Chapter II (13)

Still we hear the wail of Andromache, still we see all Troy toppling from her foundations, and the battling Ajax, and Hector, bound to the horses, dragged under the city's crown of towers,--through the Muse of Maeonides, the poet with whom no one country adorns herself as her own, but the zones of both worlds.

Translation of J.W. Mackail.

HEAVEN HATH ITS STARS

MARCUS ARGENTARIUS (First Century B.C.)

Feasting, I watch with westward-looking eye
The flashing constellations' pageantry,
Solemn and splendid; then anon I wreathe
My hair, and warbling to my harp I breathe
My full heart forth, and know the heavens look down
Pleased, for they also have their Lyre and Crown.

Translation of Richard Garnett.

PAN OF THE SEA-CLIFF

ARCHIAS (First Century B.C.)

Me, Pan, the fishermen placed upon this holy cliff,--Pan of the sea-shore, the watcher here over the fair anchorages of the harbor: and I take care now of the baskets and again of the trawlers off this shore. But sail thou by, O stranger, and in requital of this good service of theirs I will send behind thee a gentle south wind.

Translation of J.W. Mackail.

ANACREON'S GRAVE

ANTIPATER OF SIDON (First Century B.C.)

O stranger who passeth by the humble tomb of Anacreon, if thou hast had aught of good from my books, pour libation on my ashes, pour libation of the jocund grape, that my bones may rejoice, wetted with wine; so I, who was ever deep in the wine-steeped revels of Dionysus, I who was bred among drinking-tunes, shall not even when dead endure without Bacchus this place to which the generation of mortals must come.

Translation of J.W. Mackail.

REST AT NOON

MELEAGER (First Century B.C.)

Voiceful cricket, drunken with drops of dew, thou playest thy rustic music that murmurs in the solitude, and perched on the leaf edges shrillest thy lyre-tune with serrated legs and swart skin. But, my dear, utter a new song for the tree-nymphs' delight, and make thy harp-notes echo to Pan's, that escaping Love I may seek out sleep at noon, here, lying under the shady plane.

Translation of J.W. Mackail.

"IN THE SPRING A YOUNG MAN'S FANCY"

MELEAGER

Now the white iris blossoms, and the rain-loving narcissus,
And now again the lily, the mountain-roaming, blows.
Now too, the flower of lovers, the crown of all the springtime,
Zenophila the winsome, doth blossom with the rose.
O meadows, wherefore vainly in your radiant garlands laugh ye?
Since fairer is the maiden than any flower that grows!

Translation of Alma Strettell.

MELEAGER'S OWN EPITAPH

MELEAGER

Tread softly, O stranger; for here an old man sleeps among the holy dead, lulled in the slumber due to all; Meleager son of Eucrates, who united Love of the sweet tears and the Muses with the joyous Graces; whom god-begotten Tyre brought to manhood, and the sacred land of Gadara, but lovely Cos nursed in old age among the Meropes. But if thou art a Syrian, say "Salam," and if a Phoenician, "Naidios," and if a Greek, "Hail": they are the same.

Translation of J.W. Mackail.