SPRING ON THE COAST

LEONIDAS OF TARENTUM (Third Century B. C.)

ow is the season of sailing; for already the chattering swallow is come, and the gracious west wind; the meadows flower, and the sea, tossed up with waves and rough blasts, has sunk to silence. Weigh thine anchors and unloose thine hawsers, O mariner, and sail with all thy canvas set: this I, Priapus of the harbor, bid thee, O man, that thou mayest set forth to all thy trafficking.

Translation of J. W. Mackail.

A YOUNG HERO'S EPITAPH.

DIOSCORIDES (Third Century B. C.)

OME to Petana comes Thrasybulus lifeless on his shield, seven

H Argive wounds before. His bleeding boy the father Tynnichos lays on the pyre, to say:- "Let your wounds weep. Tearless I bury you, my boy-mine and my country's."

Translation of Talcott Williams.

JAR

LOVE

POSIDIPPUS (Third Century B. C.)

AR of Athens, drip the dewy juice of wine, drip, let the feast to which all bring their share be wetted as with dew; be silenced the swan-sage Zeno, and the Muse of Cleanthes, and let bitter-sweet Love be our concern.

Translation of J. W. Mackail.

K

SORROW'S BARREN GRAVE

HERACLEITUS (Third Century B. C.)

EEP off, keep off thy hand, O husbandman,

Nor through this grave's calm dust thy plowshare

drive;

These very sods have once been mourned upon,

And on such ground no crop will ever thrive,
Nor corn spring up with green and feathery ears,
From earth that has been watered by such tears.

Translation of Alma Strettell.

B

TO A COY MAIDEN
ASCLEPIADES (286 B. C.)

ELIEVE me love, it is not good
To hoard a mortal maidenhood;
In Hades thou wilt never find,
Maiden, a lover to thy mind;
Love's for the living! presently
Ashes and dust in death are we!,

Translation of Andrew Lang.

THIS

THE EMPTIED QUIVER

MNESALCUS (Second Century B. C.)

HIS bending bow and emptied quiver, Promachus hangs as a gift to thee, Phoebus. The swift shafts men's hearts hold, whom they called to death in the battle's rout.

Translation of Talcott Williams.

THE TALE OF TROY

ALPHEUS (First Century B. C.)

TILL 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 Mæonides, the poet with whom no one country adorns herself as her own, but the zones of both worlds.

Translation of J. W. Mackail.

F

HEAVEN HATH ITS STARS

MARCUS ARGENTARIUS (First Century B. C.)

EASTING, 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.

M

PAN OF THE SEA-CLIFF

ARCHIAS (First Century B. C.)

E, 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.)

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.)

OICEFUL 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

ow the white iris blossoms, and the rain-loving narcissus,

Now 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.

TRE

MELEAGER'S OWN EPITAPH

MELEAGER

READ 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.

I

EPILOGUE

PHILODEMUS (60 B. C.)

WAS in love once; who has not been? I have reveled; who is uninitiated in revels? Nay, I was mad; at whose prompting but a god's? Let them go; for now the silver hair is fast replacing the black, a messenger of wisdom that comes with age. We too played when the time of playing was; and now that it is no longer, we will turn to worthier thoughts.

M

Translation of J. W. Mackail.

DOCTOR AND DIVINITY

NICARCHUS

ARCUS the doctor called yesterday on the marble Zeus; though marble, and though Zeus, his funeral is to-day.

Translation of J. W. Mackail.

WHO

LOVE'S IMMORTALITY

STRATO (First Century A. D.)

may know if a loved one passes the prime, while ever with him and never left alone? Who may not satisfy to-day who satisfied yesterday? and if he satisfy, what should befall him not to satisfy to-morrow?

Translation of J. W. Mackail.

AS THE FLOWERS OF THE FIELD

STRATO

F THOU boast in thy beauty, know that the rose too blooms, but quickly being withered, is cast on the dunghill; for blossom and beauty have the same time allotted to them, and both together envious time withers away.

Translation of J. W. Mackail.

M

SUMMER SAILING

ANTIPHILUS (First Century A. D.)

INE be a mattress on the poop, and the awnings over it, sounding with the blows of the spray, and the fire forcing its way out of the hearthstones, and a pot upon them with empty turmoil of bubbles; and let me see the boy dressing the meat, and my table be a ship's plank covered with a cloth; and a game of pitch-and-toss, and the boatswain's whistle: the other day I had such fortune, for I love common life.

Translation of J. W. Mackail.

THE GREAT MYSTERIES

CRINAGORAS (First Century A. D.)

HOUGH thy life be fixed in one seat, and thou sailest not the

THOU

sea nor treadest the roads on dry land, yet by all means go to Attica, that thou mayest see those great nights of the worship of Demeter; whereby thou shalt possess thy soul without care among the living, and lighter when thou must go to the place that awaiteth all.

Translation of J. W. Mackail.