Theocritus Part 22

X.

For a Statue of the Muses.

To 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.

XI.

Epitaph of Eusthenes.

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.

XII.

For a Tripod Erected by Damoteles to Bacchus.

The 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.

XIII.

For a Statue of Anacreon.

This statue, stranger, scan with earnest gaze; And, home returning, say "I have beheld Anacreon, in Teos; him whose lays Were all unmatched among our sires of eld."

Say further: "Youth and beauty pleased him best;"

And all the man will fairly stand exprest.

XIV.

Epitaph of Eurymedon.

Thou hast gone to the grave, and abandoned thy son Yet a babe, thy own manhood but scarcely begun.

Thou art throned among G.o.ds: and thy country will take Thy child to her heart, for his brave father's sake.

XV.

Another.

Prove, traveller, now, that you honour the brave Above the poltroon, when he's laid in the grave, By murmuring 'Peace to Eurymedon dead.'

The turf should lie light on so sacred a head.

XVI.

For a Statue of the Heavenly Aphrodite.

Aphrodite stands here; she of heavenly birth; Not that base one who's wooed by the children of earth.

'Tis a G.o.ddess; bow down. And one blemishless all, Chrysogone, placed her in Amphicles' hall: Chrysogone's heart, as her children, was his, And each year they knew better what happiness is.

For, Queen, at life's outset they made thee their friend; Religion is policy too in the end.

XVII.

To Epicharmus.

Read these lines to Epicharmus. They are Dorian, as was he The sire of Comedy.

Of his proper self bereaved, Bacchus, unto thee we rear His brazen image here; We in Syracuse who sojourn, elsewhere born. Thus much we can Do for our countryman, Mindful of the debt we owe him. For, possessing ample store Of legendary lore, Many a wholesome word, to pilot youths and maids thro' life, he spake: We honour him for their sake.

XVIII.

Epitaph of Cleita, Nurse of Medeius.

The babe Medeius to his Thracian nurse This stone--inscribed _To Cleita_--reared in the midhighway.

Her modest virtues oft shall men rehea.r.s.e; Who doubts it? is not 'Cleita's worth' a proverb to this day?

XIX.

To Archilochus.

Pause, and scan well Archilochus, the bard of elder days, By east and west Alike's confest The mighty lyrist's praise.

Delian Apollo loved him well, and well the sister-choir: His songs were fraught With subtle thought, And matchless was his lyre.

XX.

Under a Statue of Peisander, WHO WROTE THE LABOURS OF HERACLES.

He whom ye gaze on was the first That in quaint song the deeds rehea.r.s.ed Of him whose arm was swift to smite, Who dared the lion to the fight: That tale, so strange, so manifold, Peisander of Cameirus told.

For this good work, thou may'st be sure, His country placed him here, In solid bra.s.s that shall endure Through many a month and year.

XXI.

Epitaph of Hipponax.

Behold Hipponax' burialplace, A true bard's grave.

Approach it not, if you're a base And base-born knave.

But if your sires were honest men And unblamed you, Sit down thereon serenely then, And eke sleep too.