Missing Quote

[kennahijja]

Dear Flist,

I do have the brain equivalent of a broken sieve, no doubt about it, but this is driving me *crazy*!

I'm pretty sure there's a poem, or prose quotation, along the lines of "that old ??? of men, love..." (??? being something along the lines of 'deceiver'), and I can't find the original source (or even the correct text)... Google was not my friend, and of course I won't bet my life that it actually exists outside my head...

Does it ring any bells at all?

ETA: Got it - Sappho, and all I really got right was some words and the rhythm :). Thanks for encouraging me to substitute words, though - that did the trick.

Comments

[elfflame]

well...the parsing makes it sound like it could be Shakespeare... But I don't recognize it specifically.

[kennahijja.livejournal.com]

No, but it's poetry indeed. Seriously, you couldn't have recognised it from what I put down - found it, but my hints were painfully far off :).

[stuckinsea.livejournal.com]

It kind of sounds like something I heard in the bible, First Corinthians 13:1-13. Maybe there?

He knows God cannot forsake, and the deceiver of love but deceives himself.

Could this be it?

[stuckinsea.livejournal.com]

Oh...how about here, you can find tons of quotes, maybe you'll have some luck.

[kennahijja.livejournal.com]

Not quite (Sappho), but I found it (having a sudden brain wave with the second part of the quote - I was painfully far off in terms of wording. Thanks for the link, though!

[fpb.livejournal.com]

You sure it's not "that ole devil called Love"?

[kennahijja.livejournal.com]

Nope, but it's in your area - Sappho (granted, I was *way* off with everything but one word and the rhythm of it, *g*).