Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad

The saying Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad, sometimes given in Latin as Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat (literally: Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first deprives of reason) or Quem Iuppiter vult perdere, dementat prius (literally: Those whom Jupiter wishes to destroy, he first deprives of reason) has been used in English literature since at least the 17th century. Although sometimes falsely attributed to Euripides, the phrase does have classical Greek antecedents.

For other uses, see Whom the gods would destroy (disambiguation).

The phrase "Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad" first appears in exactly this form in the Reverend William Anderson Scott's book Daniel, a Model for Young Men (1854) and it later appears in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "The Masque of Pandora" (1875).

Classical origins

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; translated "Evil appears as good in the minds of those whom god leads to destruction."

Plato's Republic (380a) quotes a fragment attributed to Aeschylus (but otherwise unattested): θεὸς μὲν αἰτίαν φύει βροτοῖς, / ὅταν κακῶσαι δῶμα παμπήδην θέλῃ;[1] translated "A god implants the guilty cause in men / When he would utterly destroy a house."[2]

17th- and 18th-century use

In the 17th century the phrase was used in the neo-Latin form Quem Iuppiter vult perdere, dementat prius (Whom Jupiter would ruin, he first makes mad);[3] in a Christianized Greek version, iuppiter was replaced by "lord" as in μωραίνει Κύριος ον βούλεται απολέσαι. Benjamin Franklin quotes this phrase in his essay "On Civil War", delivered to the printer of the London Public Advertiser, August 25, 1768.

A prior Latin version is Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat (Life of Samuel Johnson, 1791) but this involves God, not "the gods".

Jean-Jacques Rousseau quotes this phrase in (The Confessions in the form of Quos vult perdere Jupiter dementet (Whom Jupiter destroys, he first make mad), authored in 1769 but published in 1782.

Modern usage

"Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad" is quoted as a "heathen proverb" in Daniel, a Model for Young Men (1854) by the Reverend William Anderson Scott (1813–85).[4]

The phrase is used towards the end of Act 5 of Nikolai Gogol's play The Government Inspector, by the Mayor when he and other characters realise how they have been deceived by Khlestakov.[5]

Brigham Young quoted the phrase in a discourse delivered on March 16, 1856, attributing it as an "ancient proverb".[6]

Leo Tolstoy uses the latin sentence “Quos vult perdere dementat” in reference to Napoleon, closing the second chapter of the third book of his 1869 novel War and Peace.

In Fyodor Dostoyevsky's 1868 novel The Idiot, in a garbled account of the loss of 400 roubles in part 3 chapter 9, Lukyan Timofeich Lebedev tells Prince Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin "Truly, when God wishes to punish a man, he first deprives him of reason."[7]

In American literature, the character of Prometheus speaks the phrase: Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad in the poem "The Masque of Pandora" (1875), by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.[8]

W. Somerset Maugham uses the phrase in his short story "Mackintosh" (1921), leaving the Latin as an untranslated warning from the protagonist: Quem deus vult perdere prius dementat.

Sri Lankan Sinhala Catholic priest Father Simon Gregory Perera, S. J. utilizes the phrase untranslated in reference to the belief of Portuguese colonialists that the loss of Sri Lanka to the Dutch was divine punishment.[9]

This phrase was also used by British politician (and classicist) Enoch Powell in his 1968 speech on immigration commonly known as the "Rivers of Blood" speech.[10]

Ian Fleming's James Bond appropriates the phrase to express a related meaning: "Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make bored" in Chapter 11 of From Russia With Love.

First airing in early 1969, the original series Star Trek episode Whom Gods Destroy depicted the psychotic descent of a formerly brilliant Star Fleet commander.

The 1988 Marvel Graphic Novel, The Mighty Thor: I, Whom the Gods Would Destroy, starring Thor, is named after this quote.[11]

The character named Xzar in the 1998 game Baldurs Gate uses this as one of his responses when you click him many times.

References
  1. Plato (1903). John Burnet (ed.). Platonis Opera. Oxford University Press. p. 380a.
  2. Plato in Twelve Volumes. Translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1969. p. 380a.
  3. Sophocles (1900), Jebb (ed.), The Plays and Fragments, vol. 3–4, Cambridge: University Press, p. 256, The use of dementat as = dementem facit proves of course a post-classical origin.
  4. Scott, William Anderson (1854). "Daniel, a Model for Young Men: A Series of Lectures".
  5. "The Insector-General, A Comedy in Five Acts, by Nicolay Gogol, translated by Thomas Seltzer".
  6. Young, Brigham. "Journal of Discourses". Mormonism Research Ministry. Retrieved 17 May 2019.
  7. Dostoyevsky, Fyodor (2004). The idiot. David McDuff, William Mills Todd. London. ISBN 0-14-044792-X. OCLC 56129600.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  8. Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth (1893), The Complete Poetical Works, Houghton, Mifflin & Co, p. 303.
  9. Perera, Simon Gregory (1941), The Jesuits In Ceylon (In the XVI and XVII Centuries), De Nobili Press, p. 139.
  10. Is "those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad" a classical quotation?, Roger Pearse, 2015-10-31.
  11. "The Mighty Thor: I, Whom the Gods Would Destroy by Marvel Comics Group: Very Good Soft cover (1987) First Edition | Westside Stories".
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