adapting a line taken from Thucydides HISTORY OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR. A work I have read in a Penguin books translation. So Thucydides may have been quoting a speech by Nicias.
Sean
Yes to Thucydides and I think that Anderson quotes it.
Kaor, Paul!
I'm simply not sure if Poul Anderson ever quoted or alluded to this line from Thucydides.
Sean
"No course left open except, having done what men may, to endure what men must."
I believe that this may be an approximate translation from the original Attic which may be more literally rendered as:
"We're f***ed- let's fight!"
-Keith
Kaor, Keith!
Ha! While that may well be the actual language used by trapped and doomed soldiers, I doubt Thucydides used the Attic equivalents of such words! (Smiles)
Sean
Kaor, Sean!
Yes, Anderson quoted this line from Thucydides: it’s in “Ivory, Apes, and Peacocks,” where Manse Everard, thinking about Bronwen, remembers the line, which speaks of men, and then thinks, “And women, especially women.” I’m quoting from memory.
Best Regards,
Nicholas
Nicholas,
Thanks. I knew it was somewhere.
Paul.
Kaor, Nicholas!
Thanks for telling us Anderson DID use or allude to this famous line from Thucydides.
Sean
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