Ecclesiastes 11:7

Truly the light is sweet Better, And the light is sweet. The conjunction is simply the usual copulative particle. The word for "sweet" is that used of honey in Judges 14:14; of the honeycomb in Proverbs 24:13. The pessimism of the thinker is passing away under the sunshine of the wiser plan of life in which he al last finds guidance. Life may after all, rightly ordered, be pleasant and comely, not without the "sweetness and light" on which the modern preachers of wisdom lay stress. A remarkable parallel to the form of the maxim (quoted by Ginsburg) is found in Euripides:

Μή μʼ ἀπολέσης ἄωρον• ἡδὺ γὰρ τὸ φῶς

λεύσσειν, τὰ δʼ ὑπὸ γῆν μὴ μʼ ἰδεῖν ἀναγκάσῃς.

"Destroy me not before my youth is ripe:

For pleasant sure it is to see the sun;

Compel me not to see what lies below."

Iphig. in Aul.1219.

So Theognis contemplating death:

κείσομαι ὥστε λίθος

ἄφθογγος, λείψω δʼ ἐρατὸν φάος ἠελίοιο.

"Then shall I lie, as voiceless as a stone,

And see no more the loved light of the sun."

The use of the phrase "seeing the sun" for living, may be noted as essentially Hellenic in its tone. So we have again "seeing the light of the sun" for "living" in Eurip. Hippol. 4.