I saw Alexis at noon walking on the way, when summer was just cutting the tresses of the cornfields; and double rays burned me; these of Love from the boy's eyes, and those from the sun. But those night allayed again, while these in dreams the phantom of a form kindled yet higher; and Sleep, the releaser of toil for others, brought toil upon me, fashioning the image of beauty in my soul, a breathing fire.
Surely, O Cleonicus, the lovely Graces met thee going along the narrow field-path, and clasped thee close with their rose-like hands, O boy, and thou wert made all grace. Hail to thee from afar; but it is not safe, O my dear, for the dry asphodel stalk to move too near the fire.
The Cyprian denies that she bore Love, seeing Antiochus among the youths, another Desire; but O you who are young, cherish the new Longing; for assuredly this boy is found a Love stronger than Love.
Pour in and say again, "Diocles"; nor does Acheloüs touch the cups consecrated to him; fair is the boy, O Acheloüs, exceeding fair; and if any one says no, let me be alone in my judgment of beauty.
Praxiteles the sculptor made a Parian image of Love, moulding the Cyprian's son; but now Love, the most beautiful of all the gods, imaging himself, has fashioned a breathing statue, Praxiteles, that the one among mortals and the other in heaven may have all love-charms in control, and at once on earth and among the immortals they may bear the sceptres of Desire. Most happy the sacred city of the Meropes, which nurtured as prince of her youth the god-born new Love.
Delicate, so help me Love, are the fosterlings of Tyre; but Myïscus blazes out and quenches them all as the sun the stars.
On thee, Myïscus, the cables of my life are fastened; in thee is the very breath of my soul, what is left of it; for by thine eyes, O boy, that speak even to the deaf, and by thy shining brow, if thou ever dost cast a clouded glance on me, I gaze on winter, and if thou lookest joyously, sweet spring bursts into bloom.
O pastoral pipes, no longer sing of Daphnis on the mountains, to pleasure Pan the lord of the goats; neither do you, O lyre interpretess of Phoebus, any more chant Hyacinthus chapleted with maiden laurel; for time was when Daphnis was delightful to the mountain-nymphs, and Hyacinthus to thee; but now let Dion hold the sceptre of Desire.
Nymphs, tell me true when I inquire if Daphnis passing by rested his white kids here.—Yes, yes, piping Pan, and carved in the bark of yonder poplar a letter to say to thee, "Pan, Pan, come to Malea, to the Psophidian mount; I will be there."—Farewell, Nymphs, I go.
Vine, that hastenest so to drop thy leaves to earth, fearest thou then the evening setting of the Pleiad? abide for sweet sleep to fall on Antileon beneath thee, giving all grace to beauty till then.
Now grey dawn is sweet; but sleepless in the doorway Damis swoons out all that is left of his breath, unhappy, having but seen Heraclitus; for he stood under the beams of his eyes as wax cast among the embers: but arise, I pray thee, luckless Damis; even myself I wear Love's wound and shed tears over thy tears.
Sweet-breathed Isias, though thy sleep be tenfold spice, awake and take this garland in thy dear hands, which, blooming now, thou wilt see withering at daybreak, the likeness of a maiden's prime.
I send thee, Rhodocleia, this garland, which myself have twined of fair flowers beneath my hands; here is lily and rose-chalice and moist anemone, and soft narcissus and dark-glowing violet; garlanding thyself with these, cease to be high-minded; even as the garland thou also dost flower and fall.
If thou boast in thy beauty, know that the rose too blooms, but quickly being withered, is cast on the dunghill; for blossom and beauty have the same time allotted to them, and both together envious time withers away.
The rose is at her prime a little while; which once past, thou wilt find when thou seekest no rose, but a thorn.
Thou remembered haply, thou rememberest when I said to thee that holy word, "Opportunity is the fairest, opportunity the lightest-footed of things; opportunity may not be overtaken by the swiftest bird in air." Now lo! all thy flowers are shed on the ground.
I who once was Laïs, an arrow in all men's hearts, no longer Laïs, am plainly to all the Nemesis of years. Ay, by the Cyprian (and what is the Cyprian now to me but an oath to swear by?) not Laïs herself knows Laïs now.
If beauty grows old, impart thou of it before it be gone; and if it abides, why fear to give away what thou dost keep?
Thou hoardest thy maidenhood; and to what profit? for when thou art gone to Hades thou wilt not find a lover, O girl. Among the living are the Cyprian's pleasures; but in Acheron, O maiden, we shall lie bones and dust.
"To-morrow I will look on thee"—but that never comes for us, while the accustomed putting-off ever grows and grows. This is all thy grace to my longing; and to others thou bearest other gifts, despising my faithful service. "I will see thee at evening." And what is the evening of a woman's life? old age, full of a million wrinkles.
I laugh as I look on the jar of Pandora, nor do I blame the woman, but the wings of the Blessings themselves; for they flutter through the sky over the abodes of all the earth, while they ought to have descended on the ground. But the woman behind the lid, with cheeks grown pallid, has lost the splendour of the beauties that she had, and now our life has missed both ways, because she grows old in it, and the jar is empty.
Now is autumn, Epicles, and out of the belt of Bootes the clear splendour of Arcturus has risen; now the grape-clusters take thought of the sickle, and men thatch their cottages against winter; but thou hast neither warm fleecy cloak nor garment indoors, and thou wilt be shrivelled up with cold and curse the star.
Thou saidst, by the Cyprian, what not even a god might, O greatly- daring spirit; Theron did not appear fair to thee; to thee Theron did not appear fair; nay, thou wouldst have it so: and thou wilt not quake even before the flaming thunderbolt of Zeus. Wherefore lo! indignant Nemesis hath set thee forth to see, who wert once so voluble, for an example of rashness of tongue.
I the Clear Fount (for the Nymphs gave this surname to me beyond all other springs) since a robber slew men who were resting beside me and washed his bloodstained hand in my holy waters, have turned that sweet flow backward, and no longer gush out for wayfarers; for who any more will call me the Clear?
Once on a time when a ship was shattered at sea, two men fell at strife fighting for one plank. Antagoras struck away Pisistratus; one could not blame him, for it was for his life; but Justice took cognisance. The other swam ashore; but him a dog-fish seized; surely the Avenger of the Fates rests not even in the watery deep.
I know that my hands are empty of wealth; but by the Graces, O Menippus, tell me not my own dream; it hurts me to hear evermore this bitter word: yes, my dear, this is the most unloving thing of all I have borne from thee.
Thou wert loved when rich, Sosicrates, but being poor thou art loved no longer; what magic has hunger! And she who before called thee spice and darling Adonis, Menophila, now inquires thy name. Who and whence of men art thou? where is thy city? Surely thou art dull in learning this saying, that none is friend to him who has nothing.
Not of good-will has Fortune advanced thee; but that she may show her omnipotence, even down to thee.
Time carries all things; length of days knows how to change name and shape and nature and fortune.
Know, O Thetis of the sea, that Memnon yet lives and cries aloud, warmed by his mother's torch, in Egypt beneath Libyan brows, where the running Nile severs fair-portalled Thebes; but Achilles, the insatiate of battle, utters no voice either on the Trojan plain or in Thessaly.
Where is thine admired beauty, Dorian Corinth, where thy crown of towers? where thy treasures of old, where the temples of the immortals, where the halls and where the wives of the Sisyphids, and the tens of thousands of thy people that were? for not even a trace, O most distressful one, is left of thee, and war has swept up together and clean devoured all; only we, the unravaged sea-nymphs, maidens of Ocean, abide, halcyons wailing for thy woes.
Would I were yet blown about by ever-shifting gales, rather than fixed for wandering Leto's childbed; I had not so bemoaned my desolation. Ah miserable me, how many Greek ships sail by me, desert Delos, once so worshipful: late, but terrible, is Hera's vengeance laid on me thus for Leto's sake.
If thou art a Spartan born, O stranger, deride me not, for not to me only has Fortune accomplished this; and if of Asia, mourn not, for every city has bowed to the Dardanian sceptre of the Aeneadae. And though the jealous sword of enemies has emptied out Gods' precincts and walls and inhabitants, I am queen again; but do thou, O my child, fearless Rome, lay the yoke of thy law over Greece.
Few of the native places of the heroes are in our eyes, and those yet left rise little above the plain; and such art thou, O hapless Mycenae, as I marked thee in passing by, more desolate than any hill- pasture, a thing that goatherds point at; and an old man said, "Here stood the Cyclopean city rich in gold."
Though I am but drifted desolate dust where once was Mycenae, though I am more obscure to see than any chance rock, he who looks on the famed city of Ilus, whose walls I trod down and emptied all the house of Priam, will know thence how great my former strength was; and if old age has done me outrage, I am content with Homer's testimony.
City built upon Strymon and the broad Hellespont, grave of Edonian Phyllis, Amphipolis, yet there remain left to thee the traces of the temple of her of Aethopion and Brauron, and the water of the river so often fought around; but thee, once the high strife of the sons of Aegeus, we see like a torn rag of sea-purple on either shore.
O Lacedaemon, once unsubdued and untrodden, thou seest shadeless the smoke of Olenian camp-fires on the Eurotas, and the birds building their nests on the ground wail for thee, and the wolves to do not hear any sheep.
Formerly the dead left their city living; but we living hold the city's funeral.
Me, a hull that had measured such spaces of sea, fire consumed on the land that cut her pines to make me. Ocean brought me safe to shore; but I found her who bore me more treacherous than the sea.
I was young, but poor; now in old age I am rich, alas, alone of all men pitiable in both, who then could enjoy when I had nothing, and now have when I cannot enjoy.
Though thou devour me down to the root, yet still will I bear so much fruit as will serve to pour libation on thee, O goat, when thou art sacrificed.
A man finding gold left a halter; but he who had left the gold, not finding it, knotted the halter he found.
I was once the field of Achaemenides, now I am Menippus', and again I shall pass from another to another; for the former thought once that he owned me, and the latter thinks so now in his turn; and I belong to no man at all, but to Fortune.
Hope, and thou Fortune, a long farewell; I have found the haven; there is nothing more between me and you; make your sport of those who come after me.
No more is Hope or Fortune my concern, nor for what remains do I reck of your deceit; I have reached harbour. I am a poor man, but living in Freedom's company I turn my face away from wealth the scorner of poverty.
Hope evermore steals away life's period, till the last morning cuts short all those many businesses.
Seek not on my pages Priam at the altars nor Medea's and Niobe's woes, nor Itys in the hidden chambers, and the nightingales among the leaves; for of all these things former poets wrote abundantly; but mingling with the blithe Graces, sweet Love and the Wine-god; and grave looks become not them.
You with the roses, you are fair as a rose; but what sell you? yourself, or your roses, or both together?
At the Hermaea, Aphrodisius, while lifting six gallons of wine for us, stumbled and dealt us great woe. "From wine also perished the Centaur," and ah that we had too! but now it perished from us.
To the must-drinking Satyrs and to Bacchus, planter of the vine, Heronax consecrated the first handfuls of his plantation, these three casks from three vineyards, filled with the first flow of the wine; from which we, having poured such libation as is meet to crimson Bacchus and the Satyrs, will drink deeper than they.
With this once the sharp North Wind rushing from Thrace covered the flanks of Olympus, and nipped the spirits of thinly-clad men; then it was buried alive, clad in Pierian earth. Let a share of it be mingled for me; for it is not seemly to bear a tepid draught to a friend.
Round-bellied, deftly-turned, one eared, long-throated, straight- necked, bubbling in thy narrow mouth, blithe handmaiden of Bacchus and the Muses and Cytherea, sweet of laughter, delightful ministress of social banquets, why when I am sober art thou in liquor, and when I am drunk, art sober again? Thou wrongest the good-fellowship of drinking.
Xenophon the wine-bibber dedicates an empty jar to thee, Bacchus; receive it graciously, for it is all he has.
I hold revel, regarding the golden choir of the stars at evening, nor do I spurn the dances of others; but garlanding my hair with flowers that drop their petals over me, I waken the melodious harp into passion with musical hands; and doing thus I lead a well-ordered life, for the order of the heavens too has its Lyre and Crown.
Mine be a mattress on the poop, and the awnings over it surrounding with the blows of the spray, and the fire forcing its way out of the hearth-stones, and a pot upon them with empty turmoil of bubbles; and let me see the boy dressing the meat, and my table be a ship's plank covered with a cloth; and a game of pitch and toss, and the boatswain's whistle: the other day I had such fortune, for I love common life.
All the ways of life are pleasant; in the market-place are goodly companionships, and at home griefs are hidden; the country brings pleasure, seafaring wealth, foreign lands knowledge. Marriages make a united house, and the unmarried life is never anxious; a child is a bulwark to his father; the childless are far from fears; youth knows the gift of courage, white hairs of wisdom: therefore, taking courage, live, and beget a family.
Six hours fit labour best: and those that follow, shown forth in letters, say to mortals, "Live."
Whoso has married once and again seeks a second wedding, is a shipwrecked man who sails twice through a difficult gulf.
If you boast high that you are not obedient to your wife's commands, you talk idly, for you are not sprung of oak or rock, as the saying is; and, as is the hard case with most or all of us, you too are in woman's rule. But if you say, "I am not struck with a slipper, nor my wife being unchaste have I to bear it and shut my eyes," I reply that your bondage is lighter, in that you have sold yourself to a reasonable and not to too hard a mistress.
Some say, Nicylla, that you dye your hair; which is as black as can be bought in the market.
The night-raven's song is deadly; but when Demophilus sings, the very night-raven dies.
Snub-nosed Memphis danced Daphnis and Niobe; Daphne like a stock,Niobe like a stone.
Eutychus the portrait-painter got twenty sons, and never got one likeness, even among his children.
Charmus ran for the three miles in Arcadia with five others; surprising to say, he actually came in seventh. When there were only six, perhaps you will say, how seventh? A friend of his went along in his great-coat crying, "Keep it up, Charmus!" and so he arrives seventh; and if only he had had five more friends, Zoïlus, he would have come in twelfth.
Marcus once saw midnight out in the armed men's race, so that the race-course was all locked up, as the police all thought that he was one of the stone men in armour who stand there in honour of victors. Very well, it was opened next day, and then Marcus turned up, still short of the goal by the whole course.
Little Hermogenes, when he lets anything fall on the ground, has to drag it down to him with a hook at the end of a pole.
Lean Gaius yesterday breathed his very last breath, and left nothing at all for burial, but having passed down into Hades just as he was in life, flutters there the thinnest of the anatomies under earth; and his kinsfolk lifted an empty bier on their shoulders, inscribing above it, "This is Gaius' funeral."
Tiny Macron was found asleep one summer day by a mouse, who pulled him by his tiny foot into its hole; but in the hole he strangled the mouse with his naked hands and cried, "Father Zeus, thou hast a second Heracles."
Small Erotion while playing was carried aloft by a gnat, and cried,"What can I do, Father Zeus, if thou dost claim me?"
Fanning thin Artemidora in her sleep, Demetrius blew her clean out of the house.
Epicurus wrote that the whole universe consisted of atoms, thinking, Alcimus, that the atom was the least of things. But if Diophantus had lived then, he would have written, "consisted of Diophantus," who is much more minute than even the atoms, or would have written that all other things indeed consist of atoms, but the atoms themselves of him.
Borne up by a slight breeze, Chaeremon floated through the clear air, far lighter than chaff, and probably would have gone spinning off through ether, but that he caught his feet in a spider's web, and dangled there on his back; there he hung five nights and days, and on the sixth came down by a strand of the web.
Marcus the doctor called yesterday on the marble Zeus; though marble, and though Zeus, his funeral is to-day.
Diophantus the asrologer said that Hermogenes the physician had only nine months to live; and he laughing replied, "what Cronus may do in nine months, do you consider; but I can make short work with you." He spoke, and reaching out, just touched him, and Diophantus, while forbidding another to hope, gasped out his own life.
Diophantus, having seen Hermogenes the physician in sleep, never awoke again, though he wore an amulet.
If you have an enemy, Dionysius, call not down upon him Isis nor Harpocrates, nor whatever god strikes men blind, but Simon; and you will know what God and what Simon can do.
Agclaus killed Acestorides while operating; for, "Poor man," he said, "he would have been lame for life."
All the astrologers as from one mouth prophesied to my father that his brother would reach a great old age; Hermocleides alone said he was fated to die early; and he said so, when we were mourning over his corpse in-doors.
Some one came inquiring of the prophet Olympicus whether he should sail to Rhodes, and how he should have a safe voyage; and the prophet replied, "First have a new ship, and set sail not in winter but in summer; for if you do this you will travel there and back safely, unless a pirate captures you at sea."
Calligenes the farmer, when he had cast his seed into the land, came to the house of Aristophenes the astrologer, and asked him to tell whether he would have a prosperous summer and abundant plenty of corn. And he, taking the counters and ranging them closely on the board, and crooking his fingers, uttered his reply to Calligenes: "If the cornfield gets sufficient rain, and does not breed a crop of flowering weeds, and frost does not crack the furrows, nor hail flay the heads of the springing blades, and the pricket does not devour the crop, and it sees no other injury of weather or soil, I prophesy you a capital summer, and you will cut the ears successfully: only fear the locusts."
All hail, seven pupils of Aristides the rhetorician, four walls and three benches.
A deaf man went to law with a deaf man, and the judge was a long way deafer than both. The one claimed that the other owed him five months' rent; and he replied that he had ground his corn by night; then the judge, looking down on them, said, "Why quarrel? she is your mother; keep her between you."
You have bought a brass hot-water urn, Heliodorus, that is chillier than the north wind about Thrace; do not blow, do not labour, you but raise smoke in vain; it is a brass wine-cooler you have bought against summer.
You have a Thessalian horse, Erasistratus, but the drugs of all Thessaly cannot make him go; the real wooden horse, that if Trojans and Greeks had all pulled together, would never have entered at the Scaean gate; set it up as an offering to some god, if you take my advice, and make gruel for your little children with its barley.
Antiochus once set eyes on Lysimachus' cushion, and Lysimachus never set eyes on his cushion again.
All Cilicians are bad men; among the Cilicians there is one good man,Cinyras, and Cinyras is a Cilician.
Keep clear of a cobra, a toad, a viper, and the Laodiceans; also of a mad dog, and of the Laodiceans once again.
Philo had a boat, the Salvation, but not Zeus himself, I believe, can be safe in her; for she was salvation in name only, and those who got on board her used either to go aground or to go underground.
Asclepiades the miser saw a mouse in his house, and said, "What do you want with me, my very dear mouse?" and the mouse, smiling sweetly, replied, "Do not be afraid, my friend; we do not ask board from you, only lodging."
We saw at dinner the great wisdom of that sturdy beggar the Cynic with the long beard; for at first he abstained from lupines and radishes, saying that Virtue ought not to be a slave to the belly; but when he saw a snowy womb dressed with sharp sauce before his eyes, which at once stole away his sagacious intellect, he unexpectedly asked for it, and ate of it heartily, observing that an entrée could not harm Virtue.
You were not alone in keeping your hands off live things; we do so too; who touches live food, Pythagoras? but we eat what has been boiled and roasted and pickled, and there is no life in it then.
I see Nicon's hooked nose, Menippus; it is evident he is not far off now; oh, he will be here, let us just wait; for at the most his nose is not, I fancy, five stadia off him. Nay, here it is, you see, stepping forward; if we stand on a high mound we shall catch sight of him in person.
Drink, Asclepiades; why these tears? what ails thee? not of thee only has the cruel Cyprian made her prey, nor for thee only bitter Love whetted the arrows of his bow; why while yet alive liest thou in the dust?
In a company where all were drunk, Acindynus must needs be sober; and so he seemed himself the one drunk man there.
I was in love once; who has not been? I have revelled; who is uninitiated in revels? nay, I was mad; at whose prompting but a god's? Let them go; for now the silver hair is fast replacing the black, a messenger of wisdom that comes with age. We too played when the time of playing was; and now that it is no longer, we will turn to worthier thoughts.
Earth and Birth-Goddess, thou who didst bear me and thou who coverest, farewell; I have accomplished the course between you, and I go, not discerning whither I shall travel; for I know not either whose or who I am, or whence I came to you.
Pay no offering of ointments or garlands on my stony tomb, nor make the fire blaze up; the expense is in vain. While I live be kind to me if thou wilt; but drenching my ashes with wine thou wilt make mire, and the dead man will not drink.
A little dust of earth suffices me; let another lie richly, weighed down by his extravagant tombstone, that grim weight over the dead, who will know me here in death as Alcander son of Calliteles.
Dear Earth, take old Amyntichus to thy bosom, remembering his many labours on thee; for ever he planted in thee the olive-stock, and often made thee fair with vine-cuttings, and filled thee full of corn, and, drawing channels of water along, made thee rich with herbs and plenteous in fruit: do thou in return lie softly over his grey temples and flower into tresses of spring herbage.
A gentler old age and no dulling disease quenched thee, and thou didst fall asleep in the slumber to which all must come, O Eratosthenes, after pondering over high matters; nor did Cyrene where thou sawest the light receive thee within the tomb of thy fathers, O son of Aglaus; yet dear even in a foreign land art thou buried here, by the edge of the beach of Proteus.
Even as a vine on her dry pole I support myself now on a staff, and death calls me to Hades. Be not obstinately deaf, O Gorgus; what is it the sweeter for thee if for three or four summers yet thou shalt warm thyself beneath the sun? So saying the aged man quietly put his life aside, and removed his house to the greater company.
Crantor was delightful to men and yet more delightful to the Muses, and did not live far into age: O earth, didst thou enfold the sacred man in death, or does he still live in gladness there?
Naiads and chill cattle-pastures, tell to the bees when they come on their springtide way, that old Leucippus perished on a winter's night, setting snares for scampering hares, and no longer is the tending of the hives dear to him; but the pastoral dells mourn sore for him who dwelt with the mountain peak for neighbour.
Shepherds who pass over this ridge of hill pasturing your goats and fleecy sheep, pay to Clitagoras, in Earth's name, a small but kindly grace, for the sake of Persephone under ground; let sheep bleat by me, and the shepherd on an unhewn stone pipe softly to them as they feed, and in early spring let the countryman pluck the meadow flower to engarland my tomb with a garland, and let one make milk drip from a fruitful ewe, holding up her milking-udder, to wet the base of my tomb: there are returns for favours to dead men, there are, even among the departed.
Even here shall the holy bird rest his swift wing, sitting on this murmuring plane, since Poemander the Malian is dead and comes no more with birdlime smeared on his fowling reeds.
Here to thee by the threshing floor, O toiling worker ant, I rear a memorial to thee of a thirsty clod, that even in death the ear- nurturing furrow of Demeter may lull thee as thou liest in thy rustic cell.
No more along the shady woodland copse, O hunter partridge, dost thou send thy clear cry from thy mouth as thou decoyest thy speckled kinsfolk in their forest feeding-ground; for thou art gone on the final road of Acheron.
O bird beloved of the Graces, O rivalling the halcyons in likeness of thy note, thou art snatched away, dear warbler, and thy ways and thy sweet breath are held in the silent paths of night.
No longer in the wealthy house of Alcis, O shrill grasshopper, shall the sun behold thee singing; for now thou art flown to the meadows of Clymenus and the dewy flowers of golden Persephone.
Ah thou poor Thyrsis, what profit is it if thou shalt waste away the apples of thy two eyes with tears in thy mourning? the kid is gone, the pretty young thing, is gone to Hades; for a savage wolf crunched her in his jaws; and the dogs bay; what profit is it, when of that lost one not a bone nor a cinder is left?
Thirst slew hunter Lampo, Midas' dog, though he toiled hard for his life; for he dug with his paws in the moist flat, but the slow water made no haste out of her blind spring, and he fell in despair; then the water gushed out. Ah surely, Nymphs, you laid on Lampo your wrath for the slain deer.
Unherded at evenfall the oxen came to the farmyard from the hill, snowed on with heavy snow; alas, and Therimachus sleeps the long sleep beside an oak, stretched there by fire from heaven.
I know not whether I shall complain of Dionysus or blame the rain of Zeus, but both are treacherous for feet. For the tomb holds Polyxenus, who returning once to the country from a feast, tumbled over the slippery slopes, and lies far from Aeolic Smyrna: but let one full of wine fear a rainy footpath in the dark.
Let not this be of too much moment to thee, O Philaenis, that thou hast not found thine allotted earth by the Nile, but this tomb holds thee in Eleutherne; for to comers from all places there is an equal way to Hades.
Strange dust covers thy body, and the lot of death took thee, O Cleisthenes, wandering in the Euxine sea; and thou didst fail of sweet and dear home-coming, nor ever didst reach sea-girt Chios.
Alas, why wander we, trusting in vain hopes and forgetting baneful death? this Seleucus was perfect in his words and ways, but, having enjoyed his youth but a little, among the utmost Iberians, so far away from Lesbos, he lies a stranger on unmapped shores.
Already almost in touch of my native land, "To-morrow," I said, "the wind that has set so long against me will abate"; not yet had the speech died on my lip, and the sea was even as Hades, and that light word broke me down. Beware of every speech with to-morrow in it; not even small things escape the Nemesis that avenges the tongue.
Not even when at anchor trust the baleful sea, O sailor, nor even if dry land hold thy cables; for Ion fell into the harbour, and at the plunge wine tied his quick sailor's hands. Beware of revelling on ship-board; the sea is enemy to Iacchus; this law the Tyrrhenians ordained.
Even in death shall the implacable sea vex me, Lysis hidden beneath a lonely rock, ever sounding harshly by my ear and alongside of my deaf tomb. Why, O fellow-men, have you made my dwelling by this that reft me of breath, me whom not trading in my merchant-ship but sailing in a little rowing-boat, it brought to shipwreck? and I who sought my living out of the sea, out of the sea likewise drew my death.
Hapless Nicanor, doomed by the grey sea, thou liest then naked on a strange beach, or haply by the rocks, and those wealthy halls are perished from thee, and lost is the hope of all Tyre; nor did aught of thy treasures save thee; alas, pitiable one! thou didst perish, and all thy labour was for the fishes and the sea.
O man, be sparing of life, neither go on sea-faring beyond the time; even so the life of man is not long. Miserable Cleonicus, yet thou didst hasten to come to fair Thasos, a merchantman out of hollow Syria, O merchant Cleonicus; but hard on the sinking of the Pleiad as thou journeyedst over the sea, as the Pleiad sank, so didst thou.
Not even in death shall I Theris, tossed shipwrecked upon land by the waves, forget the sleepless shores; for beneath the spray-beaten reefs, nigh the disastrous main, I found a grave at the hands of strangers, and for ever do I wretchedly hear roaring even among the dead the hated thunder of the sea.
O happy shepherd, would that even I had shepherded on the mountain along this white grassy hill, making the bleating folk move after the leader rams, rather than have dipped a ship's steering-rudders in the bitter brine: so I sank under the depths, and the east wind that swallowed me down cast me up again on this shore.
Keep eight cubits away from me, O rough sea, and billow and roar with all thy might; but if thou pullest down the grave of Eumares, thou wilt find nothing of value, but only bones and dust.
Would that swift ships had never been, for we should not have bewailed Sopolis son of Diocleides; but now somewhere in the sea he drifts dead, and instead of him we pass by a name on an empty tomb.
And when shall thy swirling passage be free from fear, say, O sea, if even in the days of the halcyons we must weep, of the halcyons for whom Ocean evermore stills his windless wave, that one might think dry land less trustworthy? but even when thou callest thyself a gentle nurse and harmless to women in labour, thou didst drown Aristomenes with his freight.
Thee too, son of Cleanor, desire after thy native land destroyed, trusting to the wintry gust of the South; for the unsecured season entangled thee, and the wet waves washed away thy lovely youth.
Not yet were thy tresses cut, nor had the monthly courses of the moon driven a three years' space, O poor Cleodicus, when thy mother Nicasis, clasping thy coffin, wailed long over thy lamented grave, and thy father Pericleitus; but an unknown Acheron thou shalt flower out the youth that never, never returns.
This girl passed to Hades untimely, in her seventh year, before her many playmates, poor thing, pining for her baby brother, who at twenty months old tasted of loveless Death. Alas, ill-fated Peristeris, how near at hand God has set the sorest griefs to men.
Hades inexorable and inflexible, why hast thou thus reft infant Callaeschrus of life? Surely the child will be a plaything in the palace of Persephone, but at home he has left bitter sorrows.
Ah wretched Anticles, and wretched I who have laid on the pyre in the flower of youth my only son, thee, child, who didst perish at eighteen years; and I weep, bewailing an orphaned old age: fain would I go to the shadowy house of Hades; neither is morn sweet to me, nor the beam of the swift sun. Ah wretched Anticles, struck down by fate, be thou healer of my sorrow, taking me with thee out of life.
I Philaenion who gave birth but for the pyre, I the woeful mother, I who had seen the threefold grave of my children, anchored my trust on another's pangs; for I surely hoped that he at least would live, whom I had not borne. So I, who once had fair children, brought up an adopted son; but God would not let me have even a second mother's grace; for being called ours he perished, and now I am become a woe to the rest of mothers too.
Ever insatiate Charon, why hast thou wantonly taken young Attalus? was he not thine, even if he had died old?
Protomachus said, as his father held him in his hands when he was breathing away his lovely youth, "O son of Timenor, thou wilt never forget thy dear son, nor cease to long for his valour and his wisdom."
Already the saffron-strewn bride-bed was spread within the golden wedding-chamber for the bride of Pitane, Cleinareta, and her guardians Demo and Nicippus hoped to light the torch-flame held at stretch of arm and lifted in both hands, when sickness snatched her away yet a maiden, and drew her to the sea of Lethe; and her sorrowing companions knocked not on the bridal doors, but on their own smitten breasts in the clamour of death.
Not marriage but Death for bridegroom did Clearista receive when she loosed the knot of her maidenhood: for but now at even the flutes sounded at the bride's portal, and the doors of the wedding-chamber were clashed; and at morn they cried the wail, and Hymenaeus put to silence changed into a voice of lamentation; and the same pine-brands flashed their torchlight before the bride-bed, and lit the dead on her downward way.
In season the bride-chamber held thee, out of season the grave took thee, O Anastasia, flower of the blithe Graces; for thee a father, for thee a husband pours bitter tears; for thee haply even the ferryman of the dead weeps; for not a whole year didst thou accomplish beside thine husband, but at sixteen years old, alas! the tomb holds thee.
Unhappy, by what first word, by what second shall I name thee? unhappy! this word is true in every ill. Thou art gone, O gracious wife, who didst carry off the palm in bloom of beauty and in bearing of soul; Prote wert thou truly called, for all else comes second to those inimitable graces of thine.
This last word, O famous city of Phocaea, Theano spoke as she went down into the unharvested night: "Woe's me unhappy; Apellichus, husband, what length, what length of sea dost thou cross on thine own ship! but nigh me stands my doom; would God I had but died with my hand clasped in thy dear hand."
Heliodorus went first, and Diogeneia the wife, not an hour's space after, followed her dear husband; and both, even as they dwelt together, are buried under this slab, rejoicing in their common tomb even as in a bride-chamber.
Tears I give to thee even below with earth between us, Heliodora, such relic of love as may pass to Hades, tears sorely wept; and on thy much-wailed tomb I pour the libation of my longing, the memorial of my affection. Piteously, piteously, I Meleager make lamentation for thee, my dear, even among the dead, an idle gift to Acheron. Woe's me, where is my cherished flower? Hades plucked her, plucked her and marred the freshly-blown blossom with his dust. But I beseech thee, Earth, that nurturest all, gently to clasp her, the all-lamented, O mother, to thy breast.
Ah blessed one, dearest companion of the immortal Muses, fare thou well even in the house of Hades, Callimachus.
May flowers grow thick on thy newly-built tomb, not the dry bramble, not the evil weed, but violets and margerain and wet narcissus, Vibius, and around thee may all be roses.
My name—Why this?—and my country—And to what end this?—and I am of illustrious race—Yea, if thou hadst been of the obscurest?—Having lived nobly I left life—If ignobly?—and I lie here now—Who art thou that sayest this, and to whom?
I died, but I await thee; and thou too shalt await some one else: oneDeath receives all mortals alike.
Morning Star that once didst shine among the living, now deceased thou shinest the Evening Star among the dead.
Let us bathe, Prodice, and garland ourselves, and drain unmixed wine, lifting larger cups; little is our life of gladness, then old age will stop the rest, and death is the end.
Must I not die? what matters it to me whether I depart to Hades gouty or fleet of foot? for many will carry me; let me become lame, for hardly on their account need I ever cease from revelling.
Thou reckonest, poor wretch; but advancing time breeds white old age even as it does interest; and neither having drunk, nor bound a flower on thy brows, nor ever known myrrh nor a delicate darling, thou shalt be dead, leaving thy great treasury in its wealth, out of those many coins carrying with thee but the one.
All human must pay the debt of death, nor is there any mortal who knows whether he shall be alive to-morrow; learning this clearly, O man, make thee merry, keeping the wine-god close by thee for oblivion of death, and take thy pleasure with the Paphian while thou drawest thy ephemeral life; but all else give to Fortune's control.
Drink and be merry; for what is to-morrow or what the future? no man knows. Run not, labour not; as thou canst, give, share, consume, be mortal-minded; to be alive and not to be alive are no way at all apart. All life is such, only the turn of the scale; if thou art beforehand, it is thine; and if thou diest, all is another's, and thou hast nothing.
Be young, dear my soul: soon will others be men, and I being dead shall be dark earth.
Five feet shalt thou possess as thou liest dead, nor shalt see the pleasant things of life nor the beams of the sun; then joyfully lift and drain the unmixed cup of wine, O Cincius, holding a lovely wife in thine arms; and if philosophy say that thy mind is immortal, know that Cleanthes and Zeno went down to deep Hades.
Thou slumberest, O comrade; but the cup itself cries to thee, "Awake; do not make thy pleasure in the rehearsal of death." Spare not, Diodorus, slipping greedily into wine, drink deep, even to the tottering of the knee. Time shall be when we shall not drink, long and long; nay come, make haste; prudence already lays her hand on our temples.
Men skilled in the stars call me brief-fated; I am, but I care not, O Seleucus. There is one descent for all to Hades; and if ours comes quicker, the sooner shall we look on Minos. Let us drink; for surely wine is a horse for the high-road, when foot-passengers take a by-path to Death.