Note 131 — Chapter VII · SLAVES.
Reading edition
Euripides describes in a few verses the two very different views taken of servitude by the freeman and the slave:
Orest. Δοῦλος ὢν φοβεῖ τὸν Ἄιδην
ὅς σ’ ἀπαλλάξ εκ κακῶν.
Phryx. Πᾶρ’ ἀνὴρ κἂν δοῦλος
ἦι τις ἥδεται τὸ φῶς ὁρῶν.
Orest. 1537, sqq.
The observation of the Phrygian is just; for God, who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, mitigates also the misery of the slave, and enables him to look upon the light with something like joy.