'Strange how mortals blame the gods. They say that evil is our handiwork, when in truth they bring their sufferings on themselves. By their own folly they force the hand of fate. See, now, how Aigisthos forced it in taking the wedded wife of Atreides and slaying her lord when he returned, yet he had sheer destruction before his eyes, for we ourselves had forewarned him not to slay the king nor wed his wife, or vengeance would come by Atreides' son Orestes, whene'er he should grow to manhood and long for his home. So spake our messenger, but with all his wisdom he did not soften the heart of Aigisthos, and now he has paid in full' (_Odyssey_, _a_ 32-43). These lines from the first canto of the _Odyssey_ were imagined by a generation which could still afford to err, but as Greece approached her hour of destiny, her prophetic inspiration grew clearer. The poets of the sixth century were haunted more insistently than the Homeridai by the possibilities of disaster inherent in success of every kind--in personal prosperity, in military victory, and in the social triumph of civilization. They traced the mischief to an aberration of the human spirit under the shock of sudden, unexpected attainment, and they realized that both the accumulated achievement of generations and the greater promise of the future might be lost irretrievably by failure at this critical moment. 'Surfeit (κορος {koros}) breeds sin ὑβρις {hubris} when prosperity visits unbalanced minds.' In slightly different words, the proverb recurs in the collections of verses attributed to Theognis and to Solon. Its maker refrained from adding what was in his and his hearers' thoughts, that ὑβρις {hubris}, once engendered, breeds αιη {aiê}--the complete and certain destruction into which the sinner walks with unseeing eyes. But the whole moral mystery, to its remorseless end, was uttered again and again in passionate words by Aeschylus, who consciously discarded the primitive magical determinism in which Herodotus afterwards vainly sought relief. Φιλει δε τικτειν ὑβρις μεν παλαια νεα-- ζουσαν εν κακοις βροτων ὑβρις τοτ' η τóθ', ὁτε το κυριον μολη φαος τοκου, δαιμονα τ' εταν, αμαχον, απολεμον, ανιερον θρασος, μελαι-- νας μελαθροισιν Ατας, ειδομενας τοκευσιν. {Philei de tiktein hubris men palaia nea-- zousan en kakois brotôn hubris tot' ê tóth', hote to kyrion molê phaos tokou, daimona t' etan, amachon, apolemon, anieron thrasos, melai-- nas melathroisin Atas, eidomenas tokeusin.} But Old Sin loves, when comes the hour again, To bring forth New, Which laugheth lusty amid the tears of men; Yea, and Unruth, his comrade, wherewith none May plead nor strive, which dareth on and on, Knowing not fear nor any holy thing; Two fires of darkness in a house, born true, Like to their ancient spring. (_Agamemnon_, vv. 763-71, Murray's transl.)