Jar of Athens, drip the dewy juice of wine, drip, let the feast to which all bring their share be wetted as with dew; be silenced the swan, sage Zeno, and the Muse of Cleanthes, and let bitter-sweet Love be our concern.
Sweet is snow in summer for the thirsty to drink, and sweet for sailors after winter to see the garland of spring; but most sweet when one cloak shelters two lovers, and the tale of love is told by both.
Nothing is sweeter than love, and all delicious things are second to it; yes, even honey I spit out of my mouth. Thus saith Nossis; but he whom the Cyprian loves not, knows not what roses her flowers are.
Once when turning over the Book of Hesiod in my hands, suddenly I saw Pyrrha coming in; and casting the book to the ground from my hand, I cried out, Why bring your works to me, old Hesiod?
Kissing Agathon, I had my soul upon my lips; for it rose, poor wretch, as though to cross over.
At evening, at the hour when we say good-night, Moeris kissed me, I know not whether really or in a dream; for very clearly I now have the rest in mind, all she said to me, and all that she asked me of; but whether she kissed me too, I doubt and guess; for if it is true, how, after being set in heaven, do I go to and fro upon earth?
Let the die be thrown; light up! I will on my way; see, courage!— Heavy with wine, what is thy purpose?—I will revel.—I will revel? whither wanderest, O heart?—And what is Reason to Love? light up, quick!—And where is thy old study of philosophy?—Away with the long toil of wisdom; this one thing only I know, that Love took captive even the mind of Zeus.
I am armed against Love with a breastplate of Reason, neither shall he conquer me, one against one; yes, I a mortal will contend with him the immortal: but if he have Bacchus to second him, what can I do alone against the two?
Snow, hail, darken, blaze, thunder, shake forth all thy glooming clouds upon the earth; for if thou slay me, then will I cease, but while thou lettest me live, though thou handle me worse than this, I will revel. For the god draws me who is thy master too, at whose persuasion, Zeus, thou didst once pierce in gold to that brazen bridal-chamber.
I am no wine-bibber; but if thou wilt make me drunk, taste thou first and bring it me, and I take it. For if thou wilt touch it with thy lips, no longer is it easy to keep sober or to escape the sweet cup- bearer; for the cup ferries me over a kiss from thee, and tells me of the grace that it had.
Evermore in my ears eddies the sound of Love, and my eye silently carries sweet tears for the Desires; nor does night nor light let me rest, but already my enchanted heart bears the well-known imprint. Ah winged Loves, surely you know how to fly towards me, but have no whit of strength to fly away.
The cup is glad for sweetness, and says that it touches the sweet- voiced mouth of love's darling, Zenophile. Happy! would that now, bringing up her lips to my lips, she would drink at one draught the very soul in me.
I make hue and cry after wild Love; for now, even now in the morning dusk, he flew away from his bed and was gone. This boy is full of sweet tears, ever talking, swift, fearless, sly-laughing, winged on the back, and carries a quiver. But whose son he is I may not say, for Heaven denies having borne this ruffler, and so Earth and so Sea. Everywhere and by all he is hated; but look you to it lest haply even now he is laying more springes for souls. Yet—there he is, see! about his lurking-place; I see thee well, my archer, ambushed in Zenophile's eyes.
Our friend was wounded, and we knew it not; how bitter a sigh, mark you? he drew all up his breast. Lo, he was drinking the third time, and shedding their petals from the fellow's garlands the roses all poured to the ground. He is well in the fire, surely; no, by the gods, I guess not at random; a thief myself, I know a thief's footprints.
A man wounded by a rabid dog's venom sees, they say, the beast's image in all water. Surely mad Love has fixed his bitter tooth in me, and made my soul the prey of his frenzies; for both the sea and the eddies of rivers and the wine-carrying cup show me thy image, beloved.
We, as we trod the infinite fruit of Iacchus, mingled and wound in the rhythm of the revel, and now the fathomless flood flowed down, and like boats our cups of ivy-wood swam on the sweet surges; dipping wherewith, we drank just as it lay at our hand, nor missed the warm water-nymphs overmuch. But beautiful Rhodanthe leant over the winepress, and with the splendours of her beauty lit up the welling stream; and swiftly all our hearts were fluttered, nor was there one of us but was overcome by Bacchus and the Paphian. Alas for us! he ran plenteous at our feet, but for her, hope played with us, and no more.
I will twine the white violet and I will twine the delicate narcissus with myrtle buds, and I will twine laughing lilies, and I will twine the sweet crocus, and I will twine therewithal the crimson hyacinth, and I will twine lovers' roses, that on balsam-curled Heliodora's temples my garland may shed its petals over the lovelocks of her hair.
She is carried off! What savage could do so cruel a deed? Who so high as to raise battle against very Love? Light torches, quick! and yet—a footfall; Heliodora's; go back into my breast, O my heart.
Now the white violet blooms, and blooms the moist narcissus, and bloom the mountain-wandering lilies; and now, dear to her lovers, spring flower among the flowers, Zenophile, the sweet rose of Persuasion, has burst into bloom. Meadows, why idly laugh in the brightness of your tresses? for my girl is better than garlands sweet to smell.
Shrill-crying gnats, shameless suckers of the blood of men, two-winged monsters of the night, for a little, I beseech you, leave Zenophile to sleep a quiet sleep, and see, make your feast of flesh from my limbs. Yet to what end do I talk in vain? even relentless wild beasts take delight in nestling on her delicate skin. But once more now I proclaim it, O evil brood, cease your boldness or you shall know the force of jealous hands.
Farewell, Morning Star, herald of dawn, and quickly come again as theEvening Star, bringing secretly her whom thou takest away.
"Fare thou well," I would say to thee; and again I check my voice and rein it backward, and again I stay beside thee; for I shrink from the terrible separation from thee as from the bitter night of Acheron; for the light of thee is like the day. Yet that, I think, is voiceless, but thou bringest me also that murmuring talk of thine, sweeter than the Sirens', whereon all my soul's hopes are hung.
Morning Star, do not Love violence, neither learn, neighbour as thou art to Mars, to have a heart that pities not; but as once before, seeing Phaethon in Clymene's chamber, thou heldest not on thy fleet- foot course from the east, even so on the skirts of night, the night that so hardly has lightened on my desire, come lingering as though among the Cimmerians.
Grey dawn is over, Chrysilla, and ere now the morning cock clarisoning leads on the envious Lady of Morn. Be thou accursed, most envious of birds, who drivest me from my home to the endless chattering of the young men. Thou growest old, Tithonus; else why dost thou chase Dawn thy bedfellow out of her couch while yet morning is so young?
Grey dawn, why, O unloving, risest thou so swift round my bed, where but now I nestled close to dear Demo? Would God thou wouldst turn thy fleet course backward and be evening, thou shedder of the sweet light that is so bitter to me. For once before, for Zeus and his Alcmena, thou wentest contrary; thou art not unlessoned in running backward.
Grey dawn, why, O unloving, rollest thou now so slow round the world, since another is shrouded and warm by Demo? but when I held her delicate form to my breast, swift thou wert upon us, shedding on me a light that seemed to rejoice in my grief.
Cleophantis lingers long; and the third lamp now begins to give a broken glimmer as it silently wastes away. And would that the firebrand in my heart too were quenched with the lamp, and did not burn me long in wakeful desires. Ah how often she swore by the Cytherean that she would be here at evenfall; but she recks not of either men or gods.
Nico the renowned consented to come to me at nightfall and swore by the holy Lady of Laws; and she is not come, and the watch is gone by; did she mean to forswear herself? Servants, put out the lamp.
O Night, thee and none other I take to witness, how Nico's Pythias flouts me, traitress as she is; asked, not unasked am I come; may she yet blame thee in the selfsame plight standing by my doors!
All night long I sob; and when grey dawn rises and grants me a little grace of rest, the swallows cry around and about me, and bring me back to tears, thrusting sweet slumber away: and my unclosing eyes keep vigil, and the thought of Rhodanthe returns again in my bosom. O envious chatterers, be still; it was not I who shore away Philomela's tongue; but weep for Itylus on the mountains, and sit wailing by the hoopoe's court, that we may sleep a little; and perchance a dream will come and clasp me round with Rhodanthe's arms.
Rufinus to Elpis, my most sweet: well and very well be with her, if she can be well away from me. No longer can I bear, no, by thine eyes, my solitary and unmated severance from thee, but evermore blotted with tears I go to Coressus or to the temple of the great Artemis; but tomorrow my home shall receive me, and I will fly to thy face and bid thee a thousand greetings.
My soul forewarns me to flee the desire of Heliodora, knowing well the tears and jealousies of old. She talks; but I have no strength to flee, for, shameless that she is, she forewarns, and while she forewarns, she loves.
Take this message, Dorcas; lo again a second and a third time, Dorcas, take her all my message; run; delay no longer; fly. Wait a little, Dorcas, prithee a little; Dorcas, whither so fast before learning all I would say? And add to what I have just said—but no, I go on like a fool; say nothing at all—only that—say everything; spare not to say everything. Yet why do I send thee out, Dorcas, when myself, see, I go forth with thee?
Eyes, how long are you draining the nectar of the Loves, rash drinkers of the strong unmixed wine of beauty? let us run far away, as far as we have strength to go, and in calm I will pour sober offerings to Cypris the Placable. But if haply there likewise I be caught by the sting, be you wet with chill tears and doomed for ever to bear deserved pain; since from you, alas! it was that we fell into all this labour of fire.
Dost thou then also, Philinna, carry longing in thee, dost thou thyself also sicken and waste away with tearless eyes? or is thy sleep most sweet to thee, while of our care thou makest neither count nor reckoning? Thou wilt find thy fate likewise, and thy haughty cheek I shall see wetted with fast-falling tears. For the Cyprian in all else is malign, but one virtue is in her lot, hatred of proud beauties.
At evening Galatea slammed-to the doors in my face, flinging at me a speech of scorn. "Scorn breaks love"; idly wanders this proverb; her scorn inflames my love-madness the more. For I swore I would stay a year away from her; out and alas! but with break of day I went to make supplication.
Constantia, nay verily! I heard the name and thought it beautiful, but thou art to me more bitter than death. And thou fliest him who loves thee, and him who loves thee not thou pursuest, that he may love thee and thou mayest fly him once again.
So mayest thou slumber, Conopion, as thou makest me sleep here in the chill doorway; so mayest thou slumber, most cruel, as thou lullest thy lover asleep; but not even in a dream hast thou known compassion. The neighbours pity me, but thou not even in a dream; but the silver hair will remind thee of all this by and by.
Golden-horned Moon, thou seest this, and you fiery-shining Stars whom Ocean takes into his breast, how perfume-breathing Ariste has gone and left me alone, and this is the sixth day I cannot find the witch. But we will seek her notwithstanding; surely I will send the silver sleuth-hounds of the Cyprian on her track.
Lady of Night, twy-horned, lover of nightlong revels, shine, O Moon, shine, darting through the latticed windows; shed thy splendour on golden Callistion; thine immortality may look down unchidden on the deeds of lovers; thou dost bless both her and me, I know, O Moon; for thy soul too was fired by Endymion.
On the stars thou gazest, my Star; would I were heaven, that I might look on thee with many eyes.
Would I were a pink rose, that fastening me with thine hands thou mightest grant me grace of thy snowy breast.
Would I were a white lily, that fastening me with thine hands thou mightest satisfy me with the nearness of thy body.
Thou sleepest, Zenophile, dainty girl; would that I had come to thee now, a wingless sleep, upon thine eyelids, that not even he, even he who charms the eyes of Zeus, might come nigh thee, but myself had held thee, I thee alone.
I have a wound of love, and from my wound flows ichor of tears, and the gash is never staunched; for I am at my wits' end for misery, and no Machaon sprinkles soothing drugs on me in my need. I am Telephus, O maiden, but be thou my true Achilles; with thy beauty allay the longing as thou didst kindle it.
Still in his mother's lap, a child playing with dice in the morning,Love played my life away.
Bitter wave of Love, and restless gusty Jealousies and wintry sea of revellings, whither am I borne? and the rudders of my spirit are quite cast loose; shall we sight delicate Scylla once again?
Soul that weepest sore, how is Love's wound that was allayed in thee inflaming through thy heart again! nay, nay, for God's sake, nay for God's sake, O infatuate, stir not the fire that flickers low among the ashes. For soon, O oblivious of thy pains, so sure as Love catches thee in flight, again he will torture his found runaway.
Love who feeds on me is a ball-player, and throws to thee, Heliodora, the heart that throbs in me. Come then, take thou Love-longing for his playmate; but if thou cast me away from thee, I will not bear such wanton false play.
Nay by Demo's tresses, nay by Heliodora's sandal, nay by Timarion's scent-dripping doorway, nay by great-eyed Anticleia's dainty smile, nay by Dorothea's fresh-blossomed garlands, no longer, Love, does thy quiver hide its bitter winged arrows, for thy shafts are all fixed in me.
Arm thyself, Cypris, with thy bow, and go at thy leisure to some other mark; for I have not even room left for a wound.
If thou scorch so often the soul that flutters round thee, O Love, she will flee away from thee; she too, O cruel, has wings.
Let him be sold, even while he is yet asleep on his mother's bosom, let him be sold; why should I have the rearing of this impudent thing? For it is snub-nosed and winged, and scratches with its nail-tips, and weeping laughs often between; and furthermore it is unabashed, ever- talking, sharp-glancing, wild and not gentle even to its very own mother, every way a monster; so it shall be sold; if any outward-bound merchant will buy a boy, let him come hither. And yet he beseeches, see, all in tears. I sell thee no more; be comforted; stay here and live with Zenophile.
Pour ten cups for Lysidice, and for beloved Euphrante, slave, give me one cup. Thou wilt say I love Lysidice more? No, by sweet Bacchus, whom I drink deep in this bowl; Euphrante for me, one against ten; for the one splendour of the moon also outshines the innumerable stars.
Pour for Heliodora as Persuasion, and as the Cyprian, and once more for her again as the sweet-speeched Grace; for she is enrolled as my one goddess, whose beloved name I will mix and drink in unmixed wine.
Pour, and again say, again, again, "Heliodora"; say it and mingle the sweet name with the unmixed wine; and wreath me with that garland of yesterday drenched with ointments, for remembrance of her. Lo, the lovers' rose sheds tears to see her away, and not on my bosom.
Who of my friends has imaged me sweet-voiced Zenophile? who has brought me one Grace of the three? Surely the man did a gracious deed who gave this gift, and in his grace gave Grace herself to me.
Fond Asclepias with her sparkling eyes as of Calm woos all to make the voyage of love.
Athenion sang of that fatal horse to me; all Troy was in fire, and I kindled along with it, not fearing the ten years' toil of Greece; and in that single blaze Trojans and I perished together then.
Sweet is the tune, by Pan of Arcady, that thou playest on the harp, Zenophile, oversweet are the notes of the tune. Whither shall I fly from thee? on all hands the Loves encompass me, and let me not take breath for ever so little space; for either thy form shoots longing into me, or again thy music or thy graciousness, or—what shall I say? all of thee; I kindle in the fire.
Flower-fed bee, why touchest thou my Heliodora's skin, leaving outright the flower-bells of spring? Meanest thou that even the unendurable sting of Love, ever bitter to the heart, has a sweetness too? Yes, I think, this thou sayest; ah, fond one, go back again; we knew thy news long ago.
Fly for me, O gnat, a swift messenger, and touch Zenophile, and whisper lightly into her ears: "one awaits thee waking; and thou sleepest, O oblivious of thy lovers." Up, fly, yes fly, O musical one; but speak quietly, lest arousing her bedfellow too thou stir pangs of jealousy against me; and if thou bring my girl, I will adorn thee with a lion-skin, O gnat, and give thee a club to carry in thine hand.
I beseech thee, Love, charm asleep the wakeful longing in me for Heliodora, pitying my suppliant verse; for, by thy bow that never has learned to strike another, but always upon me pours its winged shafts, even though thou slay me I will leave letters uttering this voice, "Look, stranger, on Love's murdered man."
Why so woe-begone? and why, Philaenis, these reckless tearings of hair, and suffusion of sorrowful eyes? hast thou seen thy lover with another on his bosom? tell me; we know charms for grief. Thou weepest and sayest no: vainly dost thou essay to deny; the eyes are more trustworthy than the tongue.
Grasshopper, beguilement of my longings, luller asleep, grasshopper, muse of the cornfield, shrill-winged, natural mimic of the lyre, harp to me some tune of longing, striking thy vocal wings with thy dear feet, that so thou mayest rescue me from the all-wakeful trouble of my pains, grasshopper, as thou makest thy love-luring voice tremble on the string; and I will give thee gifts at dawn, ever-fresh groundsel and dewy drops sprayed from the mouths of the watering-can.
Voiceful cricket, drunken with drops of dew thou playest thy rustic music that murmurs in the solitude, and perched on the leaf-edges shrillest thy lyre-tune with serrated legs and swart skin. But my dear, utter a new song for the tree-nymphs' delight, and make thy harp-notes echo to Pan's, that escaping Love I may seek out sleep at noon here lying under the shady plane.
I am not two and twenty yet, and I am weary of living; O Loves, why misuse me so? why set me on fire; for when I am gone, what will you do? Doubtless, O Loves, as before you will play with your dice, unheeding.
Holy night, and thou, O lamp, you and none other we took to witness of our vows; and we swore, he that he would love me, and I that I would never leave him, and you kept witness between us. And now he says that these vows are written in running water, O lamp, and thou seest him on the bosom of another.
O night, O wakeful longing in me for Heliodora, and eyes that sting with tears in the creeping grey of dawn, do some remnants of affection yet remain mine, and is her memorial kiss warm upon my cold picture? has she tears for bedfellows, and does she clasp to her bosom and kiss a deluding dream of me? or has she some other new love, a new plaything? Never, O lamp, look thou on that, but be guardian of her whom I gave to thy keeping.
Stay there, my garlands, hanging by these doors, nor hastily scattering your petals, you whom I have wetted with tears (for lovers' eyes are rainy); but when you see him as the door opens, drip my rain over his head, that so at least that golden hair may drink my tears.
When I am gone, Cleobulus—for what avails? cast among the fire of young loves, I lie a brand in the ashes—I pray thee make the burial- urn drunk with wine ere thou lay it under earth, and write thereon, "Love's gift to Death."
Terrible is Love, terrible; and what avails it if again I say and again, with many a moan, Terrible is Love? for surely the boy laughs at this, and is pleased with manifold reproaches; and if I say bitter things, they are meat and drink to him. And I wonder how thou, O Cyprian, who didst arise through the green waves, out of water hast borne a fire.
I am down: tread with thy foot on my neck, cruel divinity; I know thee, by the gods, heavy as thou art to bear: I know too thy fiery arrows: but hurling thy brands at my soul thou wilt no longer kindle it, for it is all ashes.
Did I not cry aloud to thee, O soul, "Yes, by the Cyprian, thou wilt be caught, poor lover, if thou flutterest so often near the lime- twigs"? did I not cry aloud? and the snare has taken thee. Why dost thou gasp vainly in the toils? Love himself has bound thy wings and set thee on the fire, and sprinkled thee to swooning with perfumes, and given thee in thy thirst hot tears to drink.
Ah suffering soul, now thou burnest in the fire, and now thou revivest, and fetchest breath again: why weepest thou? when thou didst feed pitiless Love in thy bosom, knewest thou not that he was being fed for thy woe? knewest thou not? Know now his repayment, a fair foster-hire! take it, fire and cold snow together. Thou wouldst have it so; bear the pain; thou sufferest the wages of thy work, scorched with his burning honey.
Within my heart Love himself has moulded Heliodora with her lovely voice, the soul of my soul.
Who may know if a loved one passes the prime, while ever with him and never left alone? who may not satisfy to-day who satisfied yesterday? and if he did satisfy, what should befall him not to satisfy to-morrow?
Though the terror of those who pray, and the thanks of those who have prayed, ever fill thine ears with myriad voice, O Zeus, who abidest in the holy plain of Scheria, yet hearken to us also, and bow down with a promise that lies not, that my exile now may have an end, and I may live in my native land at rest from labour of long journeys.
Holy Spirit of the great Shaker of Earth, be thou gracious to others also who ply across the Aegean brine; since even to me, chased by the Thracian hurricane, thou didst open out the calm haven of my desire.
Harbour-god, do thou, O blessed one, send with a gentle breeze the outward-bound sail of Archelaus down smooth water even to the sea; and thou who hast the point of the shore in ward, keep the convoy that is bound for the Pythian shrine; and thenceforward, if all we singers are in Phoebus' care, I will sail cheerily on with a fair-flowing west wind.
Thou who holdest sovereignty of swift-sailing ships, steed-loving god, and the great overhanging cliff of Euboea, give to thy worshippers a favourable voyage even to the City of Ares, who loosed moorings from Syria.
This ship to thee, O king of sea and sovereign of land, I Crantas dedicate, this ship wet no longer, a feather tossed by the wandering winds, whereon many a time I deemed in my terror that I drove to death; now renouncing all, fear and hope, sea and storms, I have planted my foot securely upon earth.
O Melicerta son of Ino, and thou, sea-green Leucothea, mistress of Ocean, deity that shieldest from harm, and choirs of the Nereïds, and waves, and thou Poseidon, and Thracian Zephyrus, gentlest of the winds, carry me propitiously, sped through the broad wave, safe to the sweet shore of the Peiraeus.
Old Amyntichus tied his plummeted fishing-net round his fish-spear, ceasing from his sea-toil, and spake towards Poseidon and the salt surge of the sea, letting a tear fall from his eyelids; Thou knowest, blessed one, I am weary; and in an evil old age clinging Poverty keeps her youth and wastes my limbs: give sustenance to a poor old man while he yet draws breath, but from the land as he desires, O ruler of both earth and sea.
This shattered fragment of a sea-wandering scolopendra, lying on the sandy shore, twice four fathom long, all befouled with froth, much torn under the sea-washed rock, Hermonax chanced upon when he was hauling a draught of fishes out of the sea as he plied his fisher's craft; and having found it, he hung it up to the boy Palaemon and Ino, giving the sea-marvel to the sea-deities.
A red mullet and a hake from the embers to thee, Artemis of the Haven, I Menis, the caster of nets, offer, and a brimming cup of wine mixed strong, and a broken crust of dry bread, a poor man's sacrifice; in recompence whereof give thou nets ever filled with prey; to thee, O blessed one, all meshes have been given.
Priapus of the seashore, the trawlers lay before thee these gifts by the grace of thine aid from the promontory, having imprisoned a tunny shoal in their nets of spun hemp in the green sea-entrances: a beechen cup and a rude stool of heath and a glass cup holding wine, that thou mayest rest thy foot weary and cramped with dancing while thou chasest away the dry thirst.
Phoebus who holdest the sheer steep of Leucas, far seen of mariners and washed by the Ionian sea, receive of sailors this mess of hand- kneaded barley bread and a libation mingled in a little cup, and the gleam of a brief-shining lamp that drinks with half-saturate mouth from a sparing oil-flask; in recompence whereof be gracious, and send on their sails a favourable wind to run with them to the harbours of Actium.
Thou of the Ways, to thee Antiphilus dedicates this hat from his own head, a voucher of his wayfaring; for thou wast gracious to his prayers, wast favouring to his paths; and his thank-offering is small indeed but sacred. Let not any greedy traveller's hand snatch our gift; sacrilege is not safe even in little things.
He who set me here, Euaenetus, says (for of myself I know not) that I am dedicated in recompence of his single-handed victory, I the cock of brass, to the Twin Brethren; I believe the son of Phaedrus the Philoxenid.
Eunomus the Locrian hangs up this brazen grasshopper to the Lycorean god, a memorial of the contest for the crown. The strife was of the Lyre, and Parthis stood up against me: but when the Locrian shell sounded under the plectrum, a lyre-string rang and snapped jarringly; but ere ever the tune halted in its fair harmonies, a delicate- trilling grasshopper seated itself on the lyre and took up the note of the lost string, and turned the rustic sound that till then was vocal in the groves to the strain of our touch upon the lyre; and therefore, blessed son of Leto, he does honour to thy grasshopper, seating the singer in brass upon his harp.
Huntress and archer, maiden daughter of Zeus and Leto, Artemis to whom are given the recesses of the mountains, this very day send away beyond the North Wind this hateful sickness from the best of kings; for so above thine altars will Philippus offer vapour of frankincense, doing goodly sacrifice of a hill-pasturing boar.
Even to Miletus came the son of the Healer to succour the physician of diseases Nicias, who ever day by day draws near him with offerings, and had this image carved of fragrant cedar, promising high recompence to Eetion for his cunning of hand; and he put all his art into the work.
Nymphs of Anigrus, maidens of the river, who evermore tread with rosy feet these divine depths, hail and save Cleonymus who set these fair images to you, goddesses, beneath the pines.
This for thee, O pipe-player, minstrel, gracious god, holy lord of the Naiads who pour their urns, Hyginus made as a gift, whom thou, O king, didst draw nigh and make whole of his hard sickness; for among all my children thou didst stand by me visibly, not in a dream of night, but about the mid-circle of the day.
Heracles who goest on stony Trachis and on Oeta and the deep brow of tree-clad Pholoe, to thee Dionysius offers this green staff of wild olive, cut off by him with his billhook.
These dewy roses and yonder close-curled wild thyme are laid before the maidens of Helicon, and the dark-leaved laurels before thee, Pythian Healer, since the Delphic rock made this thine ornament; and this white-horned he-goat shall stain your altar, who nibbles the tip of the terebinth shoot.
Thou liest in the golden portico of Aphrodite, O grape-cluster filled full of Dionysus' juice, nor ever more shall thy mother twine round thee her lovely tendril or above thine head put forth her honeyed leaf.
Thou who inhabitest Cyprus and Cythera and Miletus and the fair plain of horse-trampled Syria, come graciously to Callistion, who never thrust her lover away from her house's doors.
I Laïs who laughed exultant over Greece, I who held that swarm of young lovers in my porches, give my mirror to the Paphian; since such as I am I will not see myself, and such as I was I cannot.
Nico's wryneck, that knows how to draw a man even from overseas, and girls out of their wedding-chambers, chased with gold, carven out of translucent amethyst, lies before thee, Cyprian, for thine own possession, tied across the middle with a soft lock of purple lamb's wool, the gift of the sorceress of Larissa.
Guardian of the seabeach, to thee I send these cakes, and the gifts of a scanty sacrifice; for to-morrow I shall cross the broad wave of the Ionian sea, hastening to our Eidothea's arms. But shine thou favourably on my love as on my mast, O Cyprian, mistress of the bride- chamber and the beach.
To the god of Canopus Callistion, wife of Critias, dedicated me, a lamp enriched with twenty wicks, when her prayer for her child Apellis was heard; and regarding my splendours thou wilt say, How art thou fallen, O Evening Star!
Receive me, O Heracles, the consecrated shield of Archestratus, that leaning against thy polished portico, I may grow old in hearing of dances and hymns; let the War-God's hateful strife be satisfied.
So I was destined, I also, once to abandon the hateful strife of Ares and hear the maiden choirs around Artemis' temple, where Epixenus placed me when white old age began to waste his limbs.
The shuttle that sang at morning with the earliest swallows' cry, kingfisher of Pallas in the loom, and the heavy-headed twirling spindle, light-running spinner of the twisted yarn, and the bobbins, and this basket, friend to the distaff, keeper of the spun warp-thread and the reel, Telesilla, the industrious daughter of good Diocles, dedicates to the Maiden, mistress of wool-dressers.
This fresh-cloven pomegranate and fresh-downed quince, and the wrinkled navel-like fig, and the purple grape-bunch spirting wine, thick-clustered, and the nut fresh-stripped of its green husk, to this rustic staked Priapus the keeper of the fruit dedicates, an offering from his orchard trees.
To Demeter of the winnowing-fan and the Seasons whose feet are in the furrows Heronax lays here from the poverty of a small tilth their share of ears from the threshing-floor, and these mixed seeds of pulse on a slabbed table, the least of a little; for no great inheritance is this he has gotten him, here on the barren hill.
Those handfuls of corn from the furrows of a tiny field, Demeter lover of wheat, Sosicles the tiller dedicates to thee, having reaped now an abundant harvest; but again likewise may he carry back his sickle blunted from shearing of the straw.
To Pan of the goats and fruitful Dionysus and Demeter Lady of Earth I dedicate a common offering, and beseech of them fair fleeces and fair wine and fair fruit of the corn-ears in my reaping.
Eudemus dedicates this shrine in the fields to Zephyrus, most bountiful of the winds, who came to aid him at his prayer, that he might right quickly winnow the grain from the ripe ears.
We supplicate Pan, the goer on the cliffs, twy-horned leader of the Nymphs, who abides in this house of rock, to be gracious to us, whosoever come to this spring of ever-flowing drink to rid us of our thirst.
To Pan the bristly-haired, and the Nymphs of the farm-yard, Theodotus the shepherd laid this gift under the crag, because they stayed him when very weary under the parching summer, stretching out to him honey-sweet water in their hands.
White-skinned Daphnis, the player of pastoral hymns on his fair pipe, offers these to Pan, the pierced reeds, the stick for throwing at hares, a sharp javelin and a fawn-skin, and the scrip wherein once he carried apples.
To thee, Pan of the cliff, three brethren dedicate these various gifts of their threefold ensnaring; Damis toils for wild beasts, and Pigres springes for birds, and Cleitor nets that swim in the sea; whereof do thou yet again make the one fortunate in the air, and the one in the sea and the one among the oakwoods.
This to thee, Artemis the bright, this statue Cleonymus set up; do thou overshadow this oakwood rich in game, where thou goest afoot, our lady, over the mountain tossing with foliage as thou hastest with thy terrible and eager hounds.
Fountained caverns of the Nymphs that drip so much water down this jagged headland, and echoing hut of pine-coronalled Pan, wherein he dwells under the feet of the rock of Bassae, and stumps of aged juniper sacred among hunters, and stone-heaped seat of Hermes, be gracious and receive the spoils of the swift stag-chase from Sosander prosperous in hunting.
This deer that fed about Ladon and the Erymanthian water and the ridges of Pholoe haunted by wild beasts, Lycormas son of Thearidas of Lasion got, striking her with the diamond-shaped butt of his spear, and, drawing off the skin and the double-pointed antlers on her forehead, laid them before the Maiden of the country.
Androclus, O Apollo, gives this bow to thee, wherewith in the chase striking many a beast he had luck in his aim: since never did the arrow leap wandering from the curved horn or speed vainly from his hand; for as often as the inevitable bowstring rang, so often he brought down his prey in air or thicket; wherefore to thee, O Phoebus, he brings this Lyctian weapon as an offering, having wound it round with rings of gold.
O Pan, utter thy holy voice to the feeding flocks, running thy curved lip over the golden reeds, that so they may often bring gifts of white milk in heavy udders to Clymenus' home, and for thee the lord of the she-goats, standing fairly by thy altars, may spirt the red blood from his shaggy breast.
These unsown domains, O Pan of the hill, Stratonicus the ploughman dedicated to thee in return of thy good deeds, saying, Feed in joy thine own flocks and look on thine own land, never more to be shorn with brass; thou wilt find the resting-place a gracious one; for even here charmed Echo will fulfil her marriage with thee.
If to die nobly is the chief part of excellence, to us out of all menFortune gave this lot; for hastening to set a crown of freedom onGreece we lie possessed of praise that grows not old.
These men having set a crown of imperishable glory on their own land were folded in the dark cloud of death; yet being dead they have not died, since from on high their excellence raises them gloriously out of the house of Hades.
Him, who over changed paths of earth and sea sailed on the mainland and went afoot upon the deep, Spartan valour held back on three hundred spears; be ashamed, O mountains and seas.
O passer by, tell the Lacedaemonians that we lie here obeying their orders.
These men, in saving their native land that lay with tearful fetters on her neck, clad themselves in the dust of darkness; and they win great praise of excellence; but looking on them let a citizen dare to die for his country.
O Time, all-surveying deity of the manifold things wrought among mortals, carry to all men the message of our fate, that striving to save the holy soil of Greece we die on the renowned Boeotian plains.
Valiant in war was Timocritus, whose monument this is; but Ares spares the bad, not the good.
These men also, the steadfast among spears, dark Fate destroyed as they defended their native land rich in sheep; but they being dead their glory is alive, who woefully clad their limbs in the dust of Ossa.
We fell under the fold of Dirphys, and a memorial is reared over us by our country near the Euripus, not unjustly; for we lost lovely youth facing the rough cloud of war.
We who of old left the booming surge of the Aegean lie here in the mid-plain of Ecbatana: fare thou well, renowned Eretria once our country, farewell Athens nigh to Euboea, farewell dear sea.
We are Eretrians of Euboea by blood, but we lie near Susa, alas! how far from our own land.
Aeschylus son of Euphorion the Athenian this monument hides, who died in wheat-bearing Gela; but of his approved valour the Marathonian grove may tell, and the deep-haired Mede who knew it.
Not rocky Trachis covers over thy white bones, nor this stone with her dark-blue lettering; but them the Icarian wave dashes about the shingle of Doliche and steep Dracanon; and I, this empty earth, for old friendship with Polymedes, am heaped among the thirsty herbage of Dryopis.
Straight is the descent to Hades, whether thou wert to go from Athens or takest thy journey from Meroë; let it not vex thee to have died so far away from home; from all lands the wind that blows to Hades is but one.
I am an Athenian woman; for that was my city; but from Athens the wasting war-god of the Italians plundered me long ago and made a Roman citizen; and now that I am dead, seagirt Cyzicus wraps my bones. Fare thou well, O land that nurturedst me, and thou that thereafter didst hold me, and thou that at last hast taken me to thy breast.
I am the tomb of one shipwrecked; and that opposite me, of a husbandman; for a common Hades lies beneath sea and earth.
Well be with you, O mariners, both at sea and on land; but know that you pass by the grave of a shipwrecked man.
I am the tomb of one shipwrecked; but sail thou; for when we were perishing, the other ships sailed on over the sea.
May the seafarer have a prosperous voyage; but if, like me, the gale drive him into the harbour of Hades, let him blame not the inhospitable sea-gulf, but his own foolhardiness that loosed moorings from our tomb.
Mariner, ask not whose tomb I am here, but be thine own fortune a kinder sea.
What stranger, O shipwrecked man? Leontichus found me here a corpse on the shore, and heaped this tomb over me, with tears for his own calamitous life: for neither is he at peace, but flits like a gull over the sea.
Not dust nor the light weight of a stone, but all this sea that thou beholdest is the tomb of Erasippus; for he perished with his ship, and in some unknown place his bones moulder, and the sea-gulls alone know them to tell.
Cloudcapt Geraneia, cruel steep, would thou hadst looked on far Ister and long Scythian Tanaïs, and not lain nigh the surge of the Scironian sea by the ravines of the snowy Meluriad rock: but now he is a chill corpse in ocean, and the empty tomb here cries aloud of his heavy voyage.
Thymodes also, weeping over unlooked-for woes, reared this empty tomb to Lycus his son; for not even in a strange land did he get a grave, but some Thynian beach or Pontic island holds him, where, forlorn of all funeral rites, his shining bones lie naked on an inhospitable shore.
Everywhere the sea is the sea; why idly blame we the Cyclades or the narrow wave of Helle and the Needles? in vain have they their fame; or why when I had escaped them did the harbour of Scarphe cover me? Pray whoso will for a fair passage home; that the sea's way is the sea, Aristagoras knows who is buried here.
O sailing mariners, Ariston of Cyrene prays you all for the sake ofZeus the Protector, to tell his father Meno that he lies by theIcarian rocks, having given up the ghost in the Aegean sea.
I am the grave of Biton, O wayfarer; and if leaving Torone thou goest even to Amphipolis, tell Nicagoras that Strymonias at the setting of the Kids lost him his only son.
I bewail Polyanthus, O thou who passest by, whom Aristagore his wife laid newly-wedded in the grave, having received dust and bones (but him the ill-blown Aegean wave cast away off Sciathus), when at early dawn the fishermen drew his luckless corpse, O stranger, into the harbour of Torone.
Sit beneath the poplars here, traveller, when thou art weary, and drawing nigh drink of our spring; and even far away remember the fountain that Simus sets by the side of Gillus his dead child.
This is the single tomb of Nicander's children; the light of a single morning ended the sacred offspring of Lysidice.