A POET'S EPITAPH
Simmias of Thebes (405 B.C.)
Quietly, o'er the tomb of Sophocles,
Quietly, ivy, creep with tendrils green;
And roses, ope your petals everywhere,
While dewy shoots of grape-vine peep between,
Upon the wise and honeyed poet's grave,
Whom Muse and Grace their richest treasures gave.
Translation of J. W. Mackail.
WORSHIP IN SPRING
Theætetus (Fourth Century B. C.)
Now at her fruitful birth-tide the fair green field flowers out in blowing roses; now on the boughs of the colonnaded cypresses the cicala, mad with music, lulls the binder of sheaves; and the careful mother swallow, having finished houses under the eaves, gives harborage to her brood in the mud-plastered cells; and the sea slumbers, with zephyr-wooing calm spread clear over the broad ship-tracks, not breaking in squalls on the stemposts, not vomiting foam upon the beaches. O sailor, burn by the altars the glittering round of a mullet, or a cuttle-fish, or a vocal scarus, to Priapus, ruler of ocean and giver of anchorage; and so go fearlessly on thy seafaring to the bounds of the Ionian Sea.
Translation of J. W. Mackail.