Greek poetry

[transemacabre]

No medieval poems for you today; below the cut are several of my favorite classic poems of Greece. Some really exceptional poetry, heartbreaking, romantic, funny, satirical, the Greeks could do it all.


DEDICATION OF A BOW: TO SERAPIS

Menoitas of Lyktos dedicates thus his bow:
O Seraphis, thine are the bow of horn and the quiver.
The quiver is empty.
The enemy has my arrows.
-- Kallimachos.

ON ENVIOUS DIOPHON

Diophon was crucified:
But, seeing beside him another on a loftier cross,
He died of envy.
-- Lucilius.

DIALOGUE

Why that alarming sigh? I'm in love.
With a boy or a girl? With a girl.
Attractive? I think so!
Where did you meet her? Last night at a dinner-party.
I see. And you think you've a chance with her? I'm sure of it; but it's got to be kept a secret, friend.
Ah. Then you mean you are not contemplating marriage? That isn't it. I mean that I've learned she hasn't a penny in the world.
You've 'learned'! -- Liar, liar, you're not in love! The heart struck silly by Love's shaft forgets its arithmetic!
-- Agathias.

EPITAPH OF A DOG

Stranger by the roadside, do not smile
When you see this grave, though it is only a dog's.
My master wept when I died, and his own hand
Laid me in earth and wrote these lines on my
tomb.
-- Anonymous.

HERMIONE'S GIRDLE

Aphrodite, dear Goddess:
Once I was playing with lovely Hermione,
And about her waist, O Paphian Queen, she wore
A girdle wrought with letters of gold: LOVE ME
AND BE NOT ANGRY IF I BELONG TO ANOTHER
-- Asklepiades.

ON MARCUS THE PHYSICIAN

Yesterday, Marcus the physician went to see the statue of Zeus.
Though Zeus,
And though marble,
We're burying the statue today.
-- Nikarchos.

TO LYKAINIS: A METAPHOR

Tell her this, Dorkas:
Meleagros to Lykainis:
And so your kisses turn out to be counterfeit coin:
Time's worn them down to the brass.
-- Meleagros.

EPITAPH OF A YOUNG CHILD

His father Philip laid here the twelve-year-old boy
Nikoteles:
his dearest hope.
-- Kallimachos.