Versos English Henry Thornton Wharton In Dactylic Metre

English poem

In Dactylic Metre

by (1846–1895)

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27

[Greek: Skidnamenas en stêthesin orgas] [Greek: mapsylakan glôssan pephylachthai.]

When anger spreads through the breast, guard thy tongue from barking idly.

When through thy breast wild wrath doth spread And work thy inmost being harm, Leave thou the fiery word unsaid, Guard thee; be calm. MICHAEL FIELD, 1889.

Quoted by Plutarch, in his treatise On restraining anger, to show that in wrath nothing is more noble than quietness. Blass thinks that Bergk is wrong in his restoration of the verses; he considers their metre choriambic (like fr. 64, ff.), and reads them thus:

= = [Greek: skidnamenas stêthesin orgas pephylagmena] (?) [Greek: glôssan mapsylakan] - v v - - v v - v -

He compares fr. 72 with them.