previous next
When the keybone of his shoulder had been broken in battle, 1 and the attending physician insistently demanded a fee every day, he said, ‘Take as much as you wish; for you have the key in your charge !’ 2

1 Cf. Demosthenes, Oration xviii. (De Corona), 67 (p. 247), and Aulus Gellius, ii. 27.

2 The pun depends on the fact that κλείς means both ‘key’ and ‘collar-bone.’

Plutarch. Moralia. with an English Translation by. Frank Cole Babbitt. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1931. 3.

The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.

This text was converted to electronic form by optical character recognition and has been proofread to a high level of accuracy.

Purchase a copy of this text (not necessarily the same edition) from Amazon.com

load focus Greek (Frank Cole Babbitt, 1931)
load focus Greek (Gregorius N. Bernardakis, 1889)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: