The Greek Anthology, Volume II: Books 7-8The Greek Anthology is a collection over centuries of some 4500 short Greek poems (called epigrams but seldom epigrammatic) by about 300 composers. |
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Page 225 - Attic,1 but lies in Syria, gave birth to me. From Eucrates I sprung, Meleager, who first by the help of the Muses ran abreast of the Graces of Menippus.2 If I am a Syrian, what wonder ? Stranger, we dwell in one country, the world ; one Chaos gave birth to all mortals.
Page 19 - Pal., vii, 25, 27, 29, and 31; see also ibid., 23, 236, 24, 26, 28, 30, 32, and 33; and vi, 346) also attest the poet's love for his Smerdis; in the first mentioned, for instance, Simonides in an epitaph says: "Alone in Acheron he grieves not that he has left the sun and dwelleth there in the House of Lethe, but that he has left Megistheus, graceful above all the youth, and his passion for Thracian Smerdis.
Page 259 - ... Asianic style sought for something like the Baroque: extravagance in diction and imagery, special tricks and effects in word arrangements. Most of this is hard to illustrate outside the Greek, but the use of repetition and fancy compounds in the following may give some of the flavor (VII, 476, 1-4): Tears, the last gift of my love, even down through the earth I send to thee in Hades, Heliodora — tears ill to shed, and on thy much-wept tomb I pour them in memory of longing, in memory of affection....
Page 9 - Why sigh we for our dead sons, when not even the gods have power to protect their children from death?
Page 7 - No more, Orpheus, shalt thou lead the charmed oaks and rocks and the shepherdless herds of wild beasts. No more shalt thou lull to sleep the howling winds and the hail, and the drifting snow, and a statue of Homer at Salamia in Cyprus, one of the towns which claimed his parentage.
Page 159 - THE shipwrecked mariner had escaped the whirlwind and the fury of the deadly sea, and as he was lying on the Libyan sand not far from the beach, deep in his last sleep, naked and exhausted by the unhappy wreck, a baneful viper slew him. Why did he struggle with the waves in vain, escaping then the fate that was his lot on the land ? 291.— XENOCRITUS OF RHODES THE salt sea still drips from thy locks, Lysidice, unhappy girl, shipwrecked and drowned.
Page 17 - LET the four-clustered ivy, Anacreon, flourish around thee, and the tender flowers of the purple meadows, and let fountains of white milk bubble up, and sweet-smelling wine gush from the earth, so that thy ashes and bones may have joy, if indeed any delight toucheth the dead.
Page 123 - Antipater of Sidon: I contain her who in Love's company luxuriated in gold and purple, more delicate than tender Cypris, Lais, citizen of sea-girt Corinth, Brighter than the white waters of Peirene, that mortal Cytherea, who had more notable suitors than the daughter of Tyndareus, all plucking her mercenary favors.
Page 261 - ... Piteously, piteously doth Meleager lament for thee who art still dear to him in death, paying a vain tribute to Acheron. Alas ! Alas ! Where is my beautiful one, my heart's desire ? Death has taken her, has taken her, and the flower in full bloom is defiled by the dust. But Earth my mother, nurturer of all, I beseech thee, clasp her gently to thy bosom, her whom all bewail.
Page 155 - I am the tomb of a shipwrecked man; but set sail, stranger: for when we were lost, the other ships voyaged on.