Me a baby that was just tasting life heaven snatched away, I know not whether for good or for evil; insatiable Death, why hast thou snatched me cruelly in infancy? why hurriest thou? Are we not all thine in the end?
Me Callimachus, a five-years-old child whose spirit knew not grief, pitiless Death snatched away; but weep thou not for me; for little was my share in life, and little in life's ills.
Hermes messenger of Persephone, whom usherest thou thus to the laughterless abyss of Death? what hard fate snatched Ariston from the fresh air at seven years old? and the child stands between his parents. Pluto delighting in tears, are not all mortal spirits allotted to thee? why gatherest thou the unripe grapes of youth?
Philip the father laid here the twelve-years-old child, his high hope,Nicoteles.
Looking on the monument of a dead boy, Cleoetes son of Menesaechmus, pity him who was beautiful and died.
Not death is bitter, since that is the fate of all, but to die ere the time and before our parents: I having seen not marriage nor wedding- chant nor bridal bed, lie here the love of many, and to be the love of more.
Bidding hail to me, Diogenes beneath the earth, go about thy business and obtain thy desire; for at nineteen years old I was laid low by cruel sickness and leave the sweet sun.
What profits it to labour in childbirth? what to bear children? let not her bear who must see her child's death: for to stripling Bianor his mother reared the tomb; but it was fitting that the mother should obtain this service of the son.
The daughters of the Samians often require Crethis the teller of tales, who knew pretty games, sweetest of workfellows, ever talking; but she sleeps here the sleep to which they all must come.
I am of Baucis the bride; and passing by my oft-wept pillar thou mayest say this to Death that dwells under ground, "Thou art envious, O Death"; and the coloured monument tells to him who sees it the most bitter fortune of Bauco, how her father-in-law burned the girl on the funeral pyre with those torches by whose light the marriage train was to be led home; and thou, O Hymenaeus, didst change the tuneable bridal song into a voice of wailing dirges.
Ausonian earth holds me a woman of Libya, and I lie a maiden here by the sea-sand near Rome; and Pompeia, who nurtured me like a daughter, wept over me and laid me in a free tomb, while hastening on that other torch-fire for me; but this one came first, and contrary to our prayers Persephone lit the lamp.
Blue-eyed Musa, the sweet-voiced nightingale, suddenly this little grave holds voiceless, and she lies like a stone who was so accomplished and so famous; fair Musa, be this dust light over thee.
I Homonoea, who was far clearer-voiced than the Sirens, I who was more golden than the Cyprian herself at revellings and feasts, I the chattering bright swallow lie here, leaving tears to Atimetus, to whom I was dear from girlhood; but unforeseen fate scattered all that great affection.
Bear witness this my stone house of night that has hidden me, and the wail-circled water of Cocytus, my husband did not, as men say, kill me, looking eagerly to marriage with another; why should Rufinius have an ill name idly? but my predestined Fates lead me away; not surely is Paula of Tarentum the only one who has died before her day.
These woeful letters of Diodorus' wisdom tell that I was engraven for one early dead in child-birth, since she perished in bearing a boy; and I weep to hold Athenaïs the comely daughter of Melo, who left grief to the women of Lesbos and her father Jason; but thou, O Artemis, wert busy with thy beast-slaying hounds.
Name me Polyxena wife of Archelaus, child of Theodectes and hapless Demarete, and a mother as far as the birth-pangs; but fate overtook the child before full twenty suns, and myself died at eighteen years, just a mother and just a bride, so brief was all my day.
To his wife Paulina, holy of life and blameless, who died at nineteen years, Andronicus the physician paying memorial placed this witness the last of all.
Atthis who didst live for me and breathe thy last toward me, source of joyfulness formerly as now of tears, holy, much lamented, how sleepest thou the mournful sleep, thou whose head was never laid away from thy husband's breast, leaving Theius alone as one who is no more; for with thee the hopes of our life went to darkness.
Who and of whom art thou, O woman, that liest under the Parian column? Prexo, daughter of Calliteles. And of what country? Of Samos. And also who buried thee? Theocritus, to whom my parents gave me in marriage. And of what diedst thou? Of child-birth. How old? Two-and-twenty. And childless? Nay, but I left a three-year-old Calliteles. May he live at least and come to great old age. And to thee, O stranger, may Fortune give all prosperity.
Why idly bemoaning linger you by my tomb? nothing worthy oflamentation is mine among the dead. Cease from plaints and be at rest,O husband, and you my children fare well, and keep the memory ofAmazonia.
Here earth holds the Peloponnesian woman who was the most faithful nurse of the children of Diogeitus.
A Lydian am I, yes a Lydian, but in a free tomb, O my master, thou didst lay thy fosterer Timanthes; prosperously mayest thou lengthen out an unharmed life, and if under the hand of old age thou shalt come to me, I am thine, O master, even in the grave.
Even now beneath the earth I abide faithful to thee, yes my master, as before, forgetting not thy kindness, in that then thou broughtest me thrice out of sickness to safe foothold, and now didst lay me here beneath sufficient shelter, calling me by name, Manes the Persian; and for thy good deeds to me thou shalt have servants readier at need.
Thou who passest on the path, if haply thou dost mark this monument, laugh not, I pray thee, though it is a dog's grave; tears fell for me, and the dust was heaped above me by a master's hands, who likewise engraved these words on my tomb.
Here the stone says it holds the white dog from Melita, the most faithful guardian of Eumelus; Bull they called him while he was yet alive; but now his voice is prisoned in the silent pathways of night.
No longer, poor partridge migrated from the rocks, does thy woven house hold thee in its thin withies, nor under the sparkle of fresh- faced Dawn dost thou ruffle up the edges of thy basking wings; the cat bit off thy head, but the rest of thee I snatched away, and she did not fill her greedy jaw; and now may the earth cover thee not lightly but heavily, lest she drag out thy remains.
Surely even as thou liest dead in this tomb I deem the wild beasts yet fear thy white bones, huntress Lycas; and thy valour great Pelion knows, and splendid Ossa and the lonely peaks of Cithaeron.
Does Charidas in truth sleep beneath thee? If thou meanest the son of Arimmas of Cyrene, beneath me. O Charidas, what of the under world? Great darkness. And what of the resurrection? A lie. And Pluto? A fable; we perish utterly. This my tale to you is true; but if thou wilt have the pleasant one of the Samian, I am a large ox in Hades.
I am the monument of Theognis of Sinope, over whom Glaucus set me in guerdon of their long fellowship.
This little stone, good Sabinus, is the record of our great friendship; ever will I require thee; and thou, if it is permitted, drink not among the dead of the water of Lethe for me.
I Dionysius of Tarsus lie here at sixty, having never married; and would that my father had not.
I Brotachus of Gortyna, a Cretan, lie here, not having come hither for this, but for traffic.
Here Saon, son of Dicon of Acanthus, rests in a holy sleep; say not that the good die.
Say thou that this grave is consecrate to the Muses, pointing to the books by the plane-trees, and that we guard it; and if a true lover of ours come hither, we crown him with our ivy.
The herald of the prowess of heroes and the interpreter of the immortals, a second sun on the life of Greece, Homer, the light of the Muses, the ageless mouth of all the world, lies hid, O stranger, under the sea-washed sand.
Still we hear the wail of Andromache, still we see all Troy toppling from her foundations, and the battling of Ajax, and Hector, bound to the horses, dragged under the city's crown of towers, through the Muse of Maeonides, the poet with whom no one country adorns herself as her own, but the zones of both worlds.
No longer, Orpheus, wilt thou lead the charmed oaks, no longer the rocks nor the lordless herds of the wild beasts; no longer wilt thou lull the roaring of the winds, nor hail and sweep of snowstorms nor dashing sea; for thou perishedst; and the daughters of Mnemosyne wept sore for thee, and thy mother Calliope above all. Why do we mourn over dead sons, when not even gods avail to ward off Hades from their children?
Doricha, long ago thy bones are dust, and the ribbon of thy hair and the raiment scented with unguents, wherein once wrapping lovely Charaxus round thou didst cling to him carousing into dawn; but the white leaves of the dear ode of Sappho remain yet and shall remain speaking thy blessed name, which Naucratis shall keep here so long as a sea-going ship shall come to the lagoons of Nile.
Thee, as thou wert just giving birth to a springtide of honeyed songs and just finding thy swan-voice, Fate, mistress of the threaded spindle, drove to Acheron across the wide water of the dead; but the fair labour of thy verses, Erinna, cries that thou art not perished, but keepest mingled choir with the Maidens of Pieria.
The young maiden singer Erinna, the bee among poets, who sipped the flowers of the Muses, Hades snatched away to be his bride; truly indeed said the girl in her wisdom, "Thou art envious, O Death."
O stranger who passest this the tomb of Anacreon, pour libation over me in going by; for I am a drinker of wine.
O stranger who passest by the humble tomb of Anacreon, if thou hast had aught of good from my books pour libation on my ashes, pour libation of the jocund grape, that my bones may rejoice wetted with wine; so I, who was ever deep in the wine-steeped revels of Dionysus, I who was bred among drinking tunes, shall not even when dead endure without Bacchus this place to which the generation of mortals must come.
As high as the trumpet's blast outsounds the thin flute, so high above all others did thy lyre ring; nor idly did the tawny swarm mould their waxen-celled honey, O Pindar, about thy tender lips: witness the horned god of Maenalus when he sang thy hymn and forgot his own pastoral reeds.
I am Thespis who first shaped the strain of tragedy, making new partition of fresh graces among the masquers when Bacchus would lead home the wine-stained chorus, for whom a goat and a basket of Attic figs was as yet the prize in contests. A younger race reshape all this; and infinite time will make many more inventions yet; but mine are mine.
Gently over the tomb of Sophocles, gently creep, O ivy, flinging forth thy pale tresses, and all about let the rose-petal blow, and the clustered vine shed her soft tendrils round, for the sake of the wise- hearted eloquence mingled of the Muses and Graces that lived on his honeyed tongue.
The Graces, seeking to take a sanctuary that will not fall, found the soul of Aristophanes.
With a ringing laugh, and a friendly word over me do thou pass by; I am Rhintho of Syracuse, a small nightingale of the Muses; but from our tragical mirth we plucked an ivy of our own.
Tread softly, O stranger; for here an old man sleeps among the holy dead, lulled in the slumber due to all, Meleager son of Eucrates, who united Love of the sweet tears and the Muses with the joyous Graces; whom God-begotten Tyre brought to manhood, and the sacred land of Gadara, but lovely Cos nursed in old age among the Meropes. But if thou art a Syrian, say /Salam/, and if a Phoenician, /Naidios/, and if a Greek, Hail; they are the same.
Island Tyre was my nurse; and the Attic land that lies in Syrian Gadara is the country of my birth; and I sprang of Eucrates, I Meleager, the companion of the Muses, first of all who have run side by side with the Graces of Menippus. And if I am a Syrian, what wonder? We all dwell in one country, O stranger, the world; one Chaos brought all mortals to birth. And when stricken in years, I inscribed this on my tablets before burial, since old age is death's near neighbour; but do thou, bidding hail to me, the aged talker, thyself reach a talking old age.
All Greece bewails thee departed, Pylades, and cuts short her undone hair; even Phoebus himself laid aside the laurels from his unshorn tresses, honouring his own minstrel as was meet, and the Muses wept, and Asopus stayed his stream, hearing the cry from their wailing lips; and Dionysus' halls ceased from dancing when thou didst pass down the iron path of Death.
When Orpheus was gone, a Muse was yet haply left, but when thou didst perish, Plato, the harp likewise ceased; for till then there yet lived some little fragment of the old melodies, saved in thy soul and hands.
No more through pine-clad Phrygia, as of old, shalt thou make melody, uttering thy notes through the pierced reeds, nor in thy hands as before shall the workmanship of Tritonian Athena flower forth, nymph-born Satyr; for thy hands are bound tight in gyves, since being mortal thou didst join immortal strife with Phoebus; and the flutes, that cried as honey-sweet as his harp, gained thee from the contest no crown but death.
Thou hangest high where the winds lash thy wild body, O wretched one, swinging from a shaggy pine; thou hangest high, for thou didst stand up to strife against Phoebus, O Satyr, dweller on the cliff of Celaenae; and we nymphs shall no longer as before hear the honey- sounding cry of thy flute on the Phrygian hills.
Phoebus said over clear-voiced Glaphyrus as he breathed desire through the pierced lotus-pipes, "O Marsyas, thou didst tell false of thy discovery, for this is he who carried off Athena's flutes out of Phrygia; and if thou hadst blown then in such as his, Hyagnis would not have wept that disastrous flute-strife by Maeander."
Wilt thou for the Muses' sake play me somewhat of sweet on thy twin flutes? and I lifting the harp will begin to make music on the strings; and Daphnis the neatherd will mingle enchantment with tuneable breath of the wax-bound pipe; and thus standing nigh within the fringed cavern mouth, let us rob sleep from Pan the lord of the goats.
Eutychides, the writer of songs, is dead; flee, O you under earth! Eutychides is coming with his odes; he left instructions to burn along with him twelve lyres and twenty-five boxes of airs. Now Charon has come upon you; whither may one retreat in future, since Eutychides fills Hades too?
Pluto turns away the dead rhetorician Marcus, saying, "Let the dogCerberus suffice us here; yet if thou needs must, declaim to Ixion andMelito the song-writer, and Tityus; for I have no worse evil thanthee, till Rufus the critic comes to murder the language here."
I the reed was a useless plant; for out of me grew not figs nor apple nor grape-cluster; but man consecrated me a daughter of Helicon, piercing my delicate lips and making me the channel of a narrow stream; and thenceforth, whenever I sip black drink, like one inspired I speak all words with this voiceless mouth.
Simus son of Miccus, giving me to the Muses, asked for himself learning, and they, like Glaucus, gave a great gift for a little one; and I lean gaping up against this double letter of the Samian, a tragic Dionysus, listening to the little boys; and they repeat /Holy is the hair/, telling me my own dream.
O mice, if you are come after bread, go to another cupboard (for we live in a tiny cottage) where you will feed daintily on rich cheese and dried raisins, and make an abundant supper off the scraps; but if you sharpen your teeth again on my books and come in with your graceless rioting, you shall howl for it.
That second Aristotle, Nicostratus, Plato's peer, splitter of the straws of the sublimest philosophy, was asked about the soul as follows: How may one rightly describe the soul, as mortal, or, on the contrary, immortal? and should we speak of it as a body or incorporeal? and is it to be placed among intelligible or sensible objects, or compounded of both? So he read through the treatises of the transcendentalists, and Aristotle's /de Anima/, and explored the Platonic heights of the /Phaedo/, and wove into a single fabric the whole exact truth on all its sides. Then wrapping his threadbare cloak about him, and stroking down the end of his beard, he proffered the solution:—If there exists at all a nature of the soul—for of this I am not sure—it is certainly either mortal or immortal, of solid nature or immaterial; however, when you cross Acheron, there you shall know the certainty like Plato. And if you will, imitate young Cleombrotus of Ambracia, and let your body drop from the roof; and you may at once recognise your self apart from the body by merely getting rid of the subject of your inquiry.
If Plato did not write me, there were two Platos; I carry in me all the flowers of Socratic talk. But Panaetius concluded me to be spurious; yes, he who concluded that the soul was mortal, would conclude me spurious as well.
Saying, "Farewell, O Sun," Cleombrotus of Ambracia leaped off a high wall to Hades, having seen no evil worthy of death, but only having read that one writing of Plato's on the soul.
One told me of thy fate, Heraclitus, and wrung me to tears, and I remembered how often both of us let the sun sink as we talked; but thou, methinks, O friend from Halicarnassus, art ashes long and long ago; yet thy nightingale-notes live, whereon Hades the ravisher of all things shall not lay his hand.
I hate the cyclic poem, nor do I delight in a road that carries many hither and thither; I detest, too, one who ever goes girt with lovers, and I drink not from the fountain; I loathe everything popular.
I know that I am mortal, and ephemeral; but when I scan the multitudinous circling spirals of the stars, no longer do I touch earth with my feet, but sit with Zeus himself, and take my fill of the ambrosial food of gods.
The pastoral Muses, once scattered, now are all a single flock in a single fold.
Nemesis fashioned a winged Love contrary to winged Love, warding off bow with bow, that he may be done by as he did; and, bold and fearless before, he sheds tears, having tasted of the bitter arrows, and spits thrice into his low-girt bosom. Ah, most wonderful! one will burn with fire: Love has set Love aflame.
Lo, how winged Love breaks the winged thunderbolt, showing that he is a fire more potent than fire.
Laying down his torch and bow, soft Love took the rod of an ox-driver, and wore a wallet over his shoulder; and coupling patient-necked bulls under his yoke, sowed the wheat-bearing furrow of Demeter; and spoke, looking up, to Zeus himself, "Fill thou the corn-lands, lest I put thee, bull of Europa, under my plough."
One might surely have clearly heard Pan piping, so did the sculptor mingle breath with the form; but in despair at the sight of flying, unstaying Echo, he renounced the pipe's unavailing sound.
Pallas said, seeing Cytherea armed, "O Cyprian, wilt thou that we go so to judgment?" and she, laughing softly, "why should I lift a shield in contest? if I conquer when naked, how will it be when I take arms?"
The Cyprian said when she saw the Cyprian of Cnidus, "Alas where didPraxiteles see me naked?"
Strangers, touch not the marble Ariadne, lest she even start up on the quest of Theseus.
From life the gods made me a stone; and from stone again Praxiteles wrought me into life.
Untouched, O young Satyr, does thy reed utter a sound, or why leaning sideways dost thou put thine ear to the pipe? He laughs and is silent; yet haply had he spoken a word, but was held in forgetfulness by delight? for the wax did not hinder, but of his own will he welcomed silence, with his whole mind turned intent on the pipe.
Ah thou wert not quick enough, Myron, in thy casting; but the bronze grew solid before thou hadst cast in a soul.
This Satyr Diodorus engraved not, but laid to rest; your touch will wake him; the silver is asleep.
Even though incredible to the hearer, I say this; for I affirm that the clear limits of this art have been found under my hand, and the mark is fixed fast that cannot be exceeded. But nothing among mortals is faultless.
Now at her fruitful birth-tide the fair green field flowers out in blowing roses; now on the boughs of the colonnaded cypresses the cicala, mad with music, lulls the binder of sheaves; and the careful mother-swallow, having fashioned houses under the eaves, gives harbourage to her brood in the mud-plastered cells: and the sea slumbers, with zephyr-wooing calm spread clear over the broad ship- tracks, not breaking in squalls on the stern-posts, not vomiting foam upon the beaches. O sailor, burn by the altars the glittering round of a mullet or a cuttle-fish, or a vocal scarus, to Priapus, ruler of ocean and giver of anchorage; and so go fearlessly on thy seafaring to the bounds of the Ionian Sea.
Ocean lies purple in calm; for no gale whitens the fretted waves with its ruffling breath, and no longer is the sea shattered round the rocks and sucked back again down towards the deep. West winds breathe, and the swallow titters over the straw-glued chamber that she has built. Be of good cheer, O skilled in seafaring, whether thou sail to the Syrtis or the Sicilian shingle: only by the altars of Priapus of the Anchorage burn a scarus or ruddy wrasse.
Let one call from the stern on Zeus the Fair Wind for guide on his road, shaking out sail against the forestays; whether he runs to the Dark Eddies, where Poseidon rolls his curling wave along the sands, or whether he searches the backward passage down the Aegean sea-plain, let him lay honey-cakes by this image, and so go his way; here Philon, son of Antipater, set up the ever-gracious god for pledge of fair and fortunate voyaging.
Beneath flowering Tmolus, by the stream of Maeonian Hermus, am I, Sardis, capital city of the Lydians. I was the first who bore witness for Zeus; for I would not betray the hidden child of our Rhea. I too was nurse of Bromius, and saw him amid the thunder-flash shining with broader radiance; and first on our slopes the golden-haired god pressed the harvest of wine out of the breasts of the grape. All grace has been given me, and many a time has many an age found me envied by the happiest cities.
Go and rest your limbs here for a little under the juniper, O wayfarers, by Hermes, Guardian of the Way, not in crowds, but those of you whose knees are tired with heavy toil and thirst after traversing a long road; for there a breeze and a shady seat and the fountain under the rock will lull your toil-wearied limbs; and having so escaped the midday breath of the autumnal dogstar, as is right, honour Hermes of the Ways.
I who inherit the tossing mountain-forests of steep Cyllene, stand here guarding the pleasant playing fields, Hermes, to whom boys often offer marjoram and hyacinth and fresh garlands of violets.
Me, Pan, the fishermen placed upon this holy cliff, Pan of the seashore, the watcher here over the fair anchorages of the harbour; and I take care now of the baskets and again of the trawlers off this shore. But sail thou by, O stranger, and in requital of this good service of theirs I will send behind thee a gentle south wind.
Small to see, I, Priapus, inhabit this spit of shore, not much bigger than a sea-gull, sharp-headed, footless, such an one as upon lonely beaches might be carved by the sons of toiling fishermen. But if any basket-finder or angler call me to succour, I rush fleeter than the blast: likewise I see the creatures that run under water; and truly the form of godhead is known from deeds, not from shape.
Whether thou goest on the hill with lime smeared over thy fowler's reed, or whether thou killest hares, call on Pan; Pan shows the dog the prints of the furry foot, Pan raises the stiff-jointed lime-twigs.
Fair fall thy chase, O hunter of hares, and thou fowler who comest pursuing the winged people beneath this double hill; and cry thou to me, Pan, the guardian of the wood from my cliff; I join the chase with both dogs and reeds.
Even me the little god of small things if thou call upon in due season thou shalt find; but ask not for great things; since whatsoever a god of the commons can give to a labouring man, of this I, Tycho, have control.
If thou pass by the hero (and he is called Philopregmon) who lies by the cross-roads in front of Potidaea, tell him to what work thou leadest thy feet; straightway will he, being by thee, make thy business easy.
They call me the little one, and say I cannot go straight and fearless on a prosperous voyage like ships that sail out to sea; and I deny it not; I am a little boat, but to the sea all is equal; fortune, not size, makes the difference. Let another have the advantage in rudders; for some put their confidence in this and some in that, but may my salvation be of God.
Me Chelidon, priestess of Zeus, who knew well in old age how to make offering on the altars of the immortals, happy in my children, free from grief, the tomb holds; for with no shadow in their eyes the gods saw my piety.
He who enters the incense-filled temple must be holy; and holiness is to have a pure mind.
Hallowed in soul, O stranger, come even into the precinct of a pure god, touching thyself with the virgin water; for the good a few drops are set; but a wicked man the whole ocean cannot wash in its waters.
Though thy life be fixed in one seat, and thou sailest not the sea nor treadest the roads on dry land, yet by all means go to Attica that thou mayest see those great nights of the worship of Demeter; whereby thou shalt possess thy soul without care among the living, and lighter when thou must go to the place that awaiteth all.
Call me not him who comes from Libanus, O stranger, who delights in the talk of young men love-making by night; I am small and a rustic, born of a neighbour nymph, and all my business is labour of the garden; whence four garlands at the hands of the four Seasons crown me from the beloved fruitful threshing-floor.
Breathe music, O Pan that goest on the mountains, with thy sweet lips, breathe delight into thy pastoral reed, pouring song from the musical pipe, and make the melody sound in tune with the choral words; and about thee to the pulse of the rhythm let the inspired foot of these water-nymphs keep falling free.
Drink not here, traveller, from this warm pool in the brook, full of mud stirred by the sheep at pasture; but go a very little way over the ridge where the heifers are grazing; for there by yonder pastoral stone-pine thou wilt find bubbling through the fountained rock a spring colder than northern snow.
Here fling thyself down on the grassy meadow, O traveller, and rest thy relaxed limbs from painful weariness; since here also, as thou listenest to the cicalas' tune, the stone-pine trembling in the wafts of west wind will lull thee, and the shepherd on the mountains piping at noon nigh the spring under a copse of leafy plane: so escaping the ardours of the autumnal dogstar thou wilt cross the height to-morrow; trust this good counsel that Pan gives thee.
Sit down by this high-foliaged voiceful pine that rustles her branches beneath the western breezes, and beside my chattering waters Pan's pipe shall bring drowsiness down on thy enchanted eyelids.
Come and sit under my stone-pine that murmurs so honey-sweet as it bends to the soft western breeze; and lo this honey-dropping fountain, where I bring sweet sleep playing on my lonely reeds.
Sit down, stranger, as thou passest by, under this shady plane, whose leaves flutter in the soft breath of the west wind, where Nicagoras consecrated me, the renowned Hermes son of Maia, protector of his orchard-close and cattle.
Let the shaggy cliff of the Dryads be silent, and the springs welling from the rock, and the many-mingled bleating of the ewes; for Pan himself makes music on his melodious pipe, running his supple lip over the jointed reeds; and around him stand up to dance with glad feet the water-nymphs and the nymphs of the oakwood.
Here beneath the plane-trees, overborne by soft sleep, Love slumbered, giving his torch to the Nymphs' keeping; and the Nymphs said one to another, "Why do we delay? and would that with this we might have quenched the fire in the heart of mortals." But now, the torch having kindled even the waters, the amorous Nymphs pour hot water thence into the bathing pool.
Dear Pan, abide here, drawing the pipe over thy lips, for thou wilt find Echo on these sunny greens.
Remember me the singing stone, thou who passest by Nisaea; for when Alcathous was building his bastions, then Phoebus lifted on his shoulder a stone for the house, and laid down on me his Delphic harp; thenceforth I am lyre-voiced; strike me lightly with a little pebble, and carry away witness of my boast.
I the ever-flowing Clear Fount gush forth for by-passing wayfarers from the neighbouring dell; and everywhere I am bordered well with planes and soft-bloomed laurels, and make coolness and shade to lie in. Therefore pass me not by in summer; rest by me in quiet, ridding thee of thirst and weariness.
Thou sleepest on the leaf-strewn floor, Daphnis, resting thy weary body; and the hunting-snakes are freshly set on the hills; and Pan pursues thee, and Priapus who binds the yellow ivy on his lovely head, passing side by side into the cave; but flee thou, flee, shaking off the dropping drowsiness of slumber.
I, Hermes, stand here by the windy orchard in the cross-ways nigh the grey sea-shore, giving rest on the way to wearied men; and the fountain wells forth cold stainless water.
Tongueless Echo along this pastoral slope makes answering music to the birds with repeating voice.
No longer now warble on the oak, no longer sing, O blackbird, sitting on the topmost spray; this tree is thine enemy; hasten where the vine rises in clustering shade of silvered leaves; on her bough rest the sole of thy foot, around her sing and pour the shrill music of thy mouth; for the oak carries mistletoe baleful to birds, and she the grape-cluster; and the Wine-god cherishes singers.
Lofty-hung boughs of the tall oak, a shadowy height over men that take shelter from the fierce heat, fair-foliaged, closer-roofing than tiles, houses of wood-pigeons, houses of crickets, O noontide branches, protect me likewise who lie beneath your tresses, fleeing from the sun's rays.
The labouring ox, outworn with old age and labour of the furrow, Alcon did not lead to the butchering knife, reverencing it for its works; and astray in the deep meadow grass it rejoices with lowings over freedom from the plough.
Attic maid, honey-fed, chatterer, snatchest thou and bearest the chattering cricket for feast to thy unfledged young, thou chatterer the chatterer, thou winged the winged, thou summer guest the summer guest, and wilt not quickly throw it away? for it is not right nor just that singers should perish by singers' mouths.
Why in merciless chase, shepherds, do you tear me the solitude- haunting cricket from the dewy sprays, me the roadside nightingale of the Nymphs, who at midday talk shrilly in the hills and the shady dells? Lo, here is the thrust and the blackbird, lo here such flocks of starlings, plunderers of the cornfield's riches; it is allowed to seize the ravagers of your fruits: destroy them: why grudge me my leaves and fresh dew?
Why all day long, hapless maiden daughter of Pandion, soundest thou wailingly through thy twittering mouth? has longing come on thee for thy maidenhead, that Tereus of Thrace ravished from thee by dreadful violence?
Thyrsis the reveller, the shepherd of the Nymphs' sheep, Thyrsis who pipes on the reed like Pan, having drunk at noon, sleeps under the shady pine, and Love himself has taken his crook and watches the flocks.
Let us stand by the low shore of the spray-scattering deep, looking on the precinct of Cypris of the Sea, and the fountain overshadowed with poplars, from which the shrill kingfishers draw water with their bills.
This is the Cyprians ground, since it was her pleasure ever to look from land on the shining sea, that she may give fulfilment of their voyage to sailors; and around the deep trembles, gazing on her bright image.
No longer dreading the rayless night-mist, sail towards me confidently, O seafarers; for all wanderers I light my far-shining torch, memorial of the labours of the Asclepiadae.
Now is the season of sailing; for already the chattering swallow is come, and the gracious west wind; the meadows flower, and the sea, tossed up with waves and rough blasts, has sunk to silence. Weigh thine anchors and unloose thine hawsers, O mariner, and sail with all thy canvas set: this I Priapus of the harbour bid thee, O man, that thou mayest sail forth to all thy trafficking.
Now is the season for a ship to run through the gurgling water, and no longer does the sea gloom, fretted with gusty squalls, and now the swallow plasters her round houses under the eaves, and the soft leafage laughs in the meadows. Therefore wind up your soaked cables, O sailors, and weight your hidden anchors from the harbours, and stretch the forestays to carry your well-woven sails. This I the son of Bromius bid you, Priapus of the anchorage.
I do not wish to feast down in the city, Philotherus, but in the country, delighting myself with the breath of the west wind; sufficient couch for me is a strewing of boughs under my side, for at hand is a bed of native willow and osier, the ancient garland of the Carians; but let wine be brought, and the delightful lyre of the Muses, that drinking at our will we may sing the renowned bride of Zeus, lady of our island.
I am filled with waters and gardens and groves and vineyards, and the joyousness of the bordering sea; and fisherman and farmer from different sides stretch forth to me the pleasant gifts of sea and land: and them who abide in me either a bird singing or the sweet cry of the ferrymen lulls to rest.
Righteousness has raised this house from the first foundation even to the lofty roof; for Macedonius fashioned not his wealth by heaping up from the possessions of others with plundering sword, nor has any poor man here wept over his vain and profitless toil, being robbed of his most just hire; and as rest from labour is kept inviolate by the just man, so let the works of pious mortals endure.
Aniceteia wets her golden lip in me; but may I give her also the draught of bridal.
Not yet is thy summer unfolded from the bud, nor does the purple come upon thy grape that throws out the first shoots of its maiden graces; but already the young Loves are whetting their fleet arrows, Lysidice, and the hidden fire is smouldering. Flee we, wretched lovers, ere yet the shaft is on the string; I prophesy a mighty burning soon.
Roses were now bloomed in spring, but now in midwinter we have opened our crimson cups, smiling in delight on this thy birthday morning, that brings thee so nigh the bridal bed: better for us to be wreathed on the brows of so fair a woman than wait for the spring sun.
Her tambourines and pretty ball, and the net that confined her hair, and her dolls and dolls' dresses, Timareta dedicates before her marriage to Artemis of Limnae, a maiden to a maiden, as is fit; do thou, daughter of Leto, laying thine hand over the girl Timareta, preserve her purely in her purity.
Cythera of Bithynia dedicated me, the marble image of thy form, O Cyprian, having vowed it: but do thou impart in return thy great grace for this little one, as is thy wont; and concord with her husband satisfies her.
To Persuasion and the Paphian, Hermophiles the neatherd, bridegroom of flower-chapleted Eurynome, dedicates a cream-cheese and combs from his hives; but accept for her the cheese, for me the honey.
Never grow mould, O lamp, nor call up the rain, lest thou stop my bridegroom in his coming; always thou art jealous of the Cyprian; yes and when she betrothed Hero to Leander—O my heart, leave the rest alone. Thou art the Fire-God's, and I believe that by vexing the Cyprian thou flatterest thy master's pangs.
This is not the common Cyprian; revere the goddess, and name her the Heavenly, the dedication of holy Chrysogone in the house of Amphicles, with whom she had children and life together; and ever it was better with them year by year, who began with thy worship, O mistress; for mortals who serve the gods are the better off themselves.
Fair-freighted sea-faring ships that sail the Strait of Helle, taking the good north wind in your sails, if haply on the island shores of Cos you see Phanion gazing on the sparkling sea, carry this message: Fair bride, thy desire beings me, not a sailor but a wayfarer on my feet. For if you say this, carrying good news, straitway will Zeus of the Fair Weather likewise breathe into your canvas.
Again, O Ilithyia, come thou at Lycaenis' call, Lady of Birth, even thus with happy issue of travail; whose offering now this is for a girl; but afterwards may thy fragrant temple hold another for a boy.
Thou knowest, Asclepius, that thou hast received payment of the debt that Aceson owed, having vowed it for his wife Demodice; yet if it be forgotten, and thou demand thy wages, this tablet says it will give testimony.
Artemis, to thee the son of Cichesias dedicates his shoes, and Themostodice the strait folds of her gown, because thou didst graciously hold thy two hands over her in childbed, coming, O our Lady, without thy bow. And do thou, O Artemis, grant yet to Leon to see his infant child a sturdy-limbed boy.
Callirhoë dedicates to the Paphian garlands, to Pallas a tress of hair, to Artemis her girdle; for she found a wooer to her heart, and was given a stainless prime, and bore male children.
Be happy, children; whose family are you? and what gracious name is given to so pretty things as you?—I am Nicanor, and my father is Aepioretus, and my mother Hegeso, and I am a Macedonian born.—And I am Phila, and this is my brother; and we both stand here fulfilling a vow of our parents.
Androtion built me, a burying-place for himself and his children and wife, but as yet I am the tomb of no one; so likewise may I remain for a long time; and if it must be, let me take to myself the eldest first.
I wept the doom of my Theionoë, but borne up by hopes of her child I wailed in lighter grief; and now a jealous fate has bereft me of the child also; alas, babe, I am cozened even of thee, all that was left me. Persephone, hear thou this at a father's lamentation; lay the babe on the bosom of its mother who is gone.
Surely, methinks, when thou hadst set thy footprint, Aretemias, from the boat upon Cocytus' shore, carrying in thy young hand thy baby just dead, the fair Dorian women had compassion in Hades, inquiring of thy fate; and thou, fretting thy cheeks with tears, didst utter that woful word: O friends, having travailed of two children, I left one for my husband Euphron, and the other I bring to the dead.
Gazing upon my husband as my last thread was spun, I praised the gods of death, and I praised the gods of marriage, those that I left my husband alive, and these that he was even such an one; but may he remain, a father for our children.
Marathonis laid Nicopolis in this stone, wetting the marble coffin with tears, but all to no avail; for what is there more than sorrow for a man alone upon earth when his wife is gone?
Find no fault as thou passest by my monument, O wayfarer; not even in death have I aught worthy of lamentation. I have left children's children; I had joy of one wife, who grew old along with me; I made marriage for three sons whose sons I often lulled asleep on my breast, and never moaned over the sickness or the death of any: who, shedding tears without sorrow over me, sent me to slumber the sweet sleep in the country of the holy.