Greek Anthology Book 7

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§ 7.399 ANTIPHILUS Far from each other should the tombs of Oedipus’ sons have been built, for even Hades ends not their strife. They refused even to travel in one boat to the house of Acheron, and hateful Ares lives in them even now they are dead. Look at the uneven flame of their pyre, how it separates from one into two quarrelling tongues.
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§ 7.400 SERAPION OF ALEXANDRIA This bone is that of some man who laboured much. Either wast thou a merchant or a fisher in the blind, uncertain sea. Tell to mortals that eagerly pursuing other hopes we all rest at the end in the haven of such a hope.
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§ 7.401 CRINAGORAS The tomb above his odious head crushes the bones of the scoundrel who lies in this unhappy earth; it crushes the protruding breast and the unsavoury sawlike teeth and the servilely fettered legs and hairless head, the half consumed remains of Eunicides still full of green putrescence. O earth, who hast espoused an evil bridegroom, rest not light or thinly-sprinkled on the ashes of the deformed being.
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§ 7.402 ANTIPATER OF THESSALONICA On the winter snow melting at the top of her house it fell in and killed old Lysidice. Her neighbours of the village did not make her a tomb of earth dug up for the purpose, but put her house itself over her as a tomb.
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§ 7.403 MARCUS ARGENTARIUS Psyllus, who used to take to the pleasant banquets of the young men the venal ladies that they desired, that hunter of weak girls, who earned a disgraceful wage by dealing in human flesh, lies here. But cast not thou stones at his tomb, wayfarer, nor bid another do so. He is dead and buried. Spare him, not because he was content to gain his living so, but because as keeper of common women he dissuaded young men from adultery.
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§ 7.404 ZONAS OF SARDIS On thy head 1 will heap the cold shingle of the beach, shedding it on thy cold corpse. For never did thy mother wail over thy tomb or see the sea-battered body of her shipwrecked son. But the desert and inhospitable strand of the Aegean shore received thee. So take this little portion of sand, stranger, and many a tear; for fated was the journey on which thou didst set out to trade.
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§ 7.405 PHILIPPUS Avoid, O stranger, this terrible tomb of Hipponax, which hails forth verses, Hipponax whose very ashes cry in iambics his hatred of Bupalus, lest thou wake the sleeping wasp, who not even in Hades has lulled his spite to rest, but in a halting measure launcheth straight shafts of song.
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§ 7.406 THEODORIDAS Euphorion, the exquisite writer of verse, lies by these Long Walls of the Piraeus. Offer to the initiated singer a pomegranate or apple, or myrtle-berries, for in his life he loved them.
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§ 7.407 DIOSCORIDES Sappho, who dost most sweetly pillow the loves of young men, thee verily Pieria or ivied Helicon honour together with the Muses; for thy breath is like to theirs, thou Muse of Aeolian Eresus. Either Hymen Hymenaeus bearing, his bright torch stands with thee over the bridal couch; or thou lookest on the holy grove of the Blessed, mourning in company with Aphrodite the fair young son of Cinyras. Wherever thou be, I salute thee, my queen, as divine, for we still deem thy songs to be daughters of the gods.
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§ 7.408 LEONIDAS Go quietly by the tomb, lest ye awake the malignant wasp that lies asleep; for only just has it been laid to rest, the spite of Hipponax that snarled even at his parents. Have a care then; for his verses, red from the fire, have power to hurt even in Hades.
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§ 7.409 ANTIPATER OF SIDON Praise the sturdy verse of tireless Antimachus, worthy of the majesty of the demigods of old, beaten on the anvil of the Muses, if thou art gifted with a keen ear, if thou aspirest to gravity of words, if thou wouldst pursue a path untrodden and unapproached by others. If Homer holds the sceptre of song, yet, though Zeus is greater than Poseidon, Poseidon his inferior is the chief of the immortals; so the Colophonian bows before Homer, but leads the crowd of other singers.
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§ 7.410 DIOSCORIDES I am Thespis, who first modelled tragic song, inventing a new diversion for the villagers, at the season when Bacchus led in the triennial chorus whose prize was still a goat and a basket of Attic figs. Now my juniors remodel all this; countless ages will beget many new inventions, but my own is mine.
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§ 7.411 DIOSCORIDES This invention of Thespis and the greenwood games and revels were raised to greater perfection by Aeschylus who carved letters not neatly chiselled, but as if water-worn by a torrent. In matters of the stage he was also an innovator. O mouth in every respect accomplished, thou wast one of the demigods of old!
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§ 7.412 ALCAEUS OF MESSENE Pylades, now thou art gone, all Hellas wails shearing her loosened hair, and Phoebus himself took off the laurels from his flowing locks, honouring his singer as is meet. The Muses wept and Asopus stayed his stream when he heard the voice of mourning. The dance of Dionysus ceased in the halls, when thou didst go down the iron road of Hades.
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§ 7.413 ANTIPATER OF SIDON I, Hipparchia, chose not the tasks of amply-robed woman, but the manly life of the Cynics. Nor do tunics fastened with brooches and thick-soled slippers, and the hair-caul wet with ointment please me, but rather the wallet and its fellow-traveller the staff and the course double mantle suited to them, and a bed strewn on the ground. I shall have a greater name than that of Arcadian Atalanta by so much as wisdom is better than racing over the mountains.
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§ 7.414 NOSSIS Laugh frankly as thou passest by and speak a kind word over me. I am the Syracusan Rhintho, one of the lesser nightingales of the Muses; but from my tragic burlesques I plucked for myself a special wreath of ivy.
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§ 7.415 CALLIMACHUS This is the tomb of Callimachus that thou art passing. He could sing well, and laugh well at the right time over the wine.
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§ 7.416 ANONYMOUS I hold, stranger, Meleager, son of Eucrates, who mixed the sweet-spoken Graces with Love and the Muses.
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§ 7.417 MELEAGER Island Tyre was my nurse, and Gadara, which is Attic, but lies in Syria, gave birth to me. From Eucrates I sprung, Meleager, who first by the help of the Muses ran abreast of the Graces of Menippus. If I am a Syrian, what wonder? Stranger, we dwell in one country, the world; one Chaos gave birth to all mortals. In my old age I wrote these lines in my tablets before my burial; for eld and death are near neighbours. Speak a word to wish me, the loquacious old man, well, and mayst thou reach a loquacious old age thyself. As regards culture. He wrote besides his epigrams satires in which he imitated Menippus.
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§ 7.418 MELEAGER My first country was famous Gadara; then Tyre received me and brought me up to manhood. When 1 reached old age, Cos, which nurtured Zeus, made me one of her Meropian citizens and cared for my declining years. But the Muses adorned me, Meleager, son of Eucrates, more than most men with the Graces of Menippus.
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§ 7.419 MELEAGER Go noiselessly by, stranger; the old man sleeps among the pious dead, wrapped in the slumber that is the lot of all. This is Meleager, the son of Eucrates, who linked sweet tearful Love and the Muses with the merry Graces. Heavenborn Tyre and Gadara’s holy soil reared him to manhood, and beloved Cos of the Meropes tended his old age. If you are a Syrian, Salam! if you are a Phoenician, Naidius! it you are a Greek, Chaire! (Hail) and say the same yourself.
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§ 7.420 DIOTIMUS OF ATHENS Ye Hopes of men, light goddesses, for never, were ye not so, had Hades, who bringeth our strength to naught, covered Lesbon, once as blest as the Great King — yea, ye Hopes and ye Loves too, lightest of all deities, farewell! And ye, the flutes he once breathed in, must lie dumb and unheard; for Acheron knoweth no troops of musicians.
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§ 7.421 MELEAGER An enigmatic epitaph on himself Thou with the wings, what pleasure hast thou in the hunting spear and boar -skin? Who art thou, and the emblem of whose tomb? For Love I cannot call thee. What! doth Desire dwell next the dead? No! the bold boy never learnt to wail. Nor yet art thou swift-footed Cronos; on the contrary, he is as old as old can be, and thy limbs are in the bloom of youth. Then — yes, I think I am right — he beneath the earth was a sophist, and thou art the winged word for which he was famed. The double-edged attribute of Artemis thou bearest in allusion to his laughter mixed with gravity and perhaps to the metre of his love verses. Yea, in truth, these symbols of boar -slaying point to his name-sake, Meleager, son of Oeneus. Hail, even among the dead, thou who didst fit together into one work of wisdom, Love, the Muses and the Graces.
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§ 7.422 LEONIDAS OF TARENTUM What shall we conjecture about you, Pisistratus, when we see a Chian die carved on your tomb? Shall we not say that you were a Chian? That seems probable. Or shall we say that you were a gamester and not a particularly lucky one, my friend? Or are we still far from the truth, and was your life’s light put out by Chian wine? Yes, I think now we are near it.
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§ 7.423 ANTIPATER OF SIDON The jay, stranger, will tell you I was ever a woman of many words, ever talkative, and the cup The hunting spear. that I was of a convivial habit The bow proclaims me Cretan, the wool a good workwoman, and the snood that tied up my hair shows that I was greyheaded. Such was the Bittis that this tomb with its stele covers, the wedded wife of.... But, hail, good sir, and do us who are gone to Hades the favour to bid us hail likewise in return.
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§ 7.424 By the same A. “I seek to discover what the meaning of these carvings is that Agis made upon your stele, Lysidice. For the reins and muzzle and the bird who comes from Tanagra celebrated for its fowls, the bold awaker of battles, such are not things that please or become sedentary women, but rather the works of the spindle and the loom.” B. “The bird of the night proclaims me one who rises in the night to work, the reins tell that I directed my house, and this horse's muzzle that I was not fond of many words and talkative, but full of admirable silence.”
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§ 7.425 By the same Do not wonder at seeing on Myro’s tomb a whip, an owl, a bow, a grey goose and a swift bitch. The bow proclaims that I was the strict well-strung directress of my house, the bitch that I took true care of my children, the whip that I was no cruel or overbearing mistress, but a just chastiser of faults, the goose that I was a careful guardian of the house, and this owl that I was a faithful servant of owl -eyed Pallas. Such were the things in which I took delight, wherefore my husband Biton carved these emblems on my grave-stone.
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§ 7.426 By the same A. “Tell, lion, thou slayer of kine, on whose tomb thou standest there and who was worthy of thy valour.” B. “ Teleutias, the son of Theodorus, who was far the most valiant of men, as I am judged to be of beasts. Not in vain stand I here, but I emblem the prowess of the man, for he was indeed a lion to his enemies.”
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§ 7.427 By the same Come let us see who lies under this stone. But I see no inscription cut on it, only nine cast dice, of which the first four represent the throw called Alexander, the next four that called Ephebus — the bloom of youthful maturity — and the one the more unlucky throw called Chian. Is their message this, that both the proud sceptred potentate and the young man in his flower end in nothing, or is that not so I think now like a Cretan archer I shall shoot straight at the mark. The dead man was a Chian, his name was Alexander and he died in youth. How well one told through dumb dice of the young man dead by ill-chance and the life staked and lost!
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§ 7.428 MELEAGER On Antipater of Sidon Tell me, thou stone, why does this bright-eyed cock stand on thee as an emblem, bearing a sceptre in his lustred wing and seizing in his claws the branch of victory, while cast at the very edge of the base lies a die? Dost thou cover some sceptred king victorious in battle? But why the die thy plaything? And besides, why is the tomb so simple? It would suit a poor man woke up o’nights by the crowing of the cock. But I don’t think that is right, for the sceptre tells against it. Then you cover an athlete, a winner in the foot-race? No, I don't hit it off so either, for what resemblance does a swift-footed man bear to a die? Now I have it: the palm does not mean victory, but prolific Tyre, the proud mother of palms, was the dead man’s birthplace; the cock signifies that he was a man who made himself heard, a champion too I suppose in love matters and a versatile songster. The sceptre he holds is emblematic of his speech and the die cast wide means that in his cups he fell and died. Well, these are symbols, but the stone tells us his name, Antipater, descended from most puissant ancestors·
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§ 7.429 ALCAEUS OF MITYLENE I ask myself why this road-side stone has only two phis chiselled on it. Was the name of the woman who is buried here Chilias? The number which is the sum of the two letters points to this. Or am I astray in this guess and was the name of her who dwells in this mournful tomb Phidis? Now am I the Oedipus who has solved the Sphinx's riddle. He deserves praise, the man who made this puzzle out of two letters, a light to the intelligent and darkness to the unintelligent.
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§ 7.430 DIOSCORIDES Who hung the newly-stripped arms on this oak? By whom is the Dorian shield inscribed? For this land of Thyrea is soaked with the blood of champions and we are the only two left of the Argives. Seek out every fallen corpse, lest any left alive illuminate Sparta in spurious glory. Nay! stay thy steps, for here on the shield the victory of the Spartans is announced by the clots of Othryadas’ blood, and he who wrought this still gasps hard by. O Zeus our ancestor, look with loathing on those tokens of a victory that was not won.
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§ 7.431 ANONYMOUS, SOME SAY BY SIMONIDES We the three hundred, O Spartan fatherland, — fighting for Thyrea with as many Argives, never turning our necks, died there where we first planted our feet. The shield, covered with the brave blood of Othryadas proclaims “ Thyrea, O Zeus, is the Lacedemonians!” But if any Argive escaped death he was of the race of Adrastus. For a Spartan to fly, not to die, is death.
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§ 7.432 DAMAGETUS O Spartans, the tomb holds your martial Gyllis who fell for Thyrea. He killed three Argives, and exclaimed, “Let me die having wrought a deed worthy of Sparta.”
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§ 7.433 TYMNES His Spartan mother slew the Spartan Demetrius for transgressing the law. Bringing her sharp sword to the guard, she said, gnashing her teeth, like a Laconian woman as she was: “Perish, craven whelp, evil piece, to Hell with thee! He who is not worthy of Sparta is not my son.”
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§ 7.434 DIOSCORIDES Demaeneta sent eight sons to encounter the phalanx of the foes, and she buried them all beneath one stone. No tear did she shed in her mourning, but said this only: “Ho! Sparta, I bore these children for thee.”
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§ 7.435 NICANDER We the six sons of Iphicratides, Eupylidas, Eraton, Chaeris, Lycus, Agis, and Alexon fell before the wall of Messene, and our seventh brother Gylippus having burnt our bodies came home with a heavy load of ashes, a great glory to Sparta, but a great grief to Alexippa our mother. One glorious shroud wrapped us all.
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§ 7.436 HEGEMON Some stranger passing gravely by the tomb might say, “Here a thousand Spartans arrested by their valour the advance of eighty myriads of Persians, and died without turning their backs. That is Dorian discipline.”
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§ 7.437 PHAENNUS Leonidas, bravest of men, thou couldst not endure to return to the Eurotas when sore pressed by the war, but in Thermopylae resisting the Persians thou didst fall reverencing the usage of thy fathers.
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§ 7.438 DAMAGETUS In thy first youth thou didst perish too, Machatas, grimly facing the Aetolians in the portion of thy lathers. It is hard to find a brave Achaean who hath survived till his hairs are grey.
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§ 7.439 THEODORIDAS Undiscerning Fate, hounding on thy pack of demons that hunt life, thus thou hast cut off from the Aeolian youth before his time Pylius the son of Agenor. Ye gods, what a man lies low, the spoil of sombre Hades!
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§ 7.440 LEONIDAS OF TARENTUM O TOMB, what a man was he, the dead whose bones thou dost hide in the night: O earth, what a head thou hast engulphed! Very pleasing was Aristocrates to the flaxen-haired Graces; much is his memory treasured by all. Aristocrates could converse sweetly, without a frown, and over the wine he could guide well the convivial flow of talk; and well he knew how to confer kindness on compatriots and strangers. Such, beloved earth, is the dead who is thine.
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§ 7.441 ARCHILOCHUS Great earth, thou hast beneath thee the tall pillars of Naxos, Megatimus and Aristophon.
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§ 7.442 SIMONIDES Let US ever remember the men whose tomb this is, who turned not from the battle but fell in arms before their city, defending Tegea rich in flocks, that Greece should never strip from their dead heads the crown of freedom.
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§ 7.443 SIMONIDES Once in the breasts of these men did Ares wash with red rain his long-barbed arrows. Instead of men who stood and faced the shafts this earth covers memorials of the dead, lifeless memorials of their living selves.
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§ 7.444 THEAETETUS The secretly creeping flames, on a winter night, when all were heavy with wine, consumed the great house of Antagoras. Free men and slaves together, eighty in all, perished on this fatal pyre. Their kinsmen could not separate their bones, but one common urn, one common funeral was theirs, and one tomb was erected over them. Yet readily can Hades distinguish each of them in the ashes.
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§ 7.445 PERSES OF THEBES We lie, stranger, in the rough woodland, Mantiades and Eustratus of Dyme, the sons of Echellus, rustic wood-cutters as our fathers were; and to shew our calling the woodman's axes stand on our tomb.
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§ 7.446 HEGESIPPUS The stranger is Zoilus of Hermione, but he lies buried in a foreign land, clothed in this Argive earth, which his deep-bosomed wife, her cheeks bedewed with tears, and his children, their hair close cut, heaped on him.
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§ 7.447 CALLIMACHUS The stranger was brief; so shall the verse be. I will not tell a long story “Theris Aristaeus’ son, a Cretan.” For me it is too long.
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§ 7.448 LEONIDAS OF TARENTUM The tomb is that of Protalidas of Lycastus who was supreme in love, war, the chase and the dance. Ye judges of the under-world, yourselves Cretans, ye have taken the Cretan to your company.
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§ 7.449 ANONYMOUS Love gave to Protalidas success in the pursuit of his boy loves, Artemis in the chase, the Muse in the dance and Ares in war. Must we not call him blest, the Lycastian supreme in love and song, with the spear and the hunting-net
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§ 7.450 DIOSCORIDES The tomb is that of Samian Philaenis; but be not ashamed, Sir, to speak to me and to approach the stone. I am not she who wrote those works offensive to ladies, and who did not acknowledge Modesty to be a goddess. But I was of a chaste disposition, I swear it by my tomb, and if anyone, to shame me, composed a wanton treatise, may Time reveal his name and may my bones rejoice that I am rid of the abominable report.
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§ 7.451 CALLIMACHUS Here Saon, son of Dicon of Acanthus, sleeps the holy sleep. Say not that the good are dead.
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§ 7.452 LEONIDAS OF TARENTUM Remember temperate Eubulus, ye passers-by. Let us drink, we all end in the haven of Hades.
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§ 7.453 CALLIMACHUS Here Philippus laid his twelve-year-old son, Nicoteles, his great hope.
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§ 7.454 CALLIMACHUS The cup of unmixed wine drained twice straight off has run away with Erasixenus the deep drinker.
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§ 7.455 LEONIDAS OF TARENTUM Wine-bibbing old Maronis, the jar-drier, lies here, and on her tomb, significant to all, stands an Attic cup. She laments beneath the earth not for her husband and children whom she left in indigence, but solely because the cup is empty.
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§ 7.456 DIOSCORIDES Here lies Hiero’s nurse Silenis, who when she began to drink untempered wine never made a grievance of being offered one cup more. He laid her to rest in his fields, that she who was so fond of wine should even dead and buried be near to vats.
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§ 7.457 ARISTO The tippler Ampelis, already supporting her tottering old age on a guiding staff, was covertly abstracting from the vat the newly pressed juice of Bacchus, and about to fill a cup of Cyclopean size, but before she could draw it out her feeble hand failed her and the old woman, like a ship submerged by the waves, disappeared in the sea of wine. Euterpe erected this stone monument on her tomb near the pressing-floor of the vineyard.
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§ 7.458 CALLIMACHUS On Phrygian Aeschra, his good nurse, did Miccus while she lived bestow every comfort that soothes old age, and when she died he erected her statue, that future generations may see how he rewarded the old woman for her milk.
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§ 7.459 CALLIMACHUS Often do the daughters of Samos miss prattling Crethis who could sport so well, their sweetest workmate, never silent; but she sleeps here the sleep that is the portion of all.
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§ 7.460 CALLIMACHUS I got a little living from my possessions, never doing any wickedness or injuring any one. Dear earth, if Micylus ever consented to any evil may neither thou be light to me nor the other powers who hold me.
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§ 7.461 MELEAGER Hail earth, Mother of all! Aesigenes was never a burden to thee, and do thou too hold him without weighing heavy on him.
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§ 7.462 DIONYSIUS Satyra with child and near her time has been taken by Hades. The earth of Sidon covers her, And Tyre her country bewails her.
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§ 7.463 LEONIDAS OF TARENTUM This is Timoclea, this is Philo, this is Aristo, this is Timaetho, the daughters of Aristodicus,all dead in childbirth. Their father Aristodicus died after erecting this monument to them.
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§ 7.464 ANTIPATER OF SIDON Of a surety, Aretemias, when descending from the boat, thou didst set thy foot on the beach of Cocytus, carrying in thy young arms thy babe newly dead, the fair daughters of the Dorian land pitied thee in Hades and questioned thee concerning thy death; and thou, thy cheeks bedewed with tears, didst give them these mournful tidings “My dears, I brought forth twin children; one I left with Euphron my husband, and the other I bring to the dead.”
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§ 7.465 HERACLITUS The earth is newly dug and on the faces of the tomb-stone wave the half-withered garlands of leaves. Let us decipher the letters, wayfarer, and learn whose smooth bones the stone says it covers. “Stranger, I am Aretemias, my country Cnidus. I was the wife of Euphro and I did not escape travail, but bringing forth twins, I left one child to guide my husband’s steps in his old age, and I took the other with me to remind me of him.”
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§ 7.466 LEONIDAS OF TARENTUM O UNHAPPY Anticles,and I most unhappy who have laid on the pyre my only son in the bloom of his youth! At eighteen didst thou perish, my child, and I weep and bewail my old age bereft of thee. Would 1 could go to the shadowy house of Hades! Nor dawn nor the rays of the swift sun are sweet to me. Unhappy Anticles, gone to thy doom, be thou healer of my mourning by taking me away from life to thee.
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§ 7.467 ANTIPATER OF SIDON This is the lament thy mother, Artemidorus, uttered over thy tomb, bewailing thy death at twelve years of age. “All the fruit of my travail hath perished in fire and ashes, it hath perished all thy miserable father’s toil for thee, and it hath perished all the winsome delight of thee; for thou art gone to the land of the departed, from which there is no turning back or home-coming. Nor didst thou reach thy prime, my child, and in thy stead naught is left us but thy grave stone and dumb dust.”
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§ 7.468 MELEAGER At eighteen, Charixenus, did thy mother dress thee in thy chlamys to offer thee, a woeful gift, to Hades. Even the very stones groaned aloud, when the young men thy mates bore thy corpse with wailing from the house. No wedding hymn, but a song of mourning did thy parents chant. Alack for the breasts that suckled thee cheated of their guerdon, alack for the travail endured in vain! O Fate, thou evil maiden, barren thou art and hast spat to the winds a mother’s love for her child. What remains but for thy companions to regret thee, for thy parents to mourn thee, and for those to whom thou wast unknown to pity when they are told of thee.
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§ 7.469 CHAEREMON Athenagores begot Eubulus, excelled by all in fate, excelling all in good report.
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§ 7.470 MELEAGER A. “TELL him who enquires, who and whose son thou art” B. “Philaulus son of Eucratides.” A. “And from whence dost thou say?” B. ".. A. “What livelihood didst thou choose when alive?” B. “Not that from the plough nor that from ships, but that which is gained in the society of sages.” A. “Didst thou depart this life from old age or from sickness?” B. “Of my own will I came to Hades, having drunk of the Cean cup.” A. “Wast thou old?” B. “Yea, very old.” A. “May the earth that rests on thee be light, for the life thou didst lead was in accordance with wisdom and reason.”
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§ 7.471 CALLIMACHUS Cleombrotus the Ambracian saying, “Farewell, O Sun,” leapt from a high wall to Hades, not that he saw any evil worthy of death, but that he had read one treatise of Plato, that on the soul.
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§ 7.472 LEONIDAS OF TARENTUM O MAN, infinite was the time ere thou earnest to the light, and infinite will be the time to come in Hades. What is the portion of life that remains to thee, but a pin-prick, or if there be aught tinier than a pin-prick? A little life and a sorrowful is thine; for even that little is not sweet, but more odious than death the enemy. Men built as ye are, of such a frame of bones, do ye lift yourselves up to the air and the clouds? See, man, how little use it is; for at the end of the thread a worm seated on the loosely woven vesture reduces it to a thing like a skeleton leaf, a thing more loathly than a cobweb. Enquire of thyself at the dawn of every day, O man, what thy strength is and learn to lie low, content with a simple life; ever remembering in thy heart, as long as thou dwellest among the living, from what stalks of straw thou art pieced together.
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§ 7.472b By the same Avoid the storms of life and hie ye to the haven, to Hades, as 1, Pheidon the son of Critas, did.
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§ 7.473 ARISTODICUS Demo and Methymna when they heard that Euphron, the frenzied devotee at the triennial festivals of Hera, was dead, refused to live longer, and made of their long knitted girdles nooses for their necks to hang themselves.
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§ 7.474 ANONYMOUS This single tomb holds all Nicander’s children; the dawn of one day made an end of the holy offspring of Lysidice.
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§ 7.475 DIOTIMUS Scyllis the daughter of Polyaenus went to her father-in-law's, lamenting, as she entered the wide gates, the death of her bridegroom, Evagoras the son of Hegemachus, who dwelt there. She came not back, poor widowed girl, to her father's house, but within three months she perished, her spirit wasted by deadly melancholy. This tearful memorial of their love stands on the tomb of both beside the smooth high-way.
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§ 7.476 MELEAGER Tears, the last gift of my love, even down through the earth I send to thee in Hades, Heliodora — tears ill to shed, and on thy much-wept tomb I pour them in memory of longing, in memory of affection. Piteously, piteously doth Meleager lament for thee who art still dear to him in death, paying a vain tribute to Acheron. Alas! Alas! Where is my beautiful one, my heart's desire? Death has taken her, has taken her, and the flower in full bloom is defiled by the dust. But Earth my mother, nurturer of all, I beseech thee, clasp her gently to thy bosom, her whom all bewail.
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§ 7.477 TYMNES Let not this, Philaenis, weigh on thy heart, that the earth in which it was thy fate to lie is not beside the Nile, but that thou art laid in this tomb at Eleutherna. From no matter where the road is the same to Hades.
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§ 7.478 LEONIDAS OF TARENTUM Who ever canst thou be? Whose poor bones are these that remain exposed beside the road in a coffin half open to the light, the mean tomb and monument ever scraped by the axle and wheel of the traveller's coach? Soon the carriages will crush thy ribs, poor wretch, and none to shed a tear for thee.
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§ 7.479 THEODORIDES I, the stone coffin that contain the head of Heraclitus, was once a rounded and unworn cylinder, but Time has worn me like the shingle, for I lie in the road, the highway for all sorts and conditions of men. I announce to mortals, although I have no stele, that I hold the divine dog who used to bark at the commons.
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§ 7.480 LEONIDAS OF TARENTUM Already, Sirrah, my bones and the slab that lies on my skeleton are exposed and crushed, already the worms are visible, looking out of my coffin. What avails it to clothe ourselves with earth; for men travelling over my head have opened here a road untrodden before. But I conjure you by the infernal powers, Pluto, Hermes and Night, keep clear of this path.
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§ 7.481 PHILETAS OF SAMOS The grave-stone heavy with grief says “ Death has carried away short-lived little Theodota,” and the little one says again to her father, “ Theodotus, cease to grieve; mortals are often unfortunate.”
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§ 7.482 ANONYMOUS Not yet had thy hair been cut, Cleodicus, nor had the moon yet driven her chariot for thrice twelve periods across the heaven, when Nicasis thy mother and thy father Periclitus, on the brink of thy lamented tomb, poor child, wailed much over thy coffin. In unknown Acheron, Cleodicus, shalt thou bloom in a youth that never, never may return here.
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§ 7.483 ANONYMOUS Hades, inexorable and unbending, why hast thou robbed baby Callaeschron of life? In the house of Persephone the boy shall be her plaything, but at home he leaves bitter suffering.
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§ 7.484 DIOSCORIDES Five daughters and five sons did Bio bear to Didymon, but she got no joy from one of either. Bio herself so excellent and a mother of such fine babes, was not buried by her children, but by strange hands.
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§ 7.485 DIOSCORIDES Cast white lilies on the tomb and beat by the stele of Aleximenes the drums he used to love; whirl your long flowing locks, ye Thyiades, in freedom by the city on the Strymon, whose people often danced to the tender strains of his flute that breathed sweetly on your [...].
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§ 7.486 ANYTE Often on this her daughter’s tomb did Cleina call on her dear short-lived child in wailing tones, summoning back the soul of Philaenis, who ere her wedding passed across the pale stream of Acheron.
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§ 7.487 PERSES OF MACEDONIA Thou didst die before thy marriage, Philaenion, nor did thy mother Pythias conduct thee to the chamber of the bridegroom who awaited thy prime: but wretchedly tearing her cheeks, she laid thee in this tomb at the age of fourteen.
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§ 7.488 MNASALCAS Alas! Aristocrateia, thou art gone to deep Acheron, gone to rest before thy prime, before thy marriage; and naught but tears is left for thy mother, who reclining on thy tomb often bewails thee.
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§ 7.489 SAPPHO This is the dust of Timas, whom, dead before her marriage, the dark chamber of Persephone received. When she died, all her girl companions with newly sharpened steel shore their lovely locks.
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§ 7.490 ANYTE I bewail virgin Antibia, eager to wed whom came many suitors to her father’s house, led by the report of her beauty and discretion; but destroying Fate, in the case of all, sent their hopes rolling far away.
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§ 7.491 MNASALCAS Woe worth baleful virginity, for which, delightful Cleo, thou didst cut short thy bright youth 1 We stones in the semblance of Sirens stand on thy tomb tearing our cheeks for thee and weeping.
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§ 7.492 ANYTE OF MITYLENE (?) We leave thee, Miletus, dear fatherland, refusing the lawless love of the impious Gauls, three maidens, thy citizens, whom the sword of the Celts forced to this fate. We brooked not the unholy union nor such a wedding, but we put ourselves in the wardship of Hades.
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§ 7.493 ANTIPATER OF THESSALONICA I, Rhodope, and my mother Boisca neither died of sickness, nor fell by the sword of the foes, but ourselves, when dreadful Ares burnt the city of Corinth our country, chose a brave death. My mother slew me with the slaughtering knife, nor did she, unhappy woman, spare her own life, but tied the noose round her neck; for it was better than slavery to die in freedom.
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§ 7.494 ANONYMOUS In the sea, Nereus, died Sodamus the Cretan who loved thy nets and was at home on these thy waters. He excelled all men in his skill as a fisher, but the sea in a storm makes no distinction between fishermen and others.
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§ 7.495 ALCAEUS OF MESSENE Arcturus’ rising is an ill season for sailors to sail at, and I, Aspasius, whose tomb thou passest, traveller, met my bitter fate by the blast of Boreas. My body, washed by the waters of the Aegean main, is lost at sea. Lamentable ever is the death of young men, but most mournful of all is the fate of travellers who perish in the sea.
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§ 7.496 SIMONIDES Lofty Gerania, evil cliff, would that from the far Scythian land thou didst look down on the Danube and the long course of the Tanais, and didst not dwell near the waves of the Scironian sea and by the ravines of snowy Methurias. Now he is in the sea, a cold corpse, and the empty tomb here laments his unhappy voyage.
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§ 7.497 DAMAGETUS Thymodes too, on a time, weeping for his unexpected sorrow built this empty tomb for his son Lycus; for not even does he lie under foreign earth, but some Bithynian strand, some island of the Black Sea holds him. There he lies, without funeral, showing his bare bones on the inhospitable shore.

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.