Books like Ιφιγένεια εν Αυλίδι

To be, or not to be: that is the question:Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to sufferThe slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;No more; and by a sleep to say we endThe heart-ache and the thousand natural shocksThat flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummationDevoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;For in that sleep of death what dreams may comeWhen we have shuffled off this mortal coil,Must give us pause: there’s the respectThat makes calamity of so long life;

So speaking, to the arms of his dear spouseHe gave the boy; she on her fragrant breastReceived him, weeping as she smiled. The chiefBeheld, and, moved with tender pity, smoothedHer forehead gently with his hand and said:—“Sorrow not thus, beloved one, for me.No living man can send me to the shadesBefore my time; no man of woman born,Coward or brave, can shun his destiny.But go thou home, and tend thy labors there—The web, the distaff—and command thy maidsTo speed the work: The cares of war pertainTo all men born in Troy, and most to me.”

Yea, for these laws were not ordained of Zeus,And she who sits enthroned with gods below,Justice, enacted not these human laws.Nor did I deem that thou, a mortal man,Could’st by a breath annul and overrideThe immutable unwritten laws of Heaven.They were not born today nor yesterday;They die not; and none knoweth whence they sprang.I was not like, who feared no mortal’s frown,To disobey these laws and so provokeThe wrath of Heaven. I knew that I must die,E’en hadst thou not proclaimed it; and if deathIs thereby hastened, I shall count it gain.

Sight and hearing were the only senses remaining, and they, like two solitary sparks, remained to animate the miserable body which seemed fit for nothing but the grave; it was only, however, by means of one of these senses that he could reveal the thoughts and feelings that still occupied his mind, and the look by which he gave expression to his inner life was like the distant gleam of a candle which a traveller sees by night across some desert place, and knows that a living being dwells beyond the silence and obscurity.

Consider ye the seed from which ye sprang;Ye were not made to live like unto brutes,But for pursuit of virtue and of knowledge.’So eager did I render my companions,With this brief exhortation, for the voyage,That then I hardly could have held them back.And having turned our stern unto the morning,We of the oars made wings for our mad flight,Evermore gaining on the larboard side.

NORA. No, only merry. And you have always been so kind to me. But our home has been nothing but a playroom. I have been your doll-wife, just as at home I was papa’s doll-child; and here the children have been my dolls. I thought it great fun when you played with me, just as they thought it great fun when I played with them. That is what our marriage has been, Torvald.