Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology Part 18

We fell under the fold of Dirphys, and a memorial is reared over us by our country near the Euripus, not unjustly; for we lost lovely youth facing the rough cloud of war.

X ON THE ERETRIAN EXILES IN PERSIA PLATO

We who of old left the booming surge of the Aegean lie here in the mid-plain of Ecbatana: fare thou well, renowned Eretria once our country, farewell Athens nigh to Euboea, farewell dear sea.

XI ON THE SAME PLATO

We are Eretrians of Euboea by blood, but we lie near Susa, alas! how far from our own land.

XII ON AESCHYLUS AESCHYLUS

Aeschylus son of Euphorion the Athenian this monument hides, who died in wheat-bearing Gela; but of his approved valour the Marathonian grove may tell, and the deep-haired Mede who knew it.

XIII ON AN EMPTY TOMB IN TRACHIS EUPHORION

Not rocky Trachis covers over thy white bones, nor this stone with her dark-blue lettering; but them the Icarian wave dashes about the shingle of Doliche and steep Dracanon; and I, this empty earth, for old friendship with Polymedes, am heaped among the thirsty herbage of Dryopis.

XIV ON THE GRAVE OF AN ATHENIAN AT MEROe AUTHOR UNKNOWN

Straight is the descent to Hades, whether thou wert to go from Athens or takest thy journey from Meroe; let it not vex thee to have died so far away from home; from all lands the wind that blows to Hades is but one.

XV ON THE GRAVE OF AN ATHENIAN WOMAN AT CYZICUS ERYCIUS

I am an Athenian woman; for that was my city; but from Athens the wasting war-G.o.d of the Italians plundered me long ago and made a Roman citizen; and now that I am dead, seagirt Cyzicus wraps my bones. Fare thou well, O land that nurturedst me, and thou that thereafter didst hold me, and thou that at last hast taken me to thy breast.

XVI ON A SHIPWRECKED SAILOR PLATO

I am the tomb of one shipwrecked; and that opposite me, of a husbandman; for a common Hades lies beneath sea and earth.

XVII ON THE SAME PLATO

Well be with you, O mariners, both at sea and on land; but know that you pa.s.s by the grave of a shipwrecked man.

XVIII ON THE SAME THEODORIDES

I am the tomb of one shipwrecked; but sail thou; for when we were perishing, the other ships sailed on over the sea.

XIX ON THE SAME LEONIDAS OF TARENTUM

May the seafarer have a prosperous voyage; but if, like me, the gale drive him into the harbour of Hades, let him blame not the inhospitable sea-gulf, but his own foolhardiness that loosed moorings from our tomb.

XX ON THE SAME AUTHOR UNKNOWN

Mariner, ask not whose tomb I am here, but be thine own fortune a kinder sea.

XXI ON THE SAME CALLIMACHUS

What stranger, O shipwrecked man? Leontichus found me here a corpse on the sh.o.r.e, and heaped this tomb over me, with tears for his own calamitous life: for neither is he at peace, but flits like a gull over the sea.

XXII ON THE EMPTY TOMB OF ONE LOST AT SEA GLAUCUS

Not dust nor the light weight of a stone, but all this sea that thou beholdest is the tomb of Erasippus; for he perished with his ship, and in some unknown place his bones moulder, and the sea-gulls alone know them to tell.

XXIII ON THE SAME SIMONIDES

Cloudcapt Geraneia, cruel steep, would thou hadst looked on far Ister and long Scythian Tanas, and not lain nigh the surge of the Scironian sea by the ravines of the snowy Meluriad rock: but now he is a chill corpse in ocean, and the empty tomb here cries aloud of his heavy voyage.

XXIV ON THE SAME DAMAGETUS

Thymodes also, weeping over unlooked-for woes, reared this empty tomb to Lycus his son; for not even in a strange land did he get a grave, but some Thynian beach or Pontic island holds him, where, forlorn of all funeral rites, his shining bones lie naked on an inhospitable sh.o.r.e.

XXV ON A SAILOR DROWNED IN HARBOUR ANTIPATER OF SIDON

Everywhere the sea is the sea; why idly blame we the Cyclades or the narrow wave of h.e.l.le and the Needles? in vain have they their fame; or why when I had escaped them did the harbour of Scarphe cover me? Pray whoso will for a fair pa.s.sage home; that the sea's way is the sea, Aristagoras knows who is buried here.

XXVI ON ARISTON OF CYRENE, LOST AT SEA THEAETETUS

O sailing mariners, Ariston of Cyrene prays you all for the sake of Zeus the Protector, to tell his father Meno that he lies by the Icarian rocks, having given up the ghost in the Aegean sea.

XXVII ON BITON OF AMPHIPOLIS, LOST AT SEA NICAENETUS

I am the grave of Biton, O wayfarer; and if leaving Torone thou goest even to Amphipolis, tell Nicagoras that Strymonias at the setting of the Kids lost him his only son.

XXVIII ON POLYANTHUS OF TORONE, LOST AT SEA PHAEDIMUS

I bewail Polyanthus, O thou who pa.s.sest by, whom Aristagore his wife laid newly-wedded in the grave, having received dust and bones (but him the ill-blown Aegean wave cast away off Sciathus), when at early dawn the fishermen drew his luckless corpse, O stranger, into the harbour of Torone.

XXIX ON A WAYSIDE TOMB NICIAS