Whom the gods would destroy

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 falsely attributed to Euripides, the phrase has 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 and it later appears in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "The Masque of Pandora".

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" to mean that "evil appears as good in the minds of those whom god leads to destruction".

A form closer to the modern version is found in Procopius, Vandal Wars, I.19.25, "ὅς [θεός], ἡνίκα τι ἀνθρώπῳ συμβῆναι βουλεύηται φλαῦρον, τῷ λογισμὸν ἁψάμενος πρῶτον": "who [God], whenever He purposes that some adversity shall befall a man, touches first his reason".

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);[1] 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'.

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 Reverend William Anderson Scott (1813–85).[2]

Brigham Young quoted the phrase in a discourse delivered on March 16, 1856, attributing it as an "ancient proverb".[3]

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.[4] Another version

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.[5]

References
  1. Sophocles (1900), Jebb (ed.), The Plays and Fragments, 3–4, Cambridge: University Press, p. 256, The use of dementat as = dementem facit proves of course a post-classical origin.
  2. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=BoJCAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA248#v
  3. Young, Brigham. "Journal of Discourses". Mormonism Research Ministry. Retrieved 17 May 2019.
  4. Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth (1893), The Complete Poetical Works, Houghton, Mifflin & Co, p. 303.
  5. Is "those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad" a classical quotation?, Roger Pearse, 2015-10-31.
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