Short Poems

Preface

Return, ye Muses, and throw open rescued Helicon; now again may your company gather there. Nowhere now in Italy does the hostile trumpet forbid song with its viler bray. Do thou too, Delian Apollo, now that Delphi is safe and fear has been dispelled, wreath thy avenger's head with flowers. No savage foe sets profane lips to Castalia's spring or those prophetic streams.

ON HIS OWN B OOK

Not my namesake of Chios, but I, who belong
To the Syracuse burghers, have sung you my song
I'm Praxagoras' son by Philinna the fair,
And I never asked praise that was owing elsewhere.

EPITAPH OF C LEITA , Nurse OF M EDEIUS

T HE babe Medeius to his Thracian nurse
This stone — inscribed To Cleita — reared in the mid-highway.
Her modest virtues oft shall men rehearse;
Who doubts it? is not " Cleita's worth " a proverb to this day?

FOR A Tripod E RECTED BY D AMOTELES TO B ACCHUS

T HE precentor Damoteles, Bacchus, exalts
Your tripod, and, sweetest of deities, you
He was champion of men, if his boyhood had faults
And he ever loved honour and seemliness too.

EPITAPH OF E USTHENES

Here the shrewd physiognomist Eusthenes lies,
Who could tell all your thoughts by a glance at your eyes.
A stranger, with strangers his honoured bones rest;
They valued sweet song, and he gave them his best.
All the honours of death doth the poet possess:
If a small one, they mourned for him nevertheless.

FOR A Statue OF THE M USES

T O you this marble statue, maids divine,
Xenocles raised, one tribute unto nine
Your votary all admit him: by this skill
He gat him fame: and you he honours still.

FOR A Statue OF Æ SCULAPIUS

F AR as Miletus travelled Paean's son;
There to be guest of Nicias, guest of one
Who heals all sickness; and who still reveres
Him, for his sake this cedarn image rears
The sculptor's hand right well did Nicias fill;
And here the sculptor lavished all his skill.

Poor Thyrsis! What boots it to weep out thine eyes?
Thy kid was a fair one, I own:
But the wolf with his cruel claw made her his prize,
And to darkness her spirit hath flown.
Do the dogs cry? What boots it? In spite of their cries
There is left of her never a bone.

Prythee , sing something sweet to me — you that can play
First and second at once. Then I too will essay
To croak on the pipes: and yon lad shall salute
Our ears with a melody breathed through his flute
In the cave by the green oak our watch we will keep,
And goatish old Pan we'll defraud of his sleep.