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Greek Anthology Book 7

ToposText · Greek Anthology · 753 sections

  1. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.300

    § 7.300 SIMONIDES Here the earth covers Pythonax and his brother, before they saw the prime of their lovely youth. Their father, Megaristus, set up this monument to them dead, an immortal gift to his mortal sons.

  2. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.301

    § 7.301 SIMONIDES Leonidas, King of spacious Sparta, illustrious are they who died with thee and are buried here. They faced in battle with the Medes the force of multitudinous bows and of steeds fleet of foot.

  3. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.302

    § 7.302 SIMONIDES Every man grieves at the death of those near to him, but his friends and the city regret (?) Nicodicus.

  4. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.303

    § 7.303 ANTIPATER OF SIDON When little Cleodemus, still living on milk, set his foot outside the edge of the ship, the truly Thracian Boreas cast him into the swelling sea, and the waves put out the light of the baby’s life. Ino, thou art a goddess who knowest not pity, since thou didst not avert bitter death from this child of the same age as thy Melicertes.

  5. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.304

    § 7.304 PISANDER OF RHODES The man’s name was Hippaemon, the horse’s Podargos, the dog’s Lethargos, and the serving-man’s Babes, a Thessalian, from Crete, of Magnesian race, the son of Haemon. He perished fighting in the front ranks.

  6. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.305

    § 7.305 ADDAEUS OF MITYLENE The fisherman, Diotimus, whose boat, one and the same, was his faithful bearer at sea and on land the abode of his penury, fell into the sleep from which there is no awakening, and rowing himself, came to relentless Hades in his own ship; for the boat that had supported the old man in life paid him its last service in death too by being the wood for his pyre.

  7. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.306

    § 7.306 ANONYMOUS I was Abrotonon, a Thracian woman; but I say that I bare for Greece her great Themistocles.

  8. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.307

    § 7.307 PAULUS SILENTIARIUS A. “MY name is — — B. ”What does it matter?" A. “My country is — -” B. “And what does that matter?” A. “I am of noble race.” B. “And if you were of the very dregs?” A. “I quitted life with a good reputation.” B. “And had it been a bad one?” A. “And I now lie here.” B. “Who are you and to whom are you telling this?”

  9. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.308

    § 7.308 LUCIANUS My name is Callimachus, and pitiless Hades carried me off when I was five years old and knew not care. Yet weep not for me; but a small share of life was mine and a small share of life’s evil.

  10. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.309

    § 7.309 ANONYMOUS I, Dionysius, lie here, sixty years old. I am of Tarsus; I never married and I wish my father never had.

  11. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.310

    § 7.310 Anonymous My murderer buried me, hiding his crime: since he gives me a tomb, may he meet with the same kindness as he shewed me.

  12. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.311

    § 7.311 AGATHIAS SCHOLASTICUS On Lot's Wife This tomb has no corpse inside it; this corpse has no tomb outside it, but it is its own corpse and tomb.

  13. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.312

    § 7.312 ASINIUS QUADRATUS On those slain by Sulla They who took up arms against the Romans lie exhibiting the tokens of their valour. Not one died wounded in the back, but all alike perished by a secret treacherous death.

  14. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.313

    § 7.313 Anonymous on Timon the Misanthrope Here I lie, having broken away from my luckless soul. My name ye shall not learn, and may ye come, bad men, to a bad end. (313-20 are on the same)

  15. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.314

    § 7.314 PTOLEMAEUS Learn not whence I am nor my name; know only that I wish those who pass my monument to die.

  16. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.315

    § 7.315 ZENODOTUS or RHIANUS Dry earth, grow a prickly thorn to twine all round me, or the wild branches of a twisting bramble, that not even a bird in spring may rest its light foot on me, but that I may repose in peace and solitude. For I, the misanthrope, Timon, who was not even beloved by my countrymen, am no genuine dead man even in Hades.

  17. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.316

    § 7.316 LEONIDAS or ANTIPATER Pass by my monument, neither greeting me, nor asking who I am and whose son. Otherwise mayst thou never reach the end of the journey thou art on, and if thou passest by in silence, not even then mayst thou reach the journey’s end.

  18. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.317

    § 7.317 CALLIMACHUS “ Timon — for thou art no more — which is most hateful to thee, darkness or light?” “Darkness; there are more of you in Hades.” I cannot be regarded as a real citizen of Hades, being the enemy of my fellow ghosts.

  19. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.318

    § 7.318 CALLIMACHUS(?) Wish me not well, thou evil-hearted, but pass on. It is the same as if it were well with me if I get rid of thy company.

  20. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.319

    § 7.319 ANONYMOUS Timon is savage even now he is dead. Cerberus, door-keeper of Pluto, take care he doesn’t bite you.

  21. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.320

    § 7.320 HEGESIPPUS All around the tomb are sharp thorns and stakes; you will hurt your feet if you go near. I, Timon the misanthrope, dwell in it. But pass on — wish me all evil if you like, only pass on.

  22. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.321

    § 7.321 ANONYMOUS Dear Earth, receive old Amyntichus in thy bosom, mindful of all his toil for thee. Many an evergreen olive he planted in thee and with the vines of Bacchus he decked thee; he caused thee to abound in corn, and guiding the water in channels he made thee rich in pot-herbs and fruit. Therefore lie gently on his grey temples and clothe thee with many flowers in spring.

  23. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.322

    § 7.322 ANONYMOUS Look on the tomb of Cnossian Idomeneus, and I, Meriones the son of Molos, have mine hard by.

  24. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.323

    § 7.323 ANONYMOUS One tomb holds two brothers, for both were born and died on the same day.

  25. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.324

    § 7.324 ANONYMOUS Beneath this stone I lie, the celebrated woman who loosed my zone to one man alone.

  26. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.325

    § 7.325 ANONYMOUS On Sardanapallus I have all I ate and drank and the delightful things I learnt with the Loves, but all my many and rich possessions I left behind.

  27. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.326

    § 7.326 CRATES OF THEBES I have all I got by study and by thought and the grave things I learnt with the Muses, but all my many and rich possessions Vanity seized on.

  28. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.327

    § 7.327 Anonymous on Cassandros the beautiful, buried at Larissa Do not thou, being mortal, reckon on anything as if thou wert immortal, for nothing in life is certain for men, the children of a day. See how this sarcophagus holds Cassandros dead, a man worthy of an immortal nature.

  29. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.328

    § 7.328 ANONYMOUS on the same What stone did not shed tears at thy death, Cassandros, what rock shall forget thy beauty? But the merciless and envious demon slew thee aged only six and twenty, widowing thy wife and thy afflicted old parents, worn by hateful mourning.

  30. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.329

    § 7.329 ANONYMOUS I am Myrtas who quaffed many a generous cup of unwatered wine beside the holy vats of Dionysus, and no light layer of earth covers me, but a wine-jar, the token of my merrymaking, rests on me, a pleasant tomb.

  31. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.330

    § 7.330 ANONYMOUS In Dorylaeum The sarcophagus that you see was set here by Maximus during his life for himself to inhabit after his death. He made this monument too for his wife Calepodia, that thus among the dead too he might have her love.

  32. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.331

    § 7.331 ANONYMOUS At Oraca in Phrygia This tomb was given me by my husband Phroures, a reward worthy of my piety. In my husband’s house I leave a fair-famed company of children, to bear faithful testimony to my virtue. I die the wife of one husband, and still live in ten living beings, having enjoyed the fruit of prolific wedlock.

  33. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.332

    § 7.332 ANONYMOUS At Acmonia I had an unhappy end, for I was a rearer of animals and Bacche slew me, not in a race on the course, but during the training for which I was renowned.

  34. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.333

    § 7.333 ANONYMOUS At Hadriani in Phrygia Mother, not even there with the infernal deities shouldest thou be without a share of the gifts it is meet we should give thee. Therefore have I, Nicomachus, and thy daughter Dione erected this tomb and pillar for thy sake.

  35. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.334

    § 7.334 ANONYMOUS Found at Cyzicus Cruel fate, why didst thou show me the light for the brief measure of a few years? Was it to vex my unhappy mother with tears and lamentations owing to my death? She it was who bore me and reared me and took much more pains than my father in my education. For he left me an orphan in his house when I was but a tiny child, but she toiled all she could for my sake. My desire was to distinguish myself in speaking in the courts before our righteous magistrates, but it did not fall to her to welcome the first down on my chin, herald of lovely prime, nor my marriage torches; she never sang the solemn bridal hymn for me, nor looked, poor woman, upon a child of mine who would keep the memory of our lamented race alive. Yea, even in death it grieves me sore, the ever-growing sorrow of my mother Politta as she mourns and thinks of her Fronto, she who bore him short-lived, an empty delight of our dear country.

  36. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.335

    § 7.335 ANONYMOUS A. “POLITTA, support thy grief and still thy tears; many mothers have seen their sons dead.” B. “But not such as he was in character and life, not so reverencing their mother's dearest face.” A. “Why mourn in vain, why this idle lamentation? All men shall come to Hades.”

  37. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.336

    § 7.336 ANONYMOUS Worn by age and poverty, no one stretching out his hand to relieve my misery, on my tottering legs I went slowly to my grave, scarce able to reach the end of my wretched life. In my case the law of death was reversed, for I did not die first to be then buried, but I died after my burial.

  38. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.337

    § 7.337 ANONYMOUS Do not, most noble wayfarer, pass by the tomb hurrying on thy way with tireless feet, but look on it, and· ask “Who art thou, and whence?” So shalt thou know Harmonia whose family is illustrious in Megara. For in her one could observe all things which bring fame to men, a loveable nobility, a gentle character and virtue. Such was she whose tomb you look on; her soul putting off the body strives to gain the paths of heaven.

  39. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.338

    § 7.338 ANONYMOUS Here stand I, O Pericles, son of Archias, the stone stele, a record of thy chase. All are carved about thy monument; thy horses, darts, dogs, stakes and the nets on them. Alas! they are all of stone; the wild creatures run about free, but thou aged only twenty sleepest the sleep from which there is no awakening.

  40. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.339

    § 7.339 ANONYMOUS (Not Sepulchral) It was not for any sin of mine that I was born of my parents. I was born, poor wretch, and I journey towards Hades. Oh death-dealing union of my parents! Oh for the necessity which will lead me to dismal death! From nothing I was bora, and again I shall be nothing as at first. Nothing, nothing is the race of mortals. Therefore make the cup bright, my friend, and give me wine the consoler of sorrow.

  41. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.340

    § 7.340 ANONYMOUS Found in Thessalonica Marathonis laid Nicopolis in this sarcophagus, bedewing the marble chest with tears. But it profited him naught. What is left but sorrow for a man alone in the world, his wife gone?

  42. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.341

    § 7.341 PROCLUS I am Proclus of Lycia, whom Syrianus educated here to be his successor in the school. This our common tomb received the bodies of both, and would that one place might receive our spirits too.

  43. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.342

    § 7.342 ANONYMOUS I am dead, but await thee, and thou too shalt await another. One Hades receives all mortals alike.

  44. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.343

    § 7.343 ANONYMOUS The tomb possesses Paterius, sweet-spoken and loveable, the dear son of Miltiades and sorrowing Atticia, a child of Athens of the noble race of the Aeacidae, full of knowledge of Roman law and of all wisdom, endowed with the brilliance of all the four virtues, a young man of charm, whom Fate carried off, even as the whirlwind uproots a beautiful sapling. He was in his twenty-fourth year and left to his dear parents undying lament and mourning.

  45. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.344a

    § 7.344a SIMONIDES I am the most valiant of beasts, and most valiant of men is he whom I guard standing on this stone tomb.

  46. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.344b

    § 7.344b CALLIMACHUS Never, unless Leo had had my courage and strength would I have set foot on this tomb.

  47. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.345

    § 7.345 ANONYMOUS I Philainis, celebrated among men, have been laid to rest here, by extreme old age. Thou silly sailor, as thou roundest the cape, make no sport and mockery of me; insult me not. For by Zeus I swear and the Infernal Lords I was not lascivious with men or a public woman; but Polycrates the Athenian, a cozener in speech and an evil tongue, wrote whatever he wrote; for I know not what it was.

  48. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.346

    § 7.346 ANONYMOUS In Corinth This little stone, good Sabinus, is a memorial of our great friendship. I shall ever miss thee; and if so it may be, when with the dead thou drinkest of Lethe, drink not thou forgetfulness of me.

  49. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.347

    § 7.347 ANONYMOUS This is the tomb of that Adeimantus through whose counsel Greece put on the crown of freedom.

  50. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.348

    § 7.348 SIMONIDES Here I lie, Timocreon of Rhodes, after drinking much and eating much and speaking much ill of men.

  51. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.349

    § 7.349 ANONYMOUS After eating little and drinking little and suffering much sickness I lasted long, but at length I did die. A curse on you all!

  52. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.350

    § 7.350 ANONYMOUS Ask not, sea-farer, whose tomb I am, but thyself chance upon a kinder sea.

  53. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.351

    § 7.351 DIOSCORIDES Not, by this, the solemn oath of the dead, did we daughters of Lycambes, who have gotten such an evil name, ever disgrace our maidenhead or our parents or Paros, queen of the holy islands; but Archilochus poured on our family a flood of horrible reproach and evil report. By the gods and demons we swear that we never set eyes on Archilochus, either in the streets or in Hera’s great precinct. If we had been wanton and wicked, he would never have wished lawful children born to him by us.

  54. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.352

    § 7.352 ANONYMOUS, BY SOME ATTRIBUTED TO MELEAGER We swear by the right hand of Hades and the dark couch of Persephone whom none may name, that we are truly virgins even here under ground; but bitter Archilochus poured floods of abuse on our maidenhood, directing to no noble end but to war with women the noble language of his verse. Ye Muses, why to do favour to an impious man, did ye turn upon girls those scandalous iambics?

  55. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.353

    § 7.353 ANTIPATER OF SIDON This is the monument of grey-haired Maronis, on whose tomb you see a wine cup carved in stone. She the wine-bibber and chatterer, is not sorry for her children or her children’s destitute father, but one thing she laments even in her grave, that the device of the wine-god on the tomb is not full of wine.

  56. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.354

    § 7.354 GAETULICUS This is the tomb of Medea’s children, whom her burning jealousy made the victims of Glauce’s wedding. To them the Corinthian land ever sends peace-offerings, propitiating their mother’s implacable soul.

  57. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.355

    § 7.355 DAMAGETUS Bid good Praxiteles “hail,” ye passers-by, that cheering and honouring word. He was well gifted by the Muses and a jolly after-dinner companion. Hail, Praxiteles of Andros!

  58. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.356

    § 7.356 ANONYMOUS On one who was killed by a robber and then buried by him You robbed me of my life, and then you give me a tomb. But you hide me, you don’t bury me. May you have the benefit of such a tomb yourself!

  59. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.357

    § 7.357 THOUGH you hide me as if no one saw you, the eye of Justice sees all that happens.

  60. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.358

    § 7.358 Wretch! you killed and then buried me with those hands that slew me. May you not escape Nemesis.

  61. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.359

    § 7.359 If you had found me dead and buried me out of pity, the gods would have rewarded you for your piety. But now that you who slew me hide me in a tomb, may you meet with the same treatment that I met with at your hands.

  62. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.360

    § 7.360 Having killed me with your hands you build me a tomb, not to bury me, but to hide me. May you meet with the same fate!

  63. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.361

    § 7.361 ANONYMOUS: THE father erects this tomb to his son. The reverse had been just, but Envy was quicker than Justice.

  64. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.362

    § 7.362 PHILIPPUS OF THESSALONICA Here the sarcophagus holds the holy head of good Aetius, the distinguished orator. To the house of Hades went his body, but his soul in Olympus rejoices with Zeus and the other gods.

  65. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.363

    § 7.363 ANONYMOUS This tomb of polished metal covers the body of the great hero Zenodotus; but his soul has found in heaven, where Orpheus and Plato are, a holy seat fit to receive a god. He was a valiant knight in the Emperor’s service, famous, eloquent, god-like; in his speech he was a Latin copy of Socrates. Bequeathing to his children a handsome fortune, he died while still a vigorous old man, leaving infinite sorrow to his noble friends, city and citizens.

  66. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.364

    § 7.364 MARCUS ARGENTARIUS Myro made this tomb for her grasshopper and cicada, sprinkling a little dust over them both and weeping regretfully over their pyre; for the songster was seized by Hades and the other by Persephone.

  67. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.365

    § 7.365 ZONAS OF SARDIS, ALSO CALLED DIODORUS Dark Charon, who through the water of this reedy lake rowest the boat of the dead to Hades... reach out thy hand from the mounting-ladder to the son of Cinyras as he embarks, and receive him; for the boy cannot walk steadily in his sandals, and he fears to set his bare feet on the sand of the beach.

  68. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.366

    § 7.366 ANTISTIUS To thee, Menestratus, the mouth of the Aous was fatal; to thee, Menander, the tempest of the Carpathian Sea; and thou, Dionysius, didst perish at sea in the Sicilian Strait. Alas, what grief to Hellas! the best of all her winners in the games gone.

  69. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.367

    § 7.367 ANTIPATER OF THESSALONICA Say that I am the corpse of Italian Egerius whose eyes when he went to meet his bride were veiled by a dim cloud, which extinguished his life together with his eyesight, after he had but seen the girl. Alas, O Sun, that heaven allotted him such a fate! Cursed be that envious wedding torch, whether unwilling Hymen lit or willing Hades.

  70. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.368

    § 7.368 ERYCIUS I am a woman of Athens, for that is my birthplace, but the destroying sword of the Italians long ago took me captive at Athens and made me a citizen of Rome, and now that I am dead island Cyzicus covers my bones. Hail ye three lands, thou which didst nourish me, thou to which my lot took me afterwards and thou that didst finally receive me in thy bosom.

  71. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.369

    § 7.369 ANTIPATER OF THESSALONICA I am the tomb of the orator Antipater. Ask all Greece to testify to his inspiration. He lies here, and men dispute whether his birth was from Athens or from Egypt; but he was worthy of both continents. For the matter of that, the lands are of one blood, as Greek legend says, but the one is ever allotted to Pallas and the other to Zeus.

  72. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.370

    § 7.370 DIODORUS Menander of Athens, the son of Diopeithes, the friend of Bacchus and the Muses, rests beneath me, or at least the little dust he shed in the funeral fire. But if thou seekest Menander himself thou shalt find him in the abode of Zeus or in the Islands of the Blest.

  73. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.371

    § 7.371 CRINAGORAS Earth was my mother’s name, and earth too covers me now I am dead. No worse is this earth than the other: in this I shall lie for long, but from my mother the violent heat of the sun snatched me away and in a strange earth I lie under a stone, Inachus, the much bewept and the obedient servant of Crinagoras.

  74. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.372

    § 7.372 LOLLIUS BASSUS Earth of Tarentum, keep gently this body of a good man. How false are the guardian divinities of mortal men! Atymnius, coming from Thebes, got no further, but settled under thy soil. He left an orphan son, whom his death deprived, as it were, of his eyes. Lie not heavy upon the stranger.

  75. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.373

    § 7.373 THALLUS OF MILETUS Two shining lights, Miletus, sprung from thee, doth the Italian earth cover, dead each ere his prime. Thou hast put on mourning instead of garlands, and thou seeest, alas, their remains hidden in a little urn. Alack, thrice unhappy country! Whence and when shalt thou have again two such stars to boast of, shedding their light on Greece?

  76. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.374

    § 7.374 MARCUS ARGENTARIUS My ill-fated body was covered by the sea, and beside the waves my mother, Lysidice, wept for me much, gazing at my false and empty tomb, while my evil genius sent my lifeless corpse to be tossed with the sea-gulls on the deep. My name was Pnytagoras and I met my fate on the Aegean, when taking in the stem cables because of the north-wind. Yet not even so did I end my voyage, but from my ship I embarked on another boat among the dead.

  77. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.375

    § 7.375 ANTIPHILUS OF BYZANTIUM (Not sepulchral) My house collapsed with the earthquake; yet my chamber remained erect, as its walls stood the shock. There while I lay, as if hiding in a cave, the unhappy labour-pains overtook me, and another dread was mingled with that of the earthquake. Nature herself was the midwife, and the child and I both together saw the sun above the earth.

  78. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.376

    § 7.376 CRINAGORAS Unhappy men! why do we wander confiding in empty hopes, oblivious of painful death? Here was this Seleucus so perfect in speech and character; but after enjoying his prime but for a season, in Spain, at the end of the world, so far from Lesbos, he lies a stranger on that uncharted coast.

  79. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.377

    § 7.377 ERYCIUS Even though he lies under earth, still pour pitch on foul-mouthed Parthenius, because he vomited on the Muses those floods of bile, and the filth of his repulsive elegies. So far gone was he in madness that he called the Odyssey mud and the Iliad a bramble. Therefore he is bound by the dark Furies in the middle of Cocytus, with a dog -collar that chokes him round his neck.

  80. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.378

    § 7.378 APOLLONIDES Hemodokus went first, and in even less than an hour his wife, Diogenia, followed her dear husband. Both, even as they dwelt together, are interred under one stone, happy to share one tomb, as erst to share one chamber

  81. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.379

    § 7.379 ANTIPHILUS OF BYZANTIUM (Not Sepulchral) A. “TELL me, Dicaearchia, why thou hast built thee so vast a mole in the sea, reaching out to the middle of the deep? They were Cyclopes’ hands that planted such walls in the sea. How long, O Land, shalt thou do violence to us?” B. “I can receive the navies of the world. Look at Rome hard by; is not my harbour as great as she?”

  82. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.380

    § 7.380 CRINAGORAS Though the monument be of Parian marble., and polished by the mason’s straight rule, it is not a good man’s. Do not, good sir, estimate the dead by the stone. The stone is senseless and can cover a foul black corpse as well as any other. Here lies that weak rag the body of Eunicides and rots under the ashes.

  83. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.381

    § 7.381 ETRUSCUS OF MESSENE The same boat, a double task exacted of it, carried Hieroclides to his living and into Hades. It fed him by his fishing, and it burnt him dead, travelling with him to the chase and travelling with him to Hades. Indeed the fisherman was very well off, as he sailed the seas in his own ship and raced to Hades by means of his own ship.

  84. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.382

    § 7.382 PHILIPPUS OF THESSALONICA Thou gavest me up dead to the land, cruel sea, and now thou earnest off the little remnant of my ashes. I alone am shipwrecked even in Hades, and not even on land shall I cease to be dashed on the dreadful rocks. Either bury me, hiding (?) me in thy waters, or if thou givest me up to the land, steal not a corpse that now belongs to the land.

  85. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.383

    § 7.383 PHILIPPUS OF THESSALONICA Look on this corpse of a most unhappy man scattered on the beach shredded by the sea-dashed rocks. Here lies the hairless and toothless head and here the five fingers of a hand, here the fleshless ribs, the feet without their sinews and the disjointed legs. This man of many parts once was one. Blest indeed are those who were never born to see the sun!

  86. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.384

    § 7.384 MARCUS ARGENTARIUS Old Aristomache the talkative friend of the vine, who loved Bacchus much more than did his nurse Ino, when she went under holy earth, and the spirit of her who had enjoyed so many a cup had utterly faded, said “Shake, Minos, the light urn. I will fetch the dark water from Acheron; for I too slew a young husband.”This falsehood she told in order that even among the dead she should be able to look at a jar.

  87. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.385

    § 7.385 PHILIPPUS Hero Protesilaus, for that thou didst first initiate Ilion into looking on the wrath of Grecian spears, the tall trees also that grow round thy tomb are all big with hatred of Troy. If from their topmost branches they see Ilion, they wither and cast off the beauty of their foliage. How great was thy boiling wrath against Troy, if tree-trunks preserve the spite thou didst bear thy foes.

  88. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.386

    § 7.386 BASSUS LOLLIUS Here am I, Niobe, as many times a stone (sic) as I was a mother; so unhappy was I that the milk in my breast grew hard. Great wealth for Hades was the number of my children — to Hades for whom I brought them forth. Oh relics of that great pyre

  89. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.387

    § 7.387 BIANOR I wept the death of my Theonoe, but the hopes I had of our child lightened my grief. But now envious fate has bereft me of the boy too. Alas my child, all that was left to me, I am cheated of thee! Persephone, give ear to the prayer of a mourning father, and lay the child in the bosom of its dead mother.

  90. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.388

    § 7.388 BIANOR The hostile crowd threw Clitonymus to the fish and the river when he came to the castle to kill the tyrant. But Justice buried him, for the bank falling in honoured with funeral his whole body from head to foot, and he lies unwetted by the water, the earth in reverence covering him, her haven of freedom.

  91. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.389

    § 7.389 APOLLONIDES Who is there that has not suffered the extremity of woe, weeping for a son? But the house of Posidippus buried all four, taken from him in four days by death, that cut short all his hopes of them. The father’s mourning eyes drenched with tears have lost their sight, and one may say that a common night now holds them all.

  92. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.390

    § 7.390 ANTIPATER OF THESSALONICA You have heard of Cyllene the Arcadian mountain. That is the monument that covers Apollodorus. As he journeyed from Pisa by night the thunderbolt from Zeus killed him; and far from Aeanae and Beroea the racer sleeps, conquered by Zeus.

  93. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.391

    § 7.391 BASSUS LOLLIUS Ye janitors of the dead, block all the roads of Hades, and be bolted, ye entrance doors. I myself, Hades, order it. Germanicus belongs to the stars, not to me; Acheron has no room for so great a ship.

  94. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.392

    § 7.392 HERACLIDES OF SINOPE The gale and great waves and the tempestuous rising of Arcturus and the darkness and the evil swell of the Aegean, all these dashed my ship to pieces, and the mast broken in three plunged me in the depths together with my cargo. Weep on the shore, parents, for your shipwrecked Tlesimenes, erecting a cenotaph.

  95. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.393

    § 7.393 DIOCLES OF CARYSTUS Cover me not with dust again. What avails it? Nor continue to put on me the guiltless earth of this strand. The sea is furious with me and discovers me, wretched man, even on the surf-beaten land: even in Hades it knows me. If it is the will of the waves to mount on the land for my sake, I prefer to remain on the firm land thus unburied.

  96. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.394

    § 7.394 PHILIPPUS OF THESSALONICA The miller possessed me also during his life, the deep-voiced revolving stone, the wheat-crushing servant of fertile Demeter, and on his death he set me up on this tomb, an emblem of his calling. So he finds me ever heavy, in his work while he lived, and now he is dead, on his bones.

  97. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.395

    § 7.395 MARCUS ARGENTARIUS This is the cenotaph of Callaeschrus, whom the deep undid as he was crossing the Libyan main, then when the force of Orion at the stormy season of his baneful setting stirred the sea from its depths. The sea-monsters devoured his wave-tossed corpse, and the stone bears but this empty inscription.

  98. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.396

    § 7.396 BIANOR OF BITHYNIA Thebes is the tomb of the sons of Oedipus, but the all-destroying tomb feels their still living quarrel. Not even Hades subdued them, and by Acheron they still fight; even their tombs are foes and they dispute still on their funeral pyres. O children much to be pitied, who grasped spears never to be laid to rest.

  99. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.397

    § 7.397 ERYCIUS OF THESSALY This is not the tomb of poor Satyrus; Satyrus sleeps not, as they tell, under the ashes of this pyre. But perchance ye have heard of a sea somewhere, the bitter sea that beats on the shore near Mycale where the wild- goats feed, and in that eddying and desert water yet I lie, reproaching furious Boreas.

  100. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg7000.tlg001:7.398

    § 7.398 ANTIPATER OF THESSALONICA I know not whether to blame Bacchus or the rain; both are treacherous for the feet. For this tomb holds Polyxenus who once, returning from the country after a banquet, fell from the slippery hill-side. Far from Aeolian Smyrna he lies. Let everyone at night when drunk dread the rain-soaked path.

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Via ToposText (topostext.org), a project of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation created by Brady Kiesling. Translated by William Roger Paton (1857-1921). Composed ca. 900 CE. Licence: public domain. Source.