Pure Pagan: Seven Centuries of Greek Poems and Fragments (Modern Library)

Beschreibung:

A previously owned copy that is unblemished.; 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed! Ships same or next business day! Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 52511190045

Diesen Artikel melden

Inhaltsangabe:

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.: Alkaios

Agriculture

Trees:
All right,
Plant trees.
But first
Plant
Vines.

Bacchus

Give up? How stupid,
Just for bad luck!
Nothing will work.
But Bacchus, Bacchus, if we forget your name
In our weariness, wine is the medicine
To call for, the best medicine
To drink deep, deep.

Courage

When courage is what he needs
He finds it in himself.

Drink, and Get Drunk with Me

Melanippus: drink, and get drunk with me.
Once you’ve crossed the swirling Acheron
And landed in darkness, what makes you think
You’ll ever see sunlight again?
Don’t be a fool–don’t try too hard.
King Sisyphus, son of Aeolus, was the smartest man alive
And thought he could run from death,
But Fate drove him across the Acheron, then drove him over again, And the king of darkness, Cronos’ son, Set him a miserable task down under the black earth. Don’t even hope for such things.

Drinking

Drink. Why wait for the lamps?
There’s only a finger of daylight left.
Get the big cups, the ones with pictures.
Bacchus gave us wine to drown our sorrows.
Mix one of water to two of wine,
Fill them to the brim,
And let one cup quickly follow the other.

Frankness

Speak
As you please
And hear
What can never
Please.

Friendship

Friends? My friends are nothing,
And I weep for them,
And for me.

History

Not us: no.
It began with our fathers,
I’ve heard.

Love

I loathe Love, wasting his arrows on me
Instead of aiming at huge wild beasts.
Do gods win glory by burning up men?
Is my head a noble trophy to hang from his belt?

Mourning

Wine, now, and more wine, and more,
And more,
Now that Myrsillus is dead.

Movers and Shakers

If a man shakes loose stones
To make a wall with,
Stones may fall on his head
Instead.

Parvenu

Even if he came from somewhere else,
You would say you did, too.

Patience

Drink: the Dog Star
Is coming back, so
Drink.

Philosophy

Nothing
Will
Come
Of
Anything.

Piggery

Again
Again
Pigs whip up
muck
mud
slop
Again.

Politics

He wants power
He has power
He wants more
And his country will break in his hands,
Is breaking now.

Poverty

Poverty:
Miserable,
Powerful,
O Poverty, you and your sister Helplessness
Fall like wolves
On this country
Once so great.

Social Relations

I had you to dinner, once,
Gave you tender goat, juicy pork:
How to win friends
And influence people.

Sorrow

Sorrow:
You’ve made me completely forget sorrow.

True Luxury

And the sky god pours down rain,
And the clouds whirl, and rivers freeze:
So: keep your fire high
And pour out honey-sweet wine
And lie back
With a pillow on this side,
And a pillow on that side.

Truth

Boy:
Boy:
Wine
And
Truth.

Wine

Wine
Opens
Keyholes
Wide.


Alkman

Fate and Necessity

The thread
Runs thin,
The need
Runs hard,
Hard.

Gluttonous Alkman

And a huge cauldron, hot
With your dinner, soon.
But still cold, until that thick winter soup
For gluttonous Alkman
Comes boiling up.
No fancy slop for Alkman, no.
Like ordinary people he likes real food.

Not Aphrodite, No

Not Aphrodite, no. But like a child,
Wild, Love comes down,
Almost as though walking on flowers–
But should not touch them,
Should not,
No.

O Dancers

O dancers, singers, honey-voiced girls,
Loud, clear: no more, I cannot!
God, O God, if I were only a kingfisher,
Purple like the sea, flying never afraid
Out over the waves
Forever.

Set Seven Couches

Set seven couches
And seven tables
And cover them with poppy cakes,
And linseed cakes,
And sesame cakes,
In and among the wooden bowls.

Tantalus

Tantalus, Evil placed in the middle of Good,
Sat under a hanging rock, ready to fall,
And thought he saw,
And saw
Nothing.

The Peaks Are Asleep

The peaks
are asleep
And gulleys
And ravines
are asleep
And creeping things
Out of the dark earth
And the beasts on the hills
are asleep
And bees, all bees
And monsters deep in the sea
are asleep
And asleep, too, every flying bird everywhere
asleep.

Try Singing

For feasts
For feasting
For eating with men
Try singing as you eat.


Anonymous

A Mirror

Look: I look back. You look with eyes
But I am eyeless.
And I can speak, having no voice. You have
A voice, but all I have is lips, and they move, soundless.

An Epitaph

I was Callicrita, I bore twenty-nine children
And all of them lived, and still live.
I died at a hundred and five
And never needed a cane to steady my hand.

An Oracle

This isthmus: no digging, no fencing.
If Zeus had wanted an island he’d have made one.

Aristo

He lived by his sling,
Hunting winged geese,
Creeping silently up
As they fed, watching on every side
But not seeing him.
He lived poor, he died poor.
Now he lives in the darkness
And his sling hangs motionless,
No hand to whirl it
Swift and sure,
And the geese fly over his tomb.

Earthquake

Once corpses left the city behind them, dead,
But now the living carry the city to her grave.

Epigram

Take what you have while you have it: you’ll lose it soon enough. A single summer turns a kid into a shaggy goat.

Epitaph

Seafarer, don’t bother about my name.
Pray for a kinder sea.

Lovers’ Dialogue

He: Hello, pretty one.
She: Hello.
He: Who walks ahead of you?
She: None of your business.
He: But I have business in mind.
She: My mistress.
He: Is there any hope?
She: For what?
He: One night.
She: How much can you pay her?
He: Gold.
She: There’s hope.
He: Here’s what I have.
She: That’s all? Forget it.
She charges more for hope.

Message to the Living

I’m dead, but waiting for you, and you’ll wait for someone:
The darkness waits for everyone, it makes no distinctions.

Miracle

Here I lie, beneath this stone, the famous woman
Who untied her belt for only one man.

On Being Old

I was young,
I was poor.
Now I’m old
And I’m rich.
Only I of all men living
Have been miserable
In youth and in age.
I could have used riches
When I had none,
And now I have them
And what can I use them for?

On Homer

Let Homer be worshiped as a god, if he is a god.
But if not a god, let him appear godlike all the same.

On Love

Venus, who saves sailors: save me,
Dear goddess, who die, shipwrecked, here on dry land.

Patriots

Spring makes leaves,
Leaves make the earth lovely
Just as stars make the heavens shine,
And these beautiful fields make Greece lovely,
And these brave men
Make their country wonderful.

Prayer

Zeus, king, give us good even if we don’t pray for it,
And give us nothing evil even if that is what we pray for.


Antipater of Sidon

Alkmenes

My name was Alkmenes. I drove birds
From the fields, starlings and high-flying robber cranes.
I was swinging my sling at a crowd
Of birds when a viper bit my ankle,
Injected her bitter poison in my veins,
And stole the sunlight.
See? I was watching the air
And never saw what was right on the ground in front of me.

Amyntor

Amyntor, Philip’s son, lies in...