Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology

by Unknown

CHAPTER X

THE HUMAN COMEDY

I PROLOGUE STRATO

Seek not on my pages Priam at the altars nor Medea's and Niobe's woes, nor Itys in the hidden chambers, and the nightingales among the leaves; for of all these things former poets wrote abundantly; but mingling with the blithe Graces, sweet Love and the Wine-god; and grave looks become not them.

II FLOWER O' THE ROSE DIONYSIUS

You with the roses, you are fair as a rose; but what sell you? yourself, or your roses, or both together?

III LOST DRINK NICARCHUS

At the Hermaea, Aphrodisius, while lifting six gallons of wine for us, stumbled and dealt us great woe. "From wine also perished the Centaur," and ah that we had too! but now it perished from us.

IV THE VINTAGE-REVEL LEONIDAS OF TARENTUM

To the must-drinking Satyrs and to Bacchus, planter of the vine, Heronax consecrated the first handfuls of his plantation, these three casks from three vineyards, filled with the first flow of the wine; from which we, having poured such libation as is meet to crimson Bacchus and the Satyrs, will drink deeper than they.

V SNOW IN SUMMER SIMONIDES

With this once the sharp North Wind rushing from Thrace covered the flanks of Olympus, and nipped the spirits of thinly-clad men; then it was buried alive, clad in Pierian earth. Let a share of it be mingled for me; for it is not seemly to bear a tepid draught to a friend.

VI A JUG OF WINE AUTHOR UNKNOWN

Round-bellied, deftly-turned, one eared, long-throated, straight- necked, bubbling in thy narrow mouth, blithe handmaiden of Bacchus and the Muses and Cytherea, sweet of laughter, delightful ministress of social banquets, why when I am sober art thou in liquor, and when I am drunk, art sober again? Thou wrongest the good-fellowship of drinking.

VII THE EMPTY JAR ERATOSTHENES

Xenophon the wine-bibber dedicates an empty jar to thee, Bacchus; receive it graciously, for it is all he has.

VIII ANGELORUM CHORI MARCUS ARGENTARIUS

I hold revel, regarding the golden choir of the stars at evening, nor do I spurn the dances of others; but garlanding my hair with flowers that drop their petals over me, I waken the melodious harp into passion with musical hands; and doing thus I lead a well-ordered life, for the order of the heavens too has its Lyre and Crown.

IX SUMMER SAILING ANTIPHILUS

Mine be a mattress on the poop, and the awnings over it surrounding with the blows of the spray, and the fire forcing its way out of the hearth-stones, and a pot upon them with empty turmoil of bubbles; and let me see the boy dressing the meat, and my table be a ship's plank covered with a cloth; and a game of pitch and toss, and the boatswain's whistle: the other day I had such fortune, for I love common life.

X L'ALLEGRO JULIANUS AEGYPTIUS

All the ways of life are pleasant; in the market-place are goodly companionships, and at home griefs are hidden; the country brings pleasure, seafaring wealth, foreign lands knowledge. Marriages make a united house, and the unmarried life is never anxious; a child is a bulwark to his father; the childless are far from fears; youth knows the gift of courage, white hairs of wisdom: therefore, taking courage, live, and beget a family.

XI DUM VIVIMUS VIVAMUS AUTHOR UNKNOWN

Six hours fit labour best: and those that follow, shown forth in letters, say to mortals, "Live."

XII HOPE AND EXPERIENCE AUTHOR UNKNOWN

Whoso has married once and again seeks a second wedding, is a shipwrecked man who sails twice through a difficult gulf.

XIII THE MARRIED MAN PALLADAS

If you boast high that you are not obedient to your wife's commands, you talk idly, for you are not sprung of oak or rock, as the saying is; and, as is the hard case with most or all of us, you too are in woman's rule. But if you say, "I am not struck with a slipper, nor my wife being unchaste have I to bear it and shut my eyes," I reply that your bondage is lighter, in that you have sold yourself to a reasonable and not to too hard a mistress.

XIV AN UNGROUNDED SCANDAL LUCILIUS

Some say, Nicylla, that you dye your hair; which is as black as can be bought in the market.

XV THE POPULAR SINGER NICARCHUS

The night-raven's song is deadly; but when Demophilus sings, the very night-raven dies.

XVI THE FAULTLESS DANCER PALLADAS

Snub-nosed Memphis danced Daphnis and Niobe; Daphne like a stock,
Niobe like a stone.

XVII THE FORTUNATE PAINTER LUCILIUS

Eutychus the portrait-painter got twenty sons, and never got one likeness, even among his children.

XVIII SLOW AND SURE NICARCHUS

Charmus ran for the three miles in Arcadia with five others; surprising to say, he actually came in seventh. When there were only six, perhaps you will say, how seventh? A friend of his went along in his great-coat crying, "Keep it up, Charmus!" and so he arrives seventh; and if only he had had five more friends, Zoïlus, he would have come in twelfth.

XIX MARCUS THE RUNNER LUCILIUS

Marcus once saw midnight out in the armed men's race, so that the race-course was all locked up, as the police all thought that he was one of the stone men in armour who stand there in honour of victors. Very well, it was opened next day, and then Marcus turned up, still short of the goal by the whole course.

XX HERMOGENES LUCILIUS

Little Hermogenes, when he lets anything fall on the ground, has to drag it down to him with a hook at the end of a pole.

XXI PHANTASMS OF THE LIVING LUCILIUS

Lean Gaius yesterday breathed his very last breath, and left nothing at all for burial, but having passed down into Hades just as he was in life, flutters there the thinnest of the anatomies under earth; and his kinsfolk lifted an empty bier on their shoulders, inscribing above it, "This is Gaius' funeral."

XXII A LABOUR OF HERCULES LUCILIUS

Tiny Macron was found asleep one summer day by a mouse, who pulled him by his tiny foot into its hole; but in the hole he strangled the mouse with his naked hands and cried, "Father Zeus, thou hast a second Heracles."

XXIII EROTION LUCILIUS

Small Erotion while playing was carried aloft by a gnat, and cried,
"What can I do, Father Zeus, if thou dost claim me?"

XXIV ARTEMIDORA LUCILIUS

Fanning thin Artemidora in her sleep, Demetrius blew her clean out of the house.

XXV THE ATOMIC THEORY LUCILIUS

Epicurus wrote that the whole universe consisted of atoms, thinking, Alcimus, that the atom was the least of things. But if Diophantus had lived then, he would have written, "consisted of Diophantus," who is much more minute than even the atoms, or would have written that all other things indeed consist of atoms, but the atoms themselves of him.

XXVI CHAEREMON LUCILIUS

Borne up by a slight breeze, Chaeremon floated through the clear air, far lighter than chaff, and probably would have gone spinning off through ether, but that he caught his feet in a spider's web, and dangled there on his back; there he hung five nights and days, and on the sixth came down by a strand of the web.

XXVII GOD AND THE DOCTOR NICARCHUS

Marcus the doctor called yesterday on the marble Zeus; though marble, and though Zeus, his funeral is to-day.

XXVIII THE PHYSICIAN AND THE ASTROLOGER NICARCHUS

Diophantus the asrologer said that Hermogenes the physician had only nine months to live; and he laughing replied, "what Cronus may do in nine months, do you consider; but I can make short work with you." He spoke, and reaching out, just touched him, and Diophantus, while forbidding another to hope, gasped out his own life.

XXIX A DEADLY DREAM LUCILIUS

Diophantus, having seen Hermogenes the physician in sleep, never awoke again, though he wore an amulet.

XXX SIMON THE OCULIST NICARCHUS

If you have an enemy, Dionysius, call not down upon him Isis nor Harpocrates, nor whatever god strikes men blind, but Simon; and you will know what God and what Simon can do.

XXXI SCIENTIFIC SURGERY NICARCHUS

Agclaus killed Acestorides while operating; for, "Poor man," he said, "he would have been lame for life."

XXXII THE WISE PROPHET LUCILIUS

All the astrologers as from one mouth prophesied to my father that his brother would reach a great old age; Hermocleides alone said he was fated to die early; and he said so, when we were mourning over his corpse in-doors.

XXXIII SOOTHSAYING NICARCHUS

Some one came inquiring of the prophet Olympicus whether he should sail to Rhodes, and how he should have a safe voyage; and the prophet replied, "First have a new ship, and set sail not in winter but in summer; for if you do this you will travel there and back safely, unless a pirate captures you at sea."

XXXIV THE ASTROLOGER'S FORECAST AGATHIAS

Calligenes the farmer, when he had cast his seed into the land, came to the house of Aristophenes the astrologer, and asked him to tell whether he would have a prosperous summer and abundant plenty of corn. And he, taking the counters and ranging them closely on the board, and crooking his fingers, uttered his reply to Calligenes: "If the cornfield gets sufficient rain, and does not breed a crop of flowering weeds, and frost does not crack the furrows, nor hail flay the heads of the springing blades, and the pricket does not devour the crop, and it sees no other injury of weather or soil, I prophesy you a capital summer, and you will cut the ears successfully: only fear the locusts."

XXXV A SCHOOL OF RHETORIC AUTHOR UNKNOWN

All hail, seven pupils of Aristides the rhetorician, four walls and three benches.

XXXVI CROSS PURPOSES NICARCHUS

A deaf man went to law with a deaf man, and the judge was a long way deafer than both. The one claimed that the other owed him five months' rent; and he replied that he had ground his corn by night; then the judge, looking down on them, said, "Why quarrel? she is your mother; keep her between you."

XXXVII THE PATENT STOVE NICARCHUS

You have bought a brass hot-water urn, Heliodorus, that is chillier than the north wind about Thrace; do not blow, do not labour, you but raise smoke in vain; it is a brass wine-cooler you have bought against summer.

XXXVIII THE WOODEN HORSE LUCILIUS

You have a Thessalian horse, Erasistratus, but the drugs of all Thessaly cannot make him go; the real wooden horse, that if Trojans and Greeks had all pulled together, would never have entered at the Scaean gate; set it up as an offering to some god, if you take my advice, and make gruel for your little children with its barley.

XXXIX A MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE LUCILIUS

Antiochus once set eyes on Lysimachus' cushion, and Lysimachus never set eyes on his cushion again.

XL CINYRAS THE CILICIAN DEMODOCUS

All Cilicians are bad men; among the Cilicians there is one good man,
Cinyras, and Cinyras is a Cilician.

XLI A GENERATION OF VIPERS AUTHOR UNKNOWN

Keep clear of a cobra, a toad, a viper, and the Laodiceans; also of a mad dog, and of the Laodiceans once again.

XLII THE LIFEBOAT NICARCHUS

Philo had a boat, the Salvation, but not Zeus himself, I believe, can be safe in her; for she was salvation in name only, and those who got on board her used either to go aground or to go underground.

XLIII THE MISER AND THE MOUSE LUCILIUS

Asclepiades the miser saw a mouse in his house, and said, "What do you want with me, my very dear mouse?" and the mouse, smiling sweetly, replied, "Do not be afraid, my friend; we do not ask board from you, only lodging."

XLIV THE FRUITS OF PHILOSOPHY LUCIAN

We saw at dinner the great wisdom of that sturdy beggar the Cynic with the long beard; for at first he abstained from lupines and radishes, saying that Virtue ought not to be a slave to the belly; but when he saw a snowy womb dressed with sharp sauce before his eyes, which at once stole away his sagacious intellect, he unexpectedly asked for it, and ate of it heartily, observing that an entrée could not harm Virtue.

XLV VEGETARIANISM AUTHOR UNKNOWN

You were not alone in keeping your hands off live things; we do so too; who touches live food, Pythagoras? but we eat what has been boiled and roasted and pickled, and there is no life in it then.

XLVI NICON'S NOSE NICARCHUS

I see Nicon's hooked nose, Menippus; it is evident he is not far off now; oh, he will be here, let us just wait; for at the most his nose is not, I fancy, five stadia off him. Nay, here it is, you see, stepping forward; if we stand on a high mound we shall catch sight of him in person.

XLVII WHO SO PALE AND WAN, FOND LOVER ASCLEPIADES

Drink, Asclepiades; why these tears? what ails thee? not of thee only has the cruel Cyprian made her prey, nor for thee only bitter Love whetted the arrows of his bow; why while yet alive liest thou in the dust?

XLVIII THE WORLD'S REVENGE LUCIAN

In a company where all were drunk, Acindynus must needs be sober; and so he seemed himself the one drunk man there.

XLIX EPILOGUE PHILODEMUS

I was in love once; who has not been? I have revelled; who is uninitiated in revels? nay, I was mad; at whose prompting but a god's? Let them go; for now the silver hair is fast replacing the black, a messenger of wisdom that comes with age. We too played when the time of playing was; and now that it is no longer, we will turn to worthier thoughts.