Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology Part 28

Once on a time when a ship was shattered at sea, two men fell at strife fighting for one plank. Antagoras struck away Pisistratus; one could not blame him, for it was for his life; but Justice took cognisance. The other swam ash.o.r.e; but him a dog-fish seized; surely the Avenger of the Fates rests not even in the watery deep.

XV EMPTY HANDS CALLIMACHUS

I know that my hands are empty of wealth; but by the Graces, O Menippus, tell me not my own dream; it hurts me to hear evermore this bitter word: yes, my dear, this is the most unloving thing of all I have borne from thee.

XVI LIGHT LOVE MARCUS ARGENTARIUS

Thou wert loved when rich, Sosicrates, but being poor thou art loved no longer; what magic has hunger! And she who before called thee spice and darling Adonis, Menophila, now inquires thy name. Who and whence of men art thou? where is thy city? Surely thou art dull in learning this saying, that none is friend to him who has nothing.

XVII FORTUNE'S PLAYTHING AUTHOR UNKNOWN

Not of good-will has Fortune advanced thee; but that she may show her omnipotence, even down to thee.

XVIII TIME THE CONQUEROR PLATO

Time carries all things; length of days knows how to change name and shape and nature and fortune.

XIX MEMNON AND ACHILLES ASCLEPIODOTUS

Know, O Thetis of the sea, that Memnon yet lives and cries aloud, warmed by his mother's torch, in Egypt beneath Libyan brows, where the running Nile severs fair-portalled Thebes; but Achilles, the insatiate of battle, utters no voice either on the Trojan plain or in Thessaly.

XX CORINTH ANTIPATER OF SIDON

Where is thine admired beauty, Dorian Corinth, where thy crown of towers? where thy treasures of old, where the temples of the immortals, where the halls and where the wives of the Sisyphids, and the tens of thousands of thy people that were? for not even a trace, O most distressful one, is left of thee, and war has swept up together and clean devoured all; only we, the unravaged sea-nymphs, maidens of Ocean, abide, halcyons wailing for thy woes.

XXI DELOS ANTIPATER OF THESSALONICA

Would I were yet blown about by ever-shifting gales, rather than fixed for wandering Leto's childbed; I had not so bemoaned my desolation. Ah miserable me, how many Greek ships sail by me, desert Delos, once so worshipful: late, but terrible, is Hera's vengeance laid on me thus for Leto's sake.

XXII TROY AGATHIAS

If thou art a Spartan born, O stranger, deride me not, for not to me only has Fortune accomplished this; and if of Asia, mourn not, for every city has bowed to the Dardanian sceptre of the Aeneadae. And though the jealous sword of enemies has emptied out G.o.ds' precincts and walls and inhabitants, I am queen again; but do thou, O my child, fearless Rome, lay the yoke of thy law over Greece.

XXIII MYCENAE (1) ALPHEUS

Few of the native places of the heroes are in our eyes, and those yet left rise little above the plain; and such art thou, O hapless Mycenae, as I marked thee in pa.s.sing by, more desolate than any hill- pasture, a thing that goatherds point at; and an old man said, "Here stood the Cyclopean city rich in gold."

XXIV MYCENAE (2) POMPEIUS

Though I am but drifted desolate dust where once was Mycenae, though I am more obscure to see than any chance rock, he who looks on the famed city of Ilus, whose walls I trod down and emptied all the house of Priam, will know thence how great my former strength was; and if old age has done me outrage, I am content with Homer's testimony.

XXV AMPHIPOLIS ANTIPATER OF THESSALONICA

City built upon Strymon and the broad h.e.l.lespont, grave of Edonian Phyllis, Amphipolis, yet there remain left to thee the traces of the temple of her of Aethopion and Brauron, and the water of the river so often fought around; but thee, once the high strife of the sons of Aegeus, we see like a torn rag of sea-purple on either sh.o.r.e.

XXVI SPARTA AUTHOR UNKNOWN

O Lacedaemon, once unsubdued and untrodden, thou seest shadeless the smoke of Olenian camp-fires on the Eurotas, and the birds building their nests on the ground wail for thee, and the wolves to do not hear any sheep.

XXVII BERYTUS AUTHOR UNKNOWN

Formerly the dead left their city living; but we living hold the city's funeral.

XXVIII SED TERRAE GRAVIORA LEONIDAS OF TARENTUM

Me, a hull that had measured such s.p.a.ces of sea, fire consumed on the land that cut her pines to make me. Ocean brought me safe to sh.o.r.e; but I found her who bore me more treacherous than the sea.

XXIX YOUTH AND RICHES AUTHOR UNKNOWN

I was young, but poor; now in old age I am rich, alas, alone of all men pitiable in both, who then could enjoy when I had nothing, and now have when I cannot enjoy.

x.x.x THE VINE'S REVENGE EVENUS

Though thou devour me down to the root, yet still will I bear so much fruit as will serve to pour libation on thee, O goat, when thou art sacrificed.

x.x.xI REVERSAL PLATO

A man finding gold left a halter; but he who had left the gold, not finding it, knotted the halter he found.

x.x.xII TENANTS AT WILL AUTHOR UNKNOWN

I was once the field of Achaemenides, now I am Menippus', and again I shall pa.s.s from another to another; for the former thought once that he owned me, and the latter thinks so now in his turn; and I belong to no man at all, but to Fortune.

x.x.xIII PARTING COMPANY AUTHOR UNKNOWN

Hope, and thou Fortune, a long farewell; I have found the haven; there is nothing more between me and you; make your sport of those who come after me.

x.x.xIV FORTUNE'S MASTER PALLADAS