Homer (flourished c. 700 BCE)
“I would rather work the soil as a serf
on hire to some landless impoverished peasant
than be king of all these lifeless dead.”
- The Odyssey (Book 11, approximately between lines 480-500) by Homer, translated by E. V. Rieu and edited by D. C. H. Rieu. New York: Penguin Classics, 2009.
