#100 Thurs (9/29/22) - Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.

 

"Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad."

        Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Masque of Pandora.

"For those whom God for ruin has design'd,
He fits for fate, and first destroys their mind." 

        John Dryden, The Hind and the Panther.

"Whom God wishes to destroy, he first makes mad." Seneca, Maxim 911 (Misattribution? Should be Publilius Syrus, see below, Lyman translation.)

"When falls on Man the anger of the gods, first from his mind, they banish understanding." Lycurgus, from an oration.

"Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first deprives of their senses." Euripedes, fragment of a poem.

"When divine power plans evil for a man, it first injures his mind." Sophocles, Antigone.

All of these were listed in Richard Powell's novel "Whom the gods would destroy" (1970) and called The Long Lineage of a Title.

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While this is often attributed to Euripides, he did not originate it.

An early version of the phrase Whom the gods would destroy... appears in verses 620–623 of Sophocles’ play Antigone: "τὸ κακὸν δοκεῖν ποτ᾽ ἐσθλὸν τῷδ᾽ ἔμμεν' ὅτῳ φρένας θεὸς ἄγει πρὸς ἄταν" to mean that "evil appears as good in the minds of those whom god leads to destruction". 

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I like the phrasing  "Whom Fortune wishes to destroy she first makes mad." Publilius Syrus, Maxim 911

The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, a Roman Slave From the Latin By Publius Syrus, D. Lyman · 1856

Darius Lyman numbers it 911, on Page 76.

I found it on Line 728 of the Sententiae. (Not numbered). In the collected works of Publilius Syrus in Latin:

Stultum facit Fortuna, quem vult perdere. (Fortune makes a fool whom it wishes to destroy.)

Seneca did not produce a book of maxims, cannot find one numbered 911.  It would certainly be a coincidence if he and Publilius both had this as #911.

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