Careful Words

undone (adj.)

  Pyrrhus, when his friends congratulated to him his victory over the Romans under Fabricius, but with great slaughter of his own side, said to them, "Yes; but if we have such another victory, we are undone."

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Apothegms. No. 193.

Curse all his virtues! they 've undone his country.

Joseph Addison (1672-1719): Cato. Act iv. Sc. 4.

  Once when Bion was at sea in the company of some wicked men, he fell into the hands of pirates; and when the rest said, "We are undone if we are known,"—"But I," said he, "am undone if we are not known."

Diogenes Laertius (Circa 200 a d): Bion. iii.

  When he was in great prosperity, and courted by many, seeing himself splendidly served at his table, he turned to his children and said: "Children, we had been undone, if we had not been undone."

Plutarch (46(?)-120(?) a d): Life of Themistocles.

  Pyrrhus said, "If I should overcome the Romans in another fight, I were undone."

Plutarch (46(?)-120(?) a d): Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders. Pyrrhus.

What more felicitie can fall to creature

Than to enjoy delight with libertie,

And to be lord of all the workes of Nature,

To raine in th' aire from earth to highest skie,

To feed on flowres and weeds of glorious feature.

Edmund Spenser (1553-1599): Muiopotmos: or, The Fate of the Butterflie. Line 209.

Some undone widow sits upon mine arm,

And takes away the use of it; and my sword,

Glued to my scabbard with wronged orphans' tears,

Will not be drawn.

Philip Massinger (1584-1640): A New Way to pay Old Debts. Act v. Sc. 1.

From thousands of our undone widows

One may derive some wit.

Thomas Middleton (1580-1627): A Trick to catch the Old One. Act i. Sc. 2.

  A wrong-doer is often a man that has left something undone, not always he that has done something.

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 a d): Meditations. ix. 5.