Talk:Live by the sword, die by the sword

NPOV and expert sources?
I saw that there have been several potentially valid additions to the article and meaning of the phrase that were reverted without explanation; as the article lacks references other than the actual Bible quote, I have requested them. LovelyLillith (talk) 08:07, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Original research?
Hm. This seems like a very nice theological essay, rather than an encyclopedia article...? Khendon (talk) 22:14, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Neutrality
Yeah...does anybody know how to flag an entry as not being neutral? This article starts out fine, but ends on a supremely theological tone. 24.143.38.131 (talk) 05:31, 2 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I have placed a neutrality disputed tag on the whole article.


 * To challenge an individual statement, place a tag on it.
 * For a section use the tag.
 * If the whole article has neutrality problems, use the tag.
 * For only one section neutrality, use the tag.
 * —Telpardec (talk) 17:40, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Dubious
The picture is bogus. It falsely shows Peter about to strike his left ear. Both Luke 22:50 and John 18:10 say he "cut off his right ear".—Telpardec (talk) 17:40, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Aeschylus's Agamemnon
Reading through Aeschylus's Agamemnon, line 1558, I find "By the sword you did your work, and by the sword you die." Would that be worth mentioning? I'm just thinking along the lines of this not necessarily just being a 'Christian saying'. Jetstorm36GR (talk) 03:24, 11 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi, You are right, I checked in the original text, the saying appears over 500 years before the bible story. I have included the reference. 86.176.167.138 (talk) 16:32, 11 January 2016 (UTC)


 * It makes sense to put the oldest reference first, which I have done.  A clean-up of the second section is needed, it is toe curlingly unencyclopaedic.Splodgeness (talk) 18:25, 3 February 2016 (UTC)


 * The issue is whether that has any relation to the popular phrase, which is what the article is about. Not just expressing a somewhat similar idea. AlphabeticThing9 (talk) 02:25, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Non-literal interpretations
Could someone revise this section so it makes sense to non-theologists? I have no idea what a "sapiential image" is, nor what most of those bible quotes are doing there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.21.144.252 (talk) 18:11, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Clean Up
The clean-up was long overdue, the page had become messy and unencyclopaedic.


 * Moved the interpretations from the introduction to the interpretations section, as they were duplicated (more than once)
 * Created a single interpretations section. included the interpretations from the old page cross referencing the wikiquote information.
 * Removed the references to The sapiential interpretation as this is not relevant to the subject)
 * Removed the Usage in English literature section because it didn't contain any references to Usage in English literature :)
 * Removed the unattributed allusions as they are covered in the duplicate interpretations in the interpretations section.

I hope this is acceptable to all.Splodgeness (talk) 15:47, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

I'd like to include the poetic nature of the proverb - the use of parallelism in the Greek ἄξια δράσας ἄξια πάσχων and the Latin Qui gladio ferit, gladio perit. as found in the Vulgate (coined by the author of Matthew) The Quotation only appears in Matthew (hence the removal of the reference to John) and only from the Latin version. I added a link to the on-line version of the Vulgate, for people to check and cross reference. I removed the irrelevant links from the See Also box, but left The Golden rule as the concept of reciprocity is inherent in the saying, and the link to Violence begets Violence, a rather poor but relevant article.Splodgeness (talk) 18:10, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Adding references in popular culture
Please only add references that contain the WHOLE phrase (or paraphrase :) This is an encyclopaedia please read WP:PROMOTION  and WP:NOTEVERYTHING  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Splodgeness (talk • contribs) 13:48, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Origin of the metaphor / Idiom
This article discusses the phrase live by the sword - die by the sword and lists, in order of appearance those phrases which can be historically cited and dated. As with all things of this nature, the sentiment / meaning of the phrase may pop up from time to time and not necessarily be plagiarised. So please even if this time-line disagrees with your own view of the world, accept the facts as researches and cited in the best way we know how and let the reader have access to all the information. 81.154.172.240 (talk) 13:22, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Yes - there are plenty of articles citing both sources mentioned in this article as the inspiration for the metaphor. It is quite natural to believe that the version of the song WE grew up with was the one and only original (I always thought summertime blues was by T. Rex :) Splodgeness (talk) 13:45, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Wrong citation
The citation is completely wrong, not only because there doesn't exist this specific phrase in "Agamemnon" but furthermore there is an obvious error in numbering the verses of the play. This genius.com doesn't seem to be a trusted site for ancient Greek and Latin texts. To begin with, the verses 1517-1525 ("Oh my king, my captain..." until "...the wife's hand that thrust the two-edged sword") are twice repeated, they appear again in 1542-1550: https://genius.com/Aeschylus-agamamnon-lines-1509-1558-annotated The phrase in question, "By the sword you did your work and by the sword you die" is in verses 1557-1558, but there is obviously an error in numbering the verses. Let's try one of the most respectable and reliable sites that deal with ancient Greek and Latin texts, perseus.edu. As you can see, there is no such phrase in verses 1557-1558:

ἀλλ᾽ Ἰφιγένειά νιν ἀσπασίως θυγάτηρ, ὡς χρή, πατέρ᾽ ἀντιάσασα πρὸς ὠκύπορον πόρθμευμ᾽ ἀχέων περὶ χεῖρε βαλοῦσα φιλήσει. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0224%3Acard%3D1551

But Iphigeneia, -- with kindliness, -- His daughter, -- as the case requires, Facing him full, at the rapid-flowing Passage of Groans shall -- both hands throwing Around him -- kiss that kindest of sires! http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0224%3Acard%3D1551

Instead, there seems to be a phrase which was wrongly translated as "By the sword you did your work and by the sword you die" in verses 1528-1530.

μηδὲν ἐν Ἅιδου μεγαλαυχείτω, ξιφοδηλήτῳ, θανάτῳ τείσας ἅπερ ἦρξεν. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0003%3Acard%3D1521

let him not in Haides loudly Bear himself proudly! Being by sword-destroying death amerced For that sword's punishment himself inflicted first. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0224%3Acard%3D1521 --Ντουβισνός (talk) 09:53, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

Response to the above concerns

This article is not about "the specific phrase" you'd be hard pressed to find that anywhere as an original quotation - the biblical reference is not exact (remembering that it has been translated from a translation from a translation...) The article is about the metaphor / idiomatic phrase, the meaning of it, and the citations are references to appearances of the same meaning / sentiment.

The translation you question is by the well respected Robert Fagles, who was an American professor, poet, and academic, best known for his many translations of ancient Greek and Roman classics, especially his acclaimed translations of the epic poems of Homer. So The slight numbering error notwithstanding, this would seem to be a very reputable source. As I have added two more source citations for the phrase and removed the reference to a line number as all the references use their own numbering scheme and so this would be misleading.

If you don't like the Fagel interpretation then another famous, published translator Trevelyan, R. C. (Robert Calverley) 1872-1951 translated the play - look at page 62  https://archive.org/stream/oresteiaofaeschy00aescuoft?ref=ol#page/62/mode/2up/search/%22by+the+sword%22   you'll see what is probably a neater translation

"As he sinned by the sword, So is death by the sword his atonement."

The translated verse you cite (from the Browning) is utterly contrived otherwise how would it rhyme? and, what is the Greek for amerced?

Thanks for your help in improving this article, it is important that every fact is questioned. Translators will always argue about the exact wording, so as contributors we can only cite reputable, published sources with no original research (WP policy). You were right to question the line numbering and as there are now several cited sources for the phrase, all with their own numbering scheme, it is best to remove this and allow the citations to link to the source.

Splodgeness (talk) 10:51, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Response to Splodgeness

I understand the translation is not literal for the purpose of rhyming. In the Greek text there is no such term as "amerced", the respective word with the nearest meaning is "τείσας"=after having paid. A literal translation would be the following:

"Let him not boast in Hades, after having paid with sword-slain (or sword-inflicted) death for what he started". Ντουβισνός (talk) 12:45, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

"Modern interpretation"?
The article says that pacifism is a "modern interpretation" of this verse. Modern interpretation? What other interpretation could there be of the verse? If there has been some other prevailing traditional interpretation throughout history, then the article should make reference to it. Otherwise the word "modern" should be removed Grand Dizzy (talk) 12:47, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Not actually from Aeschylus
For nearly a full year this article has incorrectly claimed that the phrase "live by the sword, die by the sword" is a quote from the Athenian tragedian Aeschylus, based on the following translation by Robert Fagles of Aeschylus's Agamemnon, lines 1551-1559. I have put the exact line in italics to set it apart from the rest of the text: CLYTEMNAESTRA: No slave's death, I think- no stealthier than the death he dealt our house and the offspring of our loins, Iphigeneia, girl of tears. Act for act, wound for wound! Never exult Hades, swordsman, here you are repaid. By the sword you did your work and by the sword you die.

This is all the evidence that the article provided to support the assertion that this quote comes from Aeschylus. It provided no citations to scholarly sources—or, indeed, any sources at all—explicitly saying that the quote "live by the sword, die by the sword" comes from Aeschylus; it only provided this one translation as evidence. Unfortunately, this represents one of the shoddiest examples of original research I have seen in a long while. Had the person who added this claim bothered to consult Aeschylus's original Greek text, or any other translation of this passage, they would have seen that Aeschylus does not even mention anything about swords at all in this particular line. Aeschylus's original Greek text for these lines is, in fact, as follows, as edited by Herbert Weir Smyth: Κλυταιμήστρα οὐ σὲ προσήκει τὸ μέλημ᾽ ἀλέγειν τοῦτο: πρὸς ἡμῶν κάππεσε, κάτθανε, καὶ καταθάψομεν, οὐχ ὑπὸ κλαυθμῶν τῶν ἐξ οἴκων, ἀλλ᾽ Ἰφιγένειά νιν ἀσπασίως θυγάτηρ, ὡς χρή, πατέρ᾽ ἀντιάσασα πρὸς ὠκύπορον πόρθμευμ᾽ ἀχέων περὶ χεῖρε βαλοῦσα φιλήσει.

Χορός. ὄνειδος ἥκει τόδ᾽ ἀντ᾽ ὀνείδους. δύσμαχα δ᾽ ἔστι κρῖναι. φέρει φέροντ᾽, ἐκτίνει δ᾽ ὁ καίνων. μίμνει δὲ μίμνοντος ἐν θρόνῳ Διὸς παθεῖν τὸν ἔρξαντα: θέσμιον γάρ. τίς ἂν γονὰν ἀραῖον ἐκβάλοι δόμων; κεκόλληται γένος πρὸς ἄτᾳ.

(As you can see, Smyth's edition of Aeschylus's text makes the line in question the first line of the choral ode; whereas Fagles makes it the last line of Klytaimnestra's speech.)

Literally, Aeschylus's line "ὄνειδος ἥκει τόδ᾽ ἀντ᾽ ὀνείδους" means something more like "This rebuke comes against rebukes" and "φέρει φέροντ᾽" means "He that bears [i.e. kills] is born away [i.e. killed]." These two lines have the same general spirit and meaning as the phrase we know, but very different wording. No other translators get anything remotely like "By the sword you did your work and by the sword you die" out of this. Robert Browning in his classic translation translates these lines as follows: KLUTAIMNESTRA. It belongs not to thee to declare This object of care! By us did he fall -- down there! Did he die -- down there! and down, no less, We will bury him there, and not beneath The wails of the household over his death: But Iphigeneia, -- with kindliness, -- His daughter, -- as the case requires, Facing him full, at the rapid-flowing Passage of Groans shall -- both hands throwing Around him -- kiss that kindest of sires!

CHOROS. This blame comes in the place of blame: Hard battle it is to judge each claim. "He is borne away who bears away: And the killer has all to pay." And this remains while Zeus is remaining, "The doer shall suffer in time" -- for, such his ordaining. Who may cast out of the House its cursed brood? The race is to Até glued!

Likewise, Herbert Weir Smyth himself, the editor of the Greek text I quoted above, translates the chorus's lines as: "Reproach thus meets reproach in turn—hard is the struggle to decide. The spoiler is despoiled, the slayer pays penalty. Yet, while Zeus remains on his throne, it remains true that to him who does it shall be done; for it is law. Who can cast from out the house the seed of the curse? The race is bound fast in calamity."

Ted Hughs translates this passage as follows in his 1999 translation of the Oresteia, which is not available online, but which I have a print copy of: CLYTEMNESTRA I killed him. I'll bury him. There will be no fuss. No futile, pompous display. A quiet affair— And Iphigenia, his beloved daughter Who died a mere girl, Will welcome him To the land of the dead With a silent kiss.

CHORUS Revenge begets revenge, Truth spins and evaporates As blood drains from the head. It is the law of Zeus. A life for a life. What is a human life worth? More than itself, more than a life, Or less? Or precisely the same? The law of Zeus demands A life for a life. All—for all. But this law of Zeus Is a kind of disease Inherited through the blood. See how it has crazed Every member of this house.

It seems abundantly clear here that Robert Fagles was merely using the modern idiom derived from the Gospel of Matthew as a loose paraphrase of Aeschylus's passage. This is something that translators of ancient texts do all the time. Unfortunately, someone apparently seems to have come along and naïvely assumed that Fagles's poetic rendering was an exact, literal translation of Aeschylus's original words and falsely concluded that Aeschylus must have originated the quote "live by the sword, die by the sword," which actually comes from Matthew 26:52. –Katolophyromai (talk) 06:47, 6 March 2019 (UTC)


 * It's incredibly obvious that there is a great similarity between the two quotes, and language does evolve over time. Of course, the Gospel of Matthew was also originally written in some funky hard-to-translate language, so it would not surprise me to see they were more similar in their original forms, and it'd be good to see the similarities/differences there too. Whatever the case, my original edit of including a mention of Aeschylus' text was probably warranted as a mention, including cited sources, rather than removing the thing entirely. I fail to see a reason to disregard the translation of one author over another, and to just remove it entirely is uncalled for; This isn't some particularly naive assumption as you point out, but a well reasoned connection. --SgtLion (talk) 13:51, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Pictogram voting comment.png 3O Response: I feel that it should have in-text attribution to Fagles' translation (with year) rather than being directly attributed to the original Greek work. (ie: start with "In American Professor Robert Fagles' 19xx translation...")  I noticed that in the biography article Robert Fagles it states that his "translations generally emphasize contemporary English phrasing and idiom..." so I would not attribute the language to the original, particularly in light of the information provided by Katolophyromai.  When there are several translations available, NPOV requires that we balance viewpoints rather than relying on a single translation.  I assume this was a good faith mistake, perhaps related to synthesis of reliable sources. For whether it should be included at all (and somewhere other than a "history" section), I suppose if Fagles' translation itself is notable enough and widely quoted, then yes.  Although I respect NOTEVERYTHING and wouldn't want a list of trivial mentions, I don't see a problem with listing notable pop-culture references, particularly in titles of works (which could save from lengthy hat notes). This is a non-binding third opinion, but I hope it helps! – Reidgreg (talk) 15:31, 18 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Pictogram voting comment.png 3O Response: In my view Katolophyromai is entirely correct. "Robert Fagles was merely using the modern idiom derived from the Gospel of Matthew as a loose paraphrase of Aeschylus's passage."  The original Greek is no closer to the phrase that is the subject of this article than would be   the phrase "biter bit".  This is not an article about the general notion of karma or poetic justice; it is about a specific English phrase.  The Aeschylus in the original Greek is not connected to that phrase.  Lines 1560-1562 do not contain the notion of either "living by the sword" nor "dying by the sword".  They are therefore not relevant here.
 * Further than User:Reidgreg was prepared to go (though I think he implied it), I do not believe that Fagles' lines was a particularly notable usage of the phrase. It was simply a standard usage of a regular everyday proverb, that Fagles was quoting. Again, I think was Katolophyromai entirely right on this.
 * Finally, there was a suggestion further up the page that instead the lines 1529-30 ("ξιφοδηλήτῳ / θανάτῳ τείσας ἅπερ ἦρξεν." = "with death dealt him by the sword he has paid for what he first began." (H. Weir Smith, 1926)) should be related to the phrase.  This does contain the idea of death by a sword.  But the 'payment' is for the specific action of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, not a pattern of behaviour; it doesn't contain the specific parallelism with "living by the sword" that is the essence of the phrase that has become proverbial.
 * So, in summation: I don't see any reason to include any reference to Aeschylus's Agamemnon in the article. And if its presence is leading to misperceptions like this on quora, then in my view it should come out as soon as possible. Jheald (talk) 19:46, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Further questions
Once Aeschylus can be got out of the way, there are a couple of further questions that might be productive to look at:

Misrepresentation ?
If the original Biblical saying was something like "Take up the sword, die by the sword", is this being misrepresented by the customary proverbial English "Live by the sword, die by the sword" ?

Specifically I've seen it suggested (eg ) that the Biblical "All who take up the sword" should be identified with the specific context of that moment -- that all who took up the sword at that moment would die (being faced by a force of armed men that heavily outnumbered them, and represented legitimate authority); contrasted with eg Luke 22:36, ("Sell your cloak and buy a sword").

It might be interesting to see whether there are any heavyweight WP:RS commentaries that analyse this, or consider it worth discussing.

A pre-existing phrase ?
Was this a pre-existing phrase, even at the time?

There's an interesting datapoint in Targum Jonathan, a Jewish paraphrase of the Prophets in Aramaic, probably written in the 100s CE, that was read in synagogue to give the meaning of the Hebrew text. When it comes to Isaiah 50:10-50:11 Targum Jonathan expands considerably on the original, in a specifically interpretative way (not particularly unusual), including the line: "Behold, all of you who stir up a fire, and lay hold on the sword; go ye, fall into the fire which ye have stirred up, and [fall] by the sword, which ye have laid hold on." (The original Hebrew discusses fire, but has no mention of a sword; and does not contain the explicit parallelism).

Remember, this was at a time (the 100s CE) when Judaism was doing what it could to distance itself from Christianity. In the Greek-speaking communities Aquila was producing a new ultra-literal Hebrew-Greek translation of scripture, apparently as a corrective to translations in the Septuagint that had been taken up by the Christians as proof-texts, that were now perceived by the non-Christian Jewish community as mistranslations. So the thought that at the same time the Targum would be going out of its way to quote a Gospel would seem ... unlikely.

Instead it seems entirely likely that the Aramaic targum was referencing a pre-existing Aramaic verse or proverb or saying. The strong parallelism itself is a particularly prevalent trope of Hebrew and Aramaic poetical writing. (And some of the targum discursuses themselves may long have pre-dated being set down in writing). It's relevant, too, that the gospel "All who take up the sword, die by the sword" is not synoptic, it occurs only in Matthew -- of all the evangelists, it was Matthew who had much the greatest inclination to include call-backs to well-known Hebrew and Aramaic scripture and text.

Apparently W.F. Albright discusses the Targum verse in this context in his Commentary on Matthew (p.324), which may be useful; but I haven't seen it. Jheald (talk) 21:56, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Finally Settling the Question of Aeschylus
The discussion here has come very close to determining whether or not Aeschylus should remain on this page, yet over a year later, no final conclusion seems to have been drawn and no action has been taken. A very good job has already been done of debunking the idea that line 1560, ὄνειδος ἥκει τόδ᾽ ἀντ᾽ ὀνείδους, means "live by the sword, die by the sword". If it's agreed that that line is the reason the article claims this phrase comes from Aeschylus, then I do not understand why no one has removed the reference from the article yet, and I myself am tempted to do so. However, the exact line in Aeschylus being cited as the source in this discussion is a bit confused (which makes perfect sense, since in fact the line is found nowhere in Aeschylus at all). As far as I can tell, Fagles and Browning and maybe others are actually translating that phrase in Clytemnestra's speech around line 1525. And while this talk page has discussed those lines, too, as possible origins of the phrase, I do not believe they have been analyzed in detail. I would like to do so briefly here, and hopefully get us that much closer to finally putting this matter to rest.

For me, the issue revolves around the meaning of a single word, ἅπερ, which for reasons only students of Greek will understand is a word that cannot be looked up quickly, and thus translating it in context requires the expertise of a true scholar to settle the matter. First I will lay out the meaning of the other words in the relevant phrase, all of which are relatively straightforward:

ξιφοδηλήτῳ is an adjective that means "sword-killed"; θανάτῳ is the dative case of a noun meaning "in death" or perhaps "by means of death"; τείσας is a past participle meaning "having paid the price"; and ἦρξεν is a third person singular past verb meaning "he started".

What we have there is: killed by the sword, in death he has paid the price...he started.

What we're missing there is a translation of ἅπερ. If we trust Smyth's translation--and since he wrote one of the definitive Greek grammars I am inclined to do so--the word means here "for that which". Yielding: "killed by the sword, he has paid the price in death for what he started". And if that's right, there can be no question that this phrase has no relation to "live by the sword die by the sword" in any way, and the reference should be removed at once so as to prevent the further miseducation of generations of future students and the general public.

The trouble is, the only definition I can find in the dictionary--and I'm only looking at the middle Liddell, not the full LSJ--is that it is a form of ὡσπερ, a comparative adverb meaning "just as, in the same way as". ἅπερ, however, would be the neuter plural of this word, and I see no neuter plural subject that it would be modifying, the subject would be the participle "having killed", I think, which is not neuter plural. More likely, Smyth is totally right and this is a non-attic word--maybe a Doric word, I think that's the dialect the tragedians tended to use sometimes--and non-attic Greek can be more difficult for the non-expert to look up. But, I mention it because it might explain why translators like Fagles and others mistakenly rendered this like the passage in Matthew. Because if ἅπερ were to be thought a comparative adverb, then the translation would be: "killed by the sword, he has paid the price in death in the same way that he began," which could be interpreted, among other ways, to mean that he began with a life of sword of violence and so he died by sword violence. Even that reading seems like a stretch to me, though.

We also need to take the context into account. Clytemnestra is saying that the way in which he died is not itself shameful, a warrior would be glad to die by the sword. But in this case it is shameful, because this was not death in a fight, but justice, an execution, an eye for an eye, "worthy prize for worthy deed". It's a punishment, and a punishment for bad behavior is nothing to brag about in Hades. In this case, death by the sword--normally good--is paying the price for killing someone else, it's a trail of death that begins with him, he is the cause. If we say she's saying, "anyone who lives by the sword dies by the sword", it becomes sort of impersonal, it's not an execution for killing her daughter, but that maybe in fact she regrets having killed him after all but is now trying to justify it by observing that such a sword-death is inevitable anyway... but then why say he shouldn't boast in Hades? It doesn't make a lot of sense. Even Fagles' translation isn't trying to make that connection. To make it work, he just kinda shifts the subject, makes them two different thoughts. The first thought is, don't boast in Hades. And the second unrelated thought is, you lived by the sword, fine, then let's see how you like dying by the sword. It's still not great in my opinion because it shifts all the focus from the pain she has for her dead daughter and instead makes it a general punishment fit for anyone who lives a violent life... but there you are.

If someone else with a bit more expertise than I can jump in here, I think we're close to settling this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tongbait (talk • contribs) 17:37, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Popular culture references
I personally found this phrase from Rise Against's "Kotov Syndrome", which I believe to be popular enough to count for popular culture, however I do realize that there are probably very few (if at all) articles speaking on this' significance or anything of the sort. The lyric goes as "Something I can't change I was born in a place That lives by the sword" which, could be interpreted very strongly to be originating from this phrase, as it is using the idea of the sword as violence, although I may be completely wrong about this. Lukethecat2003 (talk) 00:22, 6 January 2021 (UTC)