# A victory at too great a cost is called? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 2, 2009, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-victory-at-too-great-a-cost-is-called/519762 "2009-12-02T21:33:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2009, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-victory-at-too-great-a-cost-is-called/519762/41 "2009-12-05T01:02:19Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > Can I help it that my Advent calendar had a candy corn instead of a chocolate today? 😛 Well, they can’t all be winners can they, kid? just be grateful it wasn’t an aspirin ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2009, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-victory-at-too-great-a-cost-is-called/519762/42 "2009-12-05T02:28:13Z")
Pyhrrus, a disappointed pier… Source: Opening of chapter 2, Nestor, from Joyce, _Ulysses_: \*-- You, Cochrane, what city sent for him? – Tarentum, sir. – Very good. Well? – There was a battle, sir. – Very good. Where? The boy’s blank face asked the blank window. Fabled by the daughters of memory. And yet it was in some way if not as memory fabled it. A phrase, then, of impatience, thud of Blake’s wings of excess. I hear the ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry, and time one livid final flame. What’s left us then? – I forget the place, sir. 279 B. C. – Asculum, Stephen said, glancing at the name and date in the gorescarred book. – Yes, sir. And he said: Another victory like that and we are done for. That phrase the world had remembered. A dull ease of the mind. From a hill above a corpsestrewn plain a general speaking to his officers, leaned upon his spear. Any general to any officers. They lend ear. – You, Armstrong, Stephen said. What was the end of Pyrrhus? – End of Pyrrhus, sir? – I know, sir. Ask me, sir, Comyn said. – Wait. You, Armstrong. Do you know anything about Pyrrhus? A bag of figrolls lay snugly in Armstrong’s satchel. He curled them between his palms at whiles and swallowed them softly. Crumbs adhered to the tissue of his lips. A sweetened boy’s breath. Welloff people, proud that their eldest son was in the navy. Vico road, Dalkey. – Pyrrhus, sir? Pyrrhus, a pier. ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2009, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-victory-at-too-great-a-cost-is-called/519762/43 "2009-12-05T08:59:56Z")
> [@gigi](#): > > A balm? Who told you to use a balm? Maverick, there’s a balm in the base? ---
**Author:** ![Bartman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@Bartman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bartman)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2009, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-victory-at-too-great-a-cost-is-called/519762/44 "2009-12-05T17:58:20Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > YOk, I tried, but I just don’t get it. In the context of the OP I take it this quote refers to a battle that cost more in lives than it was worth, which would make it a tiny victory in my mind. So the hands would be too BIG to hold it. > > Or does it refer to a battle, the gains from which will be impossible to realize because the current victors are about to get their collective asses whupped in a retributive strike? OK, here is the 9¢ explanation. The senior chieftain of the dwarves having gone a bit loopy went on walkabout. While out and about he went to his family’s ancestral home. Unfortunately said home was occupied by a whole lotta orcs. He was killed and his body mutilated. The orcs allowed his companion to go free to spread the tale. The rest of the dwarves gathered together and waged a war of vengeance on the orcs. At the end of the war the dead chieftain’s heir suggested the take up occupation of their ancestral city. This is the point the quote comes in. Basically they were too weakened by the war to actually gain and hold the spoils of their victory. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2009, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-victory-at-too-great-a-cost-is-called/519762/45 "2009-12-05T18:32:14Z")
> [@ShibbOleth](#): > > Maverick, there’s a balm in the base? Please do not post false balm threats. Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2009, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-victory-at-too-great-a-cost-is-called/519762/46 "2009-12-05T18:34:16Z")
Fixed title. And the word you are looking for is “Pyrrhic”. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2009, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-victory-at-too-great-a-cost-is-called/519762/47 "2009-12-05T19:09:21Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Please do not post false balm threats. > Thank you. Someone set us up the-- OW! My eye! OK, OK, I’m backing out of the thread… please put down the pointèd sticks. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2009, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-victory-at-too-great-a-cost-is-called/519762/48 "2009-12-05T21:59:03Z")
> [@bikebloke](#): > > Cerberus Paribus (unless I fucked up the spelling) You [did](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceteris_paribus). 😛 > [@jayjay](#): > > I thought that was “All other things being three-headed dogs”. No, “three-headed dogs being equal”. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2009, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-victory-at-too-great-a-cost-is-called/519762/49 "2009-12-05T22:48:57Z")
Pyrrhic! Am I first? ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2009, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-victory-at-too-great-a-cost-is-called/519762/50 "2009-12-05T23:14:36Z")
Why don’t you tell us something else about Jack London, clematis boy? (You know the smiley face is assumed, right?) ---
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2009, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-victory-at-too-great-a-cost-is-called/519762/51 "2009-12-06T03:21:16Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > Someone set us up the-- OW! My eye! > > OK, OK, I’m backing out of the thread… please put down the pointèd sticks. There’s no point in closing the balm door after the cow’s already loose. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2009, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-victory-at-too-great-a-cost-is-called/519762/52 "2009-12-06T07:42:45Z")
> [@robardin](#): > > There’s no point in closing the balm door after the cow’s already loose. I am above posting a joke involving loose cows and bag balm. ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2009, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-victory-at-too-great-a-cost-is-called/519762/53 "2009-12-06T10:40:03Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > I am above posting a joke involving loose cows and bag balm. That’s abominable. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2009, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-victory-at-too-great-a-cost-is-called/519762/54 "2009-12-06T20:30:51Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > No, “three-headed dogs being equal”. Three-headed dogs are inherently unequal. They’re always bickering, and then two of the heads gang up on the other head. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2009, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-victory-at-too-great-a-cost-is-called/519762/55 "2009-12-07T14:28:01Z")
And they always win because two heads are better than one. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-victory-at-too-great-a-cost-is-called/519762/56 "2009-12-10T17:33:10Z")
This thread is Da Balm. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-victory-at-too-great-a-cost-is-called/519762/57 "2009-12-10T19:21:52Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Whereas you are ALWAYS high-maintenance. > > _This is from the Appendices to Lord of the Rings, for those who aren’t me, **knorf** , jayjay, QtC, What Exit?, Elendil’s Heir, well, he’s back, or Malacandra; it is uttered by one of the Dwarves after a ruinous battle with the Orcs in Moria._ The battle was just outside the doors of Khazad-dûm, if I recall correctly. (But I did have to look up how to spell Khazad-dum. And for gods’ sake, please don’t include me in some kind competitive list of Tolkien geeks. My pleasure is only in pointing out the errors of others (well, **Skald** mostly) not in bragging about my lack of a life). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-victory-at-too-great-a-cost-is-called/519762.md?page=2)