On Tue, 22 Jun 2004, David Silberstein wrote: > On Mon, 21 Jun 2004, Philip Hart wrote: > > > > >I have no desire to be alive hundreds of thousands of years from now - > >The best thing would have been never to have been born, to quote Heine. > >( > >http://www.uni-mainz.de/~pommeren/Gedichte/HeineNachlese/morphine.htm > >http://www.poemhunter.com/p/m/poem.asp?poet=19764&poem=195364 > >) > > Ecclesiastes expressed the same sentiment (4:1-4:3) long before > Heine, which is ironic given what that book is better known for. > > http://ebible.org/bible/web/Eccl.htm If I understand correctly, he's saying it's best not to have been born yet - the other would indeed be odd in a work included in the Christian bible. Ecc. is perhaps 900 BCE? I could find some non-yet quotes from Sophocles or Euripides I think - I believe it was a common Greek attitude, like "Count no man lucky until he's dead". Well, Herodotus has Solon say, "Now if a man thus favored dies as he has lived, he will be just the one you are looking for: the only sort of person who deserves to be called happy. But mark this: until he is dead, keep the word 'happy' in reserve. Till then, he is not happy, but only lucky." - slightly different. "Lucky" is on the list lately - "happy" is etymologically similar, I bet - in German more or less the same word I think. Sethra seems happy, but then again she also expresses a desire to be a rock.