Ancient Greek Epigrams

I I i: l l: I : : ? i i Ancient Greek Epigrams t Major Poets in Verse Translation- l Gordon L. Fain l r IJ i; I ! I f i § I I CP UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley Los Angeles London 34 . / Introduction to Ancient Greeks Epigrams as much of the wording of the verse as I could , but in a medium in English that reproduces some of the feeling of the poem as an epigram. These examples are representative of the difficulties I encountered and the approach I used to solve them. I have made every attempt to produce translations as faithful to the original as possible, but I made some compromises to produce a poem with meter and rhyme. I have occasionally left out a name or patronymic or vocative or other word or phrase that didn't seem to me essential, or added a word or phrase to make the meaning clearer. In some poems I have condensed and simplified; in others, I have expanded the poem by saying the same thing more than once, either to explain a word with more than one meaning or to fill in the structure of the poem. I have attempted to make these changes as conservatively as I could, with careful attention to the meaning of the Greek. Traduttore, traditore; there is no perfect translation. Readers wishing to compare my versions with those of other translators may want to consult the many volumes listed under “Texts of Poems” in the bibliography at the back of the book. I hope my own renditions give some feeling for these charming, amusing, and occasionally moving poems, which are not as well known as they should be, and which have played such an important role in the history of Western literature. CHAPTER TWO The most famous woman poet of ancient Greece was of course Sappho, whose work has come down to us mostly as fragments cited by other authors or in papyri rescued from the sands of Egypt. We have only two, perhaps three of her pojitms in their entirety. From Anyte, on the other hand, we have at least njirenty, which may never reach the summit of the greatest of Sappho's venies but nevertheless deserve more attention than they have received. Anjjite’s lovely and affecting epigrams about ;young women and animals are;j among the most enjoyable poems of Meleagers Garland. She is also important historically, since she was among the first to extend the genre of epigram beyond the customary categories of epitaphs and dedications. : ! i: 35 mV 36 / Anyte . Anyte / 37 I Of Anyte’s life We know practically nothing. She is said to have come from Tegea in Arcadia, in a mountainous area in the south of mainland Greece in the middle of the Peloponnesian Peninsula. Her birth date is uncertain but is likely to have been near 340-320 BCE, since she was apparently active at the very beginning of the third century BCE. One of the few stories we have about her is given by Pausanias in his Description of Greece. The tale goes that a rich man named Phalysius in the city of Naupactus had an eye disease. When he was nearly blind , Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine, appeared to Anyte in a dream and gave her a sealed tablet , which she was instructed to take to Phalysius. When she arrived in Naupactus, she told Phalysius to take off the seal and read what was written. When Phalysius looked at the tablet, he realized that he had recovered his sight and did as he was instructed: he gave Anyte two thousand staters of gold, which would have made her quite a wealthy woman . Anyte s influence on Greek epigram was immense. She wrote epitaphs and dedications, in most cases not as actual inscriptions but for recitation and publication. She was among the first of the Greek poets to write epitaphs for dead animals, which subsequently became a major theme of third-century poetry. She was also apparently among the first to write poems whose themes lay outside the traditional scope of epigrams and were epideictic that is, written to display the talents of the poet on almost any subject. They included poems we now call ecphrastic, which describe a work of art such as a piece of sculpture or a painting. Since we probably have only a fraction of her output, we cannot know how far she took the epigram outside its traditional boundaries, but the poems of the later poet Posidippus make clear that the range subsequently became ver y large, and Anyte likely played an important role in this development . There is an elegance and sensitivity to her writing that is greater than in many of the other Hellenistic poets. Her epitaphs on young women (I IV) are poignant expressions of grief of the parents and friends of the dead girls. The voice of these poems seems to be that of the poet, as if — — , Ci I 11 Ip * s£ mm £ & m IK mm . I i 3 m m .. i * m3: • pfc? m Hi s «s • HI i m ate 33 m m m m am i Pip: m Anyte had known each|i>f these girls personally. The epitaphs and consolation poems for deaoj animals ( VI-X ) are varied in character, but several are remarkable fop their sympathy to pets and the world of nature. We can scarcely doubt tijiat the Greeks were fond of animals; we need only remember the portrayal in book 17 of the Odyssey of the dog Argos, who, though near death, dropped his ears and wagged his tail at the sound of his masters voibe. Anyte brought this appreciation to a higher level , anticipating the famous poem of Catullus on the death of Lesbia’s sparrow. Her poems on rural lihemes ( XI-XV ) were also influential . These epigrams highlight the liii'es of simple people living in the mountainous countryside, perhaps of j Arcadia. Epigrams featuring shepherds and goats, often with nymphjl and the god Pan, were also written by other Greek poets (see XX-XXIII, XXV-XXVI; Theocritus X), and Arcadian shepherds jater appear in Virgil ’s Eclogues and in the art and literature of Europe during the Renaissance, in works by Poussin and Sidney among manly others. Although the present state of our knowledge does not let uih trace the patterns of influence in any detail , it is likely that Anyte’s epigJiams were an important stimulus to the emergence of the pastoral tradition. The poems of this original poet were significant in another respect. As one of the earliest of the third century poets to make people of humble origin the subject of heir poems, she helped initiate a motif that recurs in much of subsequent Giieek poetry. The life not just of shepherds but also of carpenters, housewives, and fishermen became one of the most important themes of poets ji > uch as Leonidas of Tarentum and Theocritus. The popularity of this podirry reflects a fascination of the Hellenistic age, displayed not only in literature but in all of the arts, with whatever : seemed novel or unusual lio city-dwelling Greeks. We may wish to call this realism, but the “reality” these poems present is more a product of t ie imagination of the pojjts than a reflection of the actual life of shepherds and farmers in the Greek countryside. Anyte used the and conventional themes of the epigram to Leonids - ^ , I slTgf lj ^ | m m structure 1; —— .. ' •j 38 / Anyte Anyte . / 39 write a poetry strikingly different from earlier epitaphs and dedications and also unlike the lyric poetry of Sappho and the other archaic Greek poets. Her portrait of a dolphin (epigram VII) resembles nothing else in earlier Greek poetry. There is a poignant contrast between the playful and spirited swimming in the first half of the poem and the stillness of the dead body at the end. Whether this epigram was intended to accom pany a painting or written just to describe a sadness the poet had experi enced, we cannot help but share her feeling for the dolphin and her sen - sitivity to the harshness of its fate. There can be no better poet to begin our survey of this remarkable poetry. I Kleina called out over this tomb and cried When doom too early came, Often mourning her cherished child who died , Calling the soul by name Of Philaims, who unwed had to go Beyond the river Acheron’s pale flow. II In place of wedding songs and bridal room, Your mother set upon this marble tomb A maiden with your grace and form instead, So, Thersis, we could greet you though you’re dead . Ill When Erato her two arms cast Around her father, she these last Words spoke, as tears began to pour: “Oh father, see, I am no more, Across my eyes black death has spread And covers me, already dead .” /V I mourn this girl, to wh|; >se house bridegrooms came, So many stirred to longing from her fame Of beauty and good serine, but out of reach Pernicious fortune tossed the hopes of each. V This man called Manes was a slave, when he Was living once; but lead , As powerful instead As Darius the Great he ( now can be. . VI Oh Lokris, by dense-rooted brush you died , !. Yap-loving puppy with the fleetest stride. A snake with neck of m ny colors put Such brutal venom in yo;Lir nimble foot. • ^ VII No longer sporting in th|:i waves by ships Shall I break out, and throw My neck up from belciiw, Nor round the rowlocks puff my pretty lips . And snort, proud of my jjigurehead, and breach. The dark swell of the];>ea To land delivered me, And now I lie beside this slender beach . VIII This marker Damis put, when Ares slew His brave steed; from the chest, dark blood boiled through The thick, tough hide, arid then began to pour, Drenching the clods of e < irth with doleful gore. S' 40 ! / Anyte Anyte / 41 i XIII The youths who put the rkd reins, billy goat, And muzzle round your shaggy nose and throat Are training you to rac ir Like horses, in the space Round the god's temple, so that he can see How they amuse themselves with childlike glee. IX ftv • * Together in a tomb Myro had made, A locust, nightingale of fields, was laid With a cicada, dweller of the trees; And as she built the bier, She shed a maiden's tear, That willful Hades would both playthings seize. smi M mm m X XIV No longer wakening, close wings outspread , Will you at daybreak rouse me from my bed; A brigand , secretly approaching, smote You sleeping, with a quick claw to the throat. Sit down beneath these lovely leaves of a XI X To rough-haired Pan and to the nymphs of a cave, Beneath this peak the shepherd Theudotos gave This gift, because with water, honey-sweet, They reached their hands out And freshened him , exhausted by the heat, : a During a summer drought . «5» 1 ¥ ST: XV — — Friend, rest your weary lirrjbs beneath this peak See how the sweet breeze makes the green leaves speak And drink from this cold spring, in summer heat A welcome resting-place fojr tired feet. aI XII Oh rustic Pan by lonely thicket, say Why, sitting, you sweet-sounding reed -pipe play ? “So heifers down this dewy mountain pass May pasture, plucking thick-leaved tips of grass.” £ bay, Take sweet drink from the spring, that you may ease Your dear limbs, gasping from a summers day Of labor, beaten by a zephyrs breeze. 1 1 • J 1 i 1 a 1 EXPLANATORY NOTES ; P . I (GP 5 AP 7.486 ) mP. All of the m women first four epigrams that I have selected were written for young who died too soon $lnd before their time. Several actual epitaphs for unmarried girls survive from the fourth century, written perhaps not | f- " long before Anyte wrote thi|i poem. It is sometimes said that Anytes epi & taph is itself an inscription jjbr a tomb, but an £ inscription is unlikely to describe mourning that cou ld have taken place p erected. The voice of the poe m belongs neither toonly after the tomb was the girl : p but to an anonymous third pici rson , perhaps the poet. Thenor her mother river Acheron - _ ’ 7, - V E: I I . i I- 1 ? *5 42 / . Anyte / t 5V.' V (GP 24, AP 1538 ) is the river of the underworld in Greek mythology over which Charon had to ferry the souls of the dead. The water of the Acheron in the last ) line is chloros, a color that in Greek can mean green (as in chlorophyll but also yellow, and it is often associated in love poetry with youth. Here, however, the word probably means “pallid ” or “pale,” in Homer the color 4 am This famous poem is attributed to Anyte in the Palatine Anthology but appears in the PlamMean without attribution . This element of uncertainty, together with t||ie philosophical tone of the poem , unlike anything else in Anyte’s verse, h as caused some scholars to doubt whether she wrote it. It is unlikely to be jjm actual inscription, since slaves were rarely given tombs with markers. Darius the Great was king of Persia; it was his army that the Greeks defeated at Marathon in 490 BCE. Darius would have been dead long before this poem was written. The poem reverses the common notion that | jdeath brings even the greatest king down to the level of his lowest subject. WB mm - - m m, • of fear. mm: & § T 7/ ( GP 8, AP 1649 ) R SB m m m m M 1 W: Another poem for an unwed girl, describing a tomb having on its top a statue of the deceased: It resembles many actual inscriptions for young women dating from the fourth century (see chapter 1). • m § m ft • III ( GP 1, AP 1646 ) mm S3 - m CS® - V I m 1 M IV (GP 6, AP 1490 ) — m; sr | t s: - £& i ali wm The voice of the epigram is again that of an anonymous mourner. It is tIT m difficult to read this poem and not think of epic models of Helen, whose suitors included many of the great heroes of the Iliad, or of Penelm ope, wife of Ulysses. The verb Anyte uses in the last line ( fcylindo ) means m | of the | to “toss” or “roll along” and is often used by Homer of the waves sea. It is used here metaphorically of fortune, which can resemble a wave 9 M tossing flotsam to one side. I . VII (GP 12, AP 1215) A marine animal is to used up onto the shore. The name of the animal is not given in the poenji, but the description is clearly that of a dolphin . We see again in this poem a sympathy for an animal and for nature that §£ is rare before the Hellenistic era, perhaps before Anyte herself. The mm 'interpretation of the middle section of the poem is disputed. I have ji 01 translated it to give the dolphin puffing out its lips near the figurehead, t jp m • •• ' # , 4 ' i ; ; B 1 / m 5j The next five poems I have chosen are among those Anyte wrote for dead animals. The njume of the puppy, Lokris, means “L o c r i a n a n d Locrian dogs are men tioned in Xenophon as especially good for hunting boar. The puppy (as ilii epitaphs I-IV) is female the gender is clear in the Greek though noli indicated in the translation. The extensive use of compound adjectives i .n this poem and elsewhere in Anyte is Homeric (compare the familiar “wine-dark ” sea). The viper ispoikjlodeiros: that is, it has a neck of many colors , from poifylos, meaning “ variegated ,” and deire, meaning “neck. ; ' — i • 1 P overtone. 1 VI ( GP 10 ) M | This touching poem, though not an epitaph, might have accompanied a relief for a tomb showing the father and daughter, but it might simply be book poetry. We can assume that Erato died before her marriage, since it is her father who is at her bedside rather than a husband or children. The language of the Greek is simple, as I have tried to convey in the translation , but many of the words and word forms have an epic or tragic 43 am m m; gp I 44 / Anyte Anyte ! 45 since I think this is an affecting reading perfectly consistent with the Greek. Some scholars, however, would interpret the word cheilos or “ lip” to refer to the stem or cutwater of the ship, effectively removing the dolphin’s lips from the poem. I have translated Anyte’s word skfilmos as “rowlocks,” but its literal translation is “thole” or “ thole pin.” The thole pin, probably made of hardwood, was placed in the oar port, and the oar (held in place by a strap) was fitted to one side of the thole and pivoted against it. another woman poet, wh > may have been a contemporary of Anyte. The compound adjective Anyte uses to describe the cicada dryokoites, or “ dweller of the trees” ij; found nowhere else in Greek; she may have made it up. — - j; I ! VIII (GP 9, AP 7.208 ) This is the only poem of Anyte about a dead animal that purports to be an actual inscription. It reads very much like a memorial, not for a warrior fallen in battle but rather for his horse. Ares is the Greek god of war, and to say that “Ares slew” the horse is simply to say that the horse died in battle. This is a poem of remarkable violence, different in character from the rest of the animal poems. - X (GP 11, AP 7.202 ) A rooster is killed by a predator such as a weasel, the “ brigand ” of the poem . There is some iroi y that the cock, who usually woke the poet at daybreak , has itself been ( iaught napping. ' ? XI (GP 3, API 291) . This is a dedication, perhaps intended for an inscription next to a spring. It is remarkable, however in being offered not by a wealthy maiden or athletic victor to one of the j major deities but by a shepherd to Pan and the nymphs. If Anyte did incjjeed come from Arcadia, the choice of Pan is fitting, since this shepherc|j god was often associated by the Greeks with that part of the Peloponne >e. The nature of the gift left at the spring isn’t specified in the poem, but country shrines were often adorned with statues or small paintings ancji reliefs (as seen even now at wayside shrines. in the Italian countryside). IX (GP 20, AP 7.190 ) Among the first of many epigrams written by Greek poets for dead insects. For one of the insects Anyte uses the Greek word akris, which may be either a locust (grasshopper) or a cricket. I have translated it “ locust,” since Leonidas X was probably written in imitation of Anyte’s poem, and Leonidas describes the akris as “walking on thorns,” which far better suits a locust or grasshopper than a cricket (crickets are ground dwelling). Locusts and cicadas, mentioned in Greek poetry as early as Homer and Hesiod, were prized for their singing. To an American or northern European, the continual noise made by male cicadas may seem irritating, but the ancient Greeks thought the sound charming. There are many references in Greek epigrams to the keeping of insects as pets, much as the Chinese keep crickets in small cages to enjoy their pleas ant chirping. Some have identified the Myro of the poem with Moero, — [ ji XII (GP 19, API 231) :.o . Another poem on a rurap theme, again including Pan. It is, however, neither an epitaph nor a but a novel kind of epigram that Anyte may have been among the first to write. It may have accompanied a work of art; surviving ir scriptions for wall paintings in Pompeii have taught us that poems coukj accompany paintings. The form of the poem is question and answer, evenly between two elegiac couplets (in my translation,. two heroic couplets). Reported speech is very rare in surviving inscriptions but becomes more common in the literary epigrams jiiedication divided 46 / Anyte of the third-century poets; see, for example, Leonidas XII and XXVI, Posidippus XIV, and Callimachus VI, VII, and XVIII . XIII ( GP 13, AP 6312 ) Like the previous poem, this delightful vignette of children playing with a billy goat may have been intended to accompany a painting or sculpture, or it may have been written merely to express the poets pleasure at the joy of happy boys and girls. Poems about children are rare in Greek literature. The goat in the poem continues the rural theme. The text at the end is uncertain; I have adopted the reading of Gow and Page. CHAPTER THREE Leonidas of Tarentum XIVand XV ( GP 16 , AP 9313 and GP 18, API 228 ) The final two poems I have selected take us back to the country spring in summer heat of poem XI. In Poetic Garlands, Kathryn Gutzwiller has suggested that these two poems are programmatic and that one or both may have been placed at the beginning of a book of Anyte’s verse. In the first of the poems, the reader is invited to sit down under the lovely leaves of a bay (or laurel) tree, the tree sacred to Apollo, the god of poetry. The “spring” in the poem may be the fount of song, from which we take “sweet drink ” by reading the poems. The drink is cold and refreshing because the poems are novel in style and theme. The second poem has a similar subject, beginning (as do many grave inscriptions) with an address to the passerby. A zephyr is a west wind , and the phrase “ beaten by a zephyrs breeze” in XIV is taken from book II of the Iliad, where Hector, for. the moment routing the Greeks, is compared to a zephyr striking the clouds and driving them away. Anyte uses the same word for “strike” or “ beat” but puts it in the passive voice instead of the active. To have one’s “ dear limbs” struck by the gentle west wind on a hot day would be refreshing and would add to the attraction of the spring. Meleager preserved moire epigrams of Leonidas of Tarentum in his Garland than of any po :t apart from Meleager himself. Leonidas may have been a special favorjjte of the anthologist or particularly prolific, but the large number of his poems must surely also reflect his immense repu tation in antiquity. Leoiljidas’s epigrams were the most frequently imi tated of any of the Hellenistic poets; they were cited by Cicero, translated by Propertius, and inscribed on the walls of houses in Pompeii. He was famous for his portraits|bf simple working people, of weavers and carpenters and fishermen, irjj poems that have a touching charm and sympa- ^ 47