“There is no greater sorrow…”

In the tragedy Medea (431 BC), Euripides describes the protagonist’s feeling about her exile.

Version #1

For nothing is like the sorrow or supersedes the sadness of losing your native land. Translation by Paul Roche in Three Plays of Euripides: Alcestis, Medea, The Bacchae. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1974

Version #2

Of troubles none is greater than to be robbed of one’s native land. Translation by David Kovacs in Cyclops. Alcestis. Medea. (Loeb Classical Library No. 12). Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994

Version #2

There is no greater sorrow on earth than the loss of one’s native land.UNHCR in its motto

Unsourced versions

What greater grief than the loss of one’s native land.

There is no sorrow above the loss of a native land.