I praise the Thracians, since for those they mourn,
Whose eyes are opening to the light of day,
But joy, when Death, the slave of Fate, has torn
Their sons and daughters from their arms away.
For we, the living, through each cruel ill
With painful steps continually go,
While they, who sleep beneath the grave’s green hill,
Have found, at last, a refuge from their wo.
Here is a most beautiful epitaph upon Sophocles, composed by Limmias, the Theban. In the first place, I will render it literally and consecutively into plain English, although, reader, thou knowest that—saving only in the Bible—the life and loveliness of all poetry dies under this ossifying process. “Gently over the tomb of Sophocles, gently, oh! ivy, mayst thou creep, pouring thy green curls abroad; and all about it may the petals of the rose bloom, and the grape-loving vine, scattering its moist branches around, on account of the wise docility, which he of the honey-tongue displayed, among the Muses and the Graces.”
It was thus elegantly translated many years since: