Greek Anthology Book 9

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§ 9.1 BOOK IX. THE DECLAMATORY AND DESCRIPTIVE EPIGRAMS POLYAENUS OF SARDIS A cruel viper struck the nursing udder of a doe which had newly calved as it hung down full of milk. Her fawn sucked the teat contaminated by poison, and from the fatal wound imbibed bitter milk charged with venom ill to cure. Death was transferred from mother to child, and at once by pitiless fate the breast bereft the young one of the gift of life that it owed to the womb.
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§ 9.2 TIBERIUS ILLUSTRIUS A viper, the most murderous of noxious beasts, injected her venom into the udder, swollen with milk, of a doe that had just calved, and the kid, sucking its mother's poisoned milk, drank up her death.
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§ 9.3 ANTIPATER, by some attributed to PLATO They planted me, a walnut-tree, by the road-side to amuse passing boys, as a mark for their well-aimed stones. And all my twigs and flourishing shoots are broken, hit as I am by showers of pebbles. It is no advantage for trees to be fruitful. I indeed, poor tree, bore fruit only for my own undoing.
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§ 9.4 CYLLENIUS I, the wild pear-tree of the thicket, a denizen of the wilderness where the wild beasts feed, once bearing plenty of bastard fruit, have had foreign shoots grafted on me, and flourish now no longer wild, but loaded with a crop that is not my natural one. Gardener, I am deeply grateful for thy pains, owing it to thee that I now am enrolled in the tribe of noble fruit-trees.
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§ 9.5 PALLADAS This pear-tree is the sweet result of the labour of my, hand, with which in summer I fixed the graft in its moist bark. The slip, rooted on the tree by the incision, has changed its fruit, and though it is still a pyraster below, it is a fragrant-fruited pear-tree above.
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§ 9.6 PALLADAS I was a pyraster; thy hand hath made me a fragrant pear-tree by inserting a graft, and I reward thee for thy kindness.
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§ 9.7 JULIUS POLYAENUS Zeus, who rulest the holy land of Corey ra, though thy ears be ever full of the fears of suppliants or the thanks of those whose prayers thou hast heard, yet hearken to me, too, and grant me by a true promise that this be the end of my exile, and that I may dwell in my native land, my long labours over.
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§ 9.8 JULIUS POLYAENUS Hope ever makes the period of our days steal away, and the last dawn surprises us with many projects unaccomplished.
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§ 9.9 JULIUS POLYAENUS Often when I have prayed to thee, Zeus, hast thou granted me the welcome gift of fair weather till the end of my voyage. Give it me on this voyage, too; save me and bear me to the haven where toil ends. The delight of life is in our home and country, and superfluous cares make life not life but vexation.
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§ 9.10 ANTIPATER OF THESSALONICA An octopus once, stretched out on a rock that projected into the sea, extended his many feet to let them bask in the sun. He had not yet changed to the colour of the rock, and therefore a sharp-eyed eagle saw him from the clouds and seized him, but fell, unhappy bird, entangled by his tentacles, into the sea, losing both its prey and its life.
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§ 9.11 PHILIPPUS or ISIDORUS One man was maimed in his legs, while another had lost his eyesight, but each contributed to the other that of which mischance had deprived him. For the blind man, taking the lame man on his shoulders, kept a straight course by listening to the other's orders. It was bitter, all-daring necessity which taught them all this, instructing them how, by dividing their imperfections between them, to make a perfect whole.
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§ 9.12 LEONIDAS OF ALEXANDRIA The blind beggar supported the lame one on his feet, and gained in return the help of the other's eyes. Thus the two incomplete beings fitted into each other to form one complete being, each supplying what the other lacked.
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§ 9.13 PLATO THE YOUNGER A blind man carried a lame man on his back, lending him his feet and borrowing from him his eyes. 13b.— ANTIPHILUS OF BYZANTIUM Both are maimed and strolling beggars; but the one has lost the use of his eyes, the other the support of his legs. Each serves the other; for the blind man, taking the lame one on his back, walks gingerly by the aid of eyes not his own. One nature supplied the needs of both; for each contributed to the other his deficiency to form a whole.
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§ 9.14 PLATO THE YOUNGER Phaedo saw an octopus in the shallows by the beach oaring itself along in secret, and seizing it, he threw it rapidly on land before it could twine its eight spirals tightly round his hand. Whirled into a bush it fell on the home of a luckless hare, and twirling round fleet-footed puss's feet held them bound. The captured was capturer, and you, old man, got the unexpected gift of a booty both from sea and land.
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§ 9.15 Anonymous (Probably on a Picture of Love ) Thou who seekest to set fire itself ablaze, who desirest to light thy lovely lamp at night, take thee light here from my soul, for that which is afire within me sends forth fierce flames.
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§ 9.16 MELEAGER The Graces are three, and three are the sweet virgin Horae, and three fierce girl Loves cast their arrows at me. Yea, verily, three bows hath Love prepared for me, as if he would wound in me not one heart, but three.
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§ 9.17 GERMANICUS CAESAR Once a hare from the mountain height leapt into the sea in her effort to escape from a dog's cruel fangs. But not even thus did she escape her fate; for at once a sea- dog seized her and bereft her of life. Out of the fire, as the saying is, into the flame didst thou fall. Of a truth Fate reared thee to be a meal for a dog either on the land or in the sea.
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§ 9.18 GERMANICUS CAESAR on the same One dog captured me after another. What is strange in that? Beasts of the water and beasts of the land have like rage against me. Henceforth, ye hares, may the sky be open to your course. But I fear thee, Heaven; thou too hast a dog among thy stars.
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§ 9.19 ARCHIAS OF MYTILENE “ Eagle ” who once outshone all fleet-footed horses; about whose legs chaplets once hung; he whom Pytho, the oracular seat of Phoebus, once crowned in the games, where he raced like a swiftly flying bird; he whom Nemea, too, the nurse of the grim lion, crowned, and Pisa and Isthmus with its two beaches, is now fettered by a collar as if by a bit, and grinds corn by turning a rough stone. He suffers the same fate as Heracles, who also, after accomplishing so much, put on the yoke of slavery.
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§ 9.20 Anonymous on the same I, Sir, who once gained the crown on the banks of Alpheius, and was twice proclaimed victor by the water of Castalia; I, who was announced the winner at Nemea, and formerly, as a colt, at Isthmus; I, who ran swift as the winged winds — see me now, how in my old age I turn the rotating stone driven in mockery of the crowns I won.
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§ 9.21 Anonymous I, Pegasus, attach blame to thee, my country Thessaly, breeder of horses, for this unmerited end of my days. I, who was led in procession at Pytho and Isthmus; I, who went to the festival of Nemean Zeus and to Olympia to win the Arcadian olive-twigs, now drag the heavy weight of the round Nisyrian mill-stone, grinding fine from the ears the fruit of Demeter.
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§ 9.22 PHILIPPUS OF THESSALONICA The temple servants destined as an acceptable sacrifice to Latona's daughter a heifer big with young; but happy birth-pangs anticipated her approaching death, and she was sent to the herd to bear her child in freedom. For the goddess who presides over child-bed deemed it not right to slay creatures in labour, having learnt to pity them.
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§ 9.23 ANTIPATER The husbandman Archippus, when, smitten by grave sickness, he was just breathing his last and gliding to Hades, spoke thus to his sons: “I charge you, dear children, that ye love the mattock and the life of a farmer. Look not with favour on the weary labour of them who sail the treacherous waves and the heavy toil of perilous sea-faring. Even as a mother is sweeter than a stepmother, so is the land more to be desired than the grey sea.”
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§ 9.24 LEONIDAS OF TARENTUM As the burning sun, rolling his chariot-wheels, dims the stars and the holy circle of the moon, so Homer, holding on high the Muses' brightest torch, makes faint the glory of all the flock of singers.
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§ 9.25 By the same This is the book of learned Aratus, whose subtle mind explored the long-lived stars, both the fixed stars and the planets with which the bright revolving heaven is set. Let us praise him for the great task at which he toiled; let us count him second to Zeus, in that he made the stars brighter.
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§ 9.26 ANTIPATER OF THESSALONICA These are the divine-voiced women that Helicon fed with song, Helicon and Macedonian Pieria's rock: Praxilla; Moero; Anyte, the female Homer; Sappho, glory of the Lesbian women with lovely tresses; Erinna; renowned Telesilla; and thou, Corinna, who didst sing the martial shield of Athena; Nossis, the tender-voiced, and dulcet-toned Myrtis — all craftswomen of eternal pages. Great Heaven gave birth to nine Muses, and Earth to these nine, the deathless delight of men.
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§ 9.27 ARCHIAS or PARMENION Heed well thy speech as thou goest past me, Echo who am a chatterbox and yet no chatterbox. If I hear anything I answer back the same, for I will return to thee thy own words; but if thou keepest silent, so shall I. Whose tongue is more just than mine?
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§ 9.28 POMPEIUS or MARCUS THE YOUNGER Though I, Mycenae, am but a heap of dust here in the desert, though I am meaner to look at than any chance rock, he who gazes on the famous city of Ilion, whose walls I trod underfoot and emptied all the house of Priam, shall know thence how mighty I was of old. If my old age has used me ill, the testimony of Homer is enough for me.
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§ 9.29 ANTIPHILUS OF BYZANTIUM Adventure, thou inventor of ships (for thou didst discover the paths of the sea, and didst excite men's minds by hope of gain), what treacherous timbers didst thou fashion; what lust for gain, oft brought home to them by death, hast thou instilled into men! Of a truth the race of mortals had been a golden one, if the sea, like hell, were viewed from the land in dim distance.
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§ 9.30 ZELOTUS or BASSUS I am a pine-tree broken by the wind on land. Why do you send me to the sea, a spar shipwrecked before sailing?
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§ 9.31 ZELOTUS Why, shipwrights, do ye entrust to the sea this pine, which the strong south-wester tore up by the roots from the mountain side? I shall make no lucky hull at sea, I, a tree which the winds hate. On land I already experienced the ill-fortune of the sea.
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§ 9.32 Anonymous I was a newly-built ship on the surf-beaten beach, and had not yet touched the grey waves. But the sea would not be kept waiting for me; the wild flood rose and carried me away from the firm shore, an unhappy bark indeed... to whom the stormy waves were fatal both on land and at sea. c
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§ 9.33 CYLLENIUS Before I was a ship I perished. What more could I have suffered if I had become familiar with the deep? Alas, every bark meets its end by the waves!
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§ 9.34 ANTIPHILUS OF BYZANTIUM After I had traversed innumerable waves of the limitless sea, and stood firm for a season on the land, I was destroyed not by the sea, the terror of ships, but on shore by fire. Who will say that the sea is the more treacherous of the two? It was the earth on which I came into being that destroyed me, and I lie on the beach, reproaching the land for the fate I expected from the sea.
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§ 9.35 ANTIPHILUS OF BYZANTIUM I am the newly-fashioned keel of a ship, and the sea beside which I lay carried me off, raging against me even on land.
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§ 9.36 SECUNDUS I, the ship which had traversed the paths of the limitless ocean, and swum so often through the gray waves; I, whom neither the black east wind overwhelmed nor the fierce swell raised by the winter south-westers drove on shore, am now shipwrecked in the flames, and reproach the faithless land, in sore need now of the waters of my sea.
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§ 9.37 TULLIUS FLACCUS On a Fountain called Quiet Fount A. “Draw water from me in silence.” B. “Why? ” A. “Stop drawing.” B. “Wherefore? ” A. “Mine is the sweet drink of Quiet.” B. “You are a disagreeable fountain.” A. “Taste me and you will see I am still more disagreeable.” B. “Oh what a bitter stream! ” A. “Oh what a chatterbox! ”
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§ 9.38 Anonymous If thou art a man, stranger, draw water from this fountain; but if thou art effeminate by nature, on no account drink me. I am a male drink, and only please men; but for those naturally effeminate their own nature is water.'
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§ 9.39 MUSICIUS Cypris to the Muses: “Honour Aphrodite, ye maidens, or I will arm Love against you.” And the Muses to Cypris: “Talk that twaddle to Ares. Your brat has no wings to fly to us.”
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§ 9.40 ZOSIMUS OF THASOS On the Shield of one Anaximenes Not only in combats and in the battle din do I protect the spirit of valiant Anaximenes; but in the sea, too, when the waves broke up his ship, I was a shield to save him, clinging to me in swimming as if I were a plank. On sea and land alike I am his hope and stay, having saved my bold master from two different deaths.
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§ 9.41 THEON OF ALEXANDRIA I, the shield that erst protected from the foemen's shafts and resisted the bloody wave of horrid war, not even then, when the sea in wild tumult swept on my master, and the mariners perished miserably, betrayed my comrade, but bearing thee, a noble burden indeed, my friend, went with thee even to the haven for which thou didst pray.
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§ 9.42 JULIUS LEONIDAS I, Myrtilus, escaped two dangers by the help of one weapon; the first by fighting bravely with it, the second by swimming with its support, when the north-west wind had sunk my ship. I was saved and now possess a shield proved both in war and on the waves.
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§ 9.43 PARMENION OF MACEDONIA The simple covering of my cloak is enough for me; and I, who feed on the flowers of the Muses, shall never be the slave of the table. I hate witless wealth, the nurse of flatterers, and I will not stand in attendance on one who looks down on me. I know the freedom of scanty fare.
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§ 9.44 STATYLLIUS FLACCUS, by some ATTRIBUTED TO PLATO A man finding gold left his halter, but the man who had left the gold and did not find it, hanged himself with the halter he found.
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§ 9.45 STATYLLIUS FLACCUS One man found the gold and the other lost it. He who found it threw it away, and he who did not find it hanged himself with the dismal halter.
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§ 9.46 ANTIPATER OF THESSALONICA A blind and childless woman, who prayed that she might either recover her sight or bear a child, gained both blessings. For not long after she was brought to bed, as she never had expected, and on the same day saw the sweet light of day for which she had longed with all her heart. Both her prayers were heard by Artemis, the deliverer in child-bed and the bearer of the white-rayed torch.
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§ 9.47 Anonymous on a Goat that suckled a Wolf It is not by my own will that I suckle the wolf at my own breast, but the shepherd's folly compels me to do it. Reared by me he will become a beast of prey to attack me. Gratitude cannot change nature.
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§ 9.48 Anonymous Through love Zeus became a swan for Leda, a bull for Europa, a satyr for Antiope, and gold for Danae.
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§ 9.49 Anonymous Farewell, Hope and Fortune, a long farewell. I have found the haven. I have no more to do with you. Make game of those who come after me.
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§ 9.50 MIMNERMUS (not an epigram, but a Couplet from an Elegy) Rejoice thy own heart, but of thy ill-disposed countrymen one shall speak ill of thee and another well.
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§ 9.51 PLATO Time brings everything; length of years can change names, forms, nature, and fortune.
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§ 9.52 CARPYLLIDES A man, angling on the beach with a hook attached to a fine hair line, brought to shore the hairless head of a shipwrecked man. Pitying the bodiless corpse, he dug a little grave with his hands, having no tool, and found there hidden a treasure of gold. Of a truth then righteous men lose not the reward of piety.
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§ 9.53 NICODEMUS or BASSUS Hippocrates was the light of mankind; whole peoples were saved by him, and there was a scarcity of dead in Hades.
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§ 9.54 MENECRATES Everyone prays for old age when it is still absent, but finds fault with it when it comes. It is always better while it is still owing to us.
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§ 9.55 LUCILIUS or MENECRATES OF SAMOS If anyone who has reached old age prays for life, he deserves to go on growing old for many decades.
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§ 9.56 PHILIPPUS OF THESSALONICA The child, treading on the frozen stream of Thracian Hebrus, did not escape death; but when he slipped into the river, now less solidly frozen, his tender neck was cut through by the ice. The rest of his body was carried away, but the head which remained on the ice gave of necessity cause for a funeral. Unhappy she whose offspring was divided between fire and water and seeming to belong to both, belongs not wholly to either.
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§ 9.57 PAMPHILUS To the Swallow Why, unhappy daughter of Pandion, dost thou mourn all day long, uttering thy twittering note? Is it that regret is come upon thee for thy maidenhead, which Thracian Tereus took from thee by dreadful force?
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§ 9.58 ANTIPATER On the temple of Artemis at Ephesus I have set eyes on the wall of lofty Babylon on which is a road for chariots, and the statue of Zeus by the Alpheus, and the hanging gardens, and the colossus of the Sun, and the huge labour of the high pyramids, and the vast tomb of Mausolus; but when I saw the house of Artemis that mounted to the clouds, those other marvels lost their brilliancy, and I said, “Lo, apart from Olympus, the Sun never looked on aught so grand.”
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§ 9.59 ANTIPATER OF THESSALONICA Four Victories, winged, hold aloft on their backs as many of the immortals. One uplifts Athena in her warlike guise, one Aphrodite, one Heracles, and another dauntless Ares. They are painted on the fair dome of thy house, and mount to heaven. O Caius, bulwark of thy country, Rome, may Heracles, the devourer of oxen, make thee invincible; may Cypris bless thee with a good wife, Pallas endue thee with wisdom, and Ares with fearlessness.
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§ 9.60 DIODORUS I, this tower on the rock in the sea, am Pharos, bearing the same name as the island and serving as a beacon for the harbour.
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§ 9.61 Anonymous The Spartan woman, seeing her son hastening home in flight from the war and stripped of his armour, rushed to meet him, and driving a spear through his liver, uttered over the slain these words full of virile spirit: “Away with thee to Hades, alien scion of Sparta! Away with thee, since thou wast false to thy country and thy father! ”
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§ 9.62 EVENUS OF ASCALON Strangers, the ash of ages has devoured me, holy Ilion, the famous city once renowned for my towered walls, but in Homer I still exist, defended by brazen gates. The spears of the destroying Achaeans shall not again dig me up, but I shall be on the lips of all Greece.
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§ 9.63 ASCLEPIADES Lyde is my name and I am of Lydian race, and Antimachus has made me more noble than any descendant of Codrus. For who has not sung me, who has not read Lyde, the joint work of the Muses and Antimachus?
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§ 9.64 ASCLEPIADES or ARCHIAS The Muses themselves saw thee, Hesiod, feeding thy sheep at mid-day in the rugged hills, and all drawing round thee proffered thee a branch of holy laurel with lovely leaves. They gave thee also the inspiring water of the Heliconian spring, that the hoof of the winged horse once struck, and having drunk thy fill of it thou didst write in verse the Birth of the gods and the Works, and the race of the ancient demigods.
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§ 9.65 Anonymous Leafy spring adorns the earth, the stars adorn the heavens, this land adorns Hellas, and these men their country.
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§ 9.66 ANTIPATER OF SIDON Mnemosyne was smitten with astonishment when she heard honey-voiced Sappho, wondering if men possess a tenth Muse.
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§ 9.67 Anonymous The boy was crowning his stepmother's funeral stele, a tall column, thinking that in changing life for death she had changed her character. But it came down on the tomb and killed him. Stepsons, avoid even the tomb of your stepmother.
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§ 9.68 Anonymous Stepmothers are always a curse to their stepchildren, and do not keep them safe even when they love them. Remember Phaedra and Hippolytus.
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§ 9.69 PARMENION OF MACEDONIA A stepmother's spite is ever mordant, and not gentle even in love. I know what befel chaste Hippolytus.
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§ 9.70 MNASALCAS O daughter of Pandion with the plaintive twittering voice, thou who didst submit to the unlawful embraces of Tereus, why dost thou complain, swallow, all day in the house? Cease, for tears await thee hereafter too.
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§ 9.71 ANTIPHILUS OF BYZANTIUM Overhanging branches of the spreading oak, that from on high shade well men seeking shelter from the untempered heat, leafy boughs roofing closer than tiles, the home of wood-pigeons, the home of cicadas, O noontide branches, guard me, too, who lie beneath your foliage, taking refuge from the rays of the sun.
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§ 9.72 ANTIPATER Hermes, ye shepherds, is easily contented, rejoicing in libations of milk and honey from the oak-tree, but not so Heracles. He demands a ram or fat lamb, or in any case a whole victim. But he keeps off the wolves. What profits that, when the sheep he protects if not slain by the wolf is slain by its protector?
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§ 9.73 ANTIPHILUS OF BYZANTIUM O alternating flood of the Euboean gulf, vagabond water, running contrary to thy own current, how strong but inconstant a stream thou lendest to the ships, changing its direction regularly thrice by day and thrice by night! Thou art one of the marvels of life, and I am filled with infinite wonder at thee, but do not seek the reason of thy factious course. It is the business and the secret of Nature.
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§ 9.74 Anonymous I was once the field of Achaemenides and am now Menippus', and I shall continue to pass from one man to another. For Achaemenides once thought he possessed me, and Menippus again thinks he does; but I belong to no man, only to Fortune.
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§ 9.75 EVENUS OF ASCALON (The Vine speaks) Though thou eatest me to the root, billy- goat, I will yet bear fruit enough to provide a libation for thee when thou art sacrificed.
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§ 9.76 ANTIPATER OF SIDON Of two snares one caught a fat thrush, and the other, in its horsehair fetters, a blackbird. Now while the thrush did not free its plump body from the twisted noose round its neck, to enjoy again the light of day, the other snare let free the holy blackbird. Even deaf bird-snares, then, feel compassion for singers.
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§ 9.77 ANTIPATER OF THESSALONICA Hera, tortured by the beauty of Ganymede, and with the soul-consuming sting of jealousy in her heart, once spoke thus: “ Troy gave birth to a male flame for Zeus; therefore I will send a flame to fall on Troy, Paris the bringer of woe. No eagle shall come again to the Trojans, but vultures to the feast, the day that the Danai gather the spoils of their labour.”
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§ 9.78 LEONIDAS OF ALEXANDRIA (This and the two following are Isopsepha) Do not, master, find fault with me, the wild peartree, ever loaded with unripe fruit. For the pears which I ripen on my branches are pilfered by another than yourself, but the unripe ones remain hanging round their mother.
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§ 9.79 LEONIDAS OF ALEXANDRIA Of my own will I let my fruits be plucked, but when they are ripe. Stop throwing hard stones at me. Bacchus too will wax wrath with thee for doing injury to his gift. Bear in mind the fate of Lycurgus.
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§ 9.80 LEONIDAS OF ALEXANDRIA Ye prophets who explore the paths of the stars, out on you, ye false professors of a futile science! Folly brought you to the birth, and Rashness was your mother, ye poor wretches, who know not even your own disrepute.
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§ 9.81 CRINAGORAS Tell me not that death is the end of life. The dead, like the living, have their own causes of suffering. Look at the fate of Nicias of Cos. He had gone to rest in Hades, and now his dead body has come again into the light of day. For his fellow citizens, forcing the bolts of his tomb, dragged out the poor hard-dying wretch to punishment.
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§ 9.82 ANTIPATER OF THESSALONICA Trust not, mariner, to the fatal sea, even when thou art at anchor, even when thy hawsers are fast on land. For Ion fell overboard in the harbour, and his active hands, fettered by the wine, were useless for swimming. Shun dances and carousal on board ship. The sea is the enemy of Bacchus. Such is the law established by the Tyrrhene pirates.
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§ 9.83 PHILIPPUS The dolphins, the fish-eating dogs of the sea, were sporting round the ship as she moved rapidly on her course. A boar - hound, taking them for game, dashed, poor fellow, into the sea, as he would have dashed on land. He perished for the sake of a chase that was strange to him; for not all dogs are light of foot in the sea.
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§ 9.84 ANTIPHANES A shepherd saw the straying hull of a sea-tost boat carried along shore by the fierce waves. He seized it with his hand, and it dragged its saviour into the deep sea, so bitter was its hatred of all mankind. Thus the shepherd met with the fate of a shipwrecked mariner. Alas! both the woods and the harbour are put in mourning by that boat.
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§ 9.85 PHILIPPUS OF THESSALONICA The sea destroyed my boat, but Heaven bestowed on me, as I was carried hither and thither, a more welcome natural boat. For seeing my father's body coming to me opportunely, I climbed on it, a solitary oarsman, a burden which it was its duty to bear. The old man bore me to the harbour, thus giving life to me twice, on land as a babe and again at sea.
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§ 9.86 ANTIPHILUS An omnivorous, crawling, lickerish mouse, seeing in the house an oyster with its lips open, had a bite at its flesh-like wet beard. Immediately the house of shell closed tightly with a clap owing to the pain, and the mouse, locked in the prison from which there was no escape, compassed for himself death and the tomb.
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§ 9.87 MARCUS ARGENTARIUS No longer warble, blackbird, by the oak-tree, no longer perch on the highest branch and call. This tree is thy enemy; hie thee to where the vine mounts with shady green leaves. Set thy feet on its branch and sing by it, pouring shrill notes from thy throat. For the oak bears the mistletoe which is the foe of birds, but the vine bears grape-clusters; and Bacchus loves songsters.
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§ 9.88 PHILIPPUS OF THESSALONICA I, the honey-voiced nightingale, was flying over the sea, complaining of Boreas (for not even the wind that blows from Thrace is kind to me), when a dolphin received me on his back, the sea-creature serving as the chariot of the winged one. Borne by this most faithful boatman, I charmed the oarless sailor by the lyre of my lips. The dolphins ever served as oarsmen to the Muses without payment. The tale of Arion is not untrue.
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§ 9.89 PHILIPPUS OF THESSALONICA Ancient Nico, fending off distressful famine, was gleaning the ears of corn with the girls, and perished from the heat. Her fellow-labourers piled up for her a woodless funeral pyre from the straw of the corn. Be not wrathful, Demeter, if the maidens clothed a child of Earth in the fruits of the earth.
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§ 9.90 ALPHEIUS OF MITYLENE To Poseidon Lord of horses, who hast dominion over the swift ships and the great precipitous rock of Euboea, grant a fair passage as far as the city of Ares to thy suppliants who loosed their moorings from Syria.
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§ 9.91 ARCHIAS THE YOUNGER Hail! Hermes, the Lord, who dwellest in the city of the Corycians, and look kindly on my simple offering.
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§ 9.92 ANTIPATER OF THESSALONICA A little dew is enough to make the cicadas tipsy, but when they have drunk they sing louder than swans. So can the singer who has received hospitality repay his benefactors with song for their little gifts. Therefore first I send thee these lines of thanks, and if the Fates consent thou shalt be often written in my pages.
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§ 9.93 ANTIPATER OF THESSALONICA Antipater sends to Piso for his birthday a little volume, the work of one night. Let Piso receive it favourably and praise the poet, like great Zeus, whose favour is often won by a little frankincense.
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§ 9.94 ISIDORUS OF AEGAE Tynnichus once caught an octopus and threw it from the sea on to the land, fearing to be enchained by the creature's tentacles. But it fell on and twined itself round a sleeping hare that, poor thing, had just escaped from the hounds. The captive became captor, and Tynnichus threw the octopus back alive into the sea, taking the hare as its ransom.
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§ 9.95 ALPHEIUS OF MITYLENE A domestic hen, the winter snow-flakes falling thick on her, gathered her chickens safely bedded under her wings till the cold shower from the sky killed her; for she remained exposed, fighting against the clouds of heaven. Procne and Medea, blush for yourselves in Hades, learning from a hen what mothers ought to be.
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§ 9.96 ANTIPATER OF THESSALONICA Antigenes of Gela, when he was already on his road to Hades, spoke thus to his daughter: “Maiden with lovely cheeks, daughter mine, let thy spindle ever be thy fellow-worker, a possession sufficient for a life of poverty. But if thou enterest into wedlock, keep with thee the virtues of thy Achaean mother, the safest dowry thy husband can have.”
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§ 9.97 ALPHEIUS OF MITYLENE We listen still to the lament of Andromache; still we see Troy laid in ruins from her foundations and the battle-toil of Ajax, and Hector bound to the chariot and dragged under the battlements of the town — all through the verse of Maeonides, the poet whom not one country honours as its own, but all the lands of two continents.
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§ 9.98 STATYLLIUS FLACCUS Thy two Oidipodes and the relentless hate of Electra, and the Sun driven from heaven by the feast of Atreus, and thy other writings that picture the many woes of princes in a maimer worthy of the chorus of Dionysus, approved thee, Sophocles, as the chief of the company of tragic poets; for thou didst speak with the very lips of the heroes.
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§ 9.99 LEONIDAS OF TARENTUM The nanny- goat's nimble, bearded spouse once in a vineyard nibbled all the tender leaves of a vine. The vine spoke thus to him from the ground: “Cut close with thy jaws, accursed beast, my fruitful branches; my stem is entire, and shall again send forth sweet nectar enough to serve as a libation for thee, goat, when thou art sacrificed.”
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§ 9.100 ALPHEIUS OF MITYLENE To Delos Holy nurse of Leda's babes, whom Zeus anchored immovably in the Aegean main! I swear, gracious lady, by thy own gods, that I will not call thee wretched or follow the verses of Antipater. I deem thee blessed in that thou didst receive Phoebus, and that Artemis, after Olympus, calls no land her fatherland but thee.

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.