Book 1
Imperial Greek Anthology Greek- Philippus
A single pentameter Hail, Paphian goddess: for your power is everlasting,
your deathless beauty and your honoured awe—
all mortal men, the creatures of a day,
revere you in their every word and every noble deed;
for everywhere, to all alike, you show your honour clear.
- Phaedimus
A trimeter Callistratus, the youth of Cephisia,
set up for you, O messenger of Zeus,
this likeness shared with one of his own age:
delight in it, and keep Apollodorus' son and city safe.
- Theocritus
A limping trimeter Here lies the poet Hipponax.
If you are base, do not draw near the tomb;
but if you are honest, of decent stock,
sit down and take your ease, and sleep if you will.
- Anacreon
A tetrameter You, Aristocleides, of all my friends I pity first:
you lost your youth defending your homeland from slavery.
- Phalaecus
A curtailed or docked trimeter "I win the double course." "But I am a wrestler."
"And I the pentathlon." "But I am a boxer." —
"And who are you?" "Timodemus." "But I am a Cretan."
"And I am Cretheus." "But I am Diocles." —
"And who is your father?" "Cleinus." "As mine is too." — "And where do you win?" "At the Isthmus." "And you?" —
"In the Nemean meadow, and at Hera's shrine."
- Phalaecus
The eleven-syllable trimeter, so called This portrait, the surpassing image
of the man who made the world laugh in comedy,
crowned for his triumph with ivy and with garlands,
I have set up, that it may mark Lycon's grave.
For all that he was once a shining man . . .
a memorial of that man of charm, in the gathering-place
and over the wine, this stands for those who come after,
a token left behind, an image of his face.
- Callimachus
A comic tetrameter Menoetas of Lyctus dedicated this bow,
saying as he laid it down: "Here, I give you the horn and the quiver,
Sarapis; the Hesperitae keep the arrows."
- Theodoridas
The Hesperitae. An Archilochian tetrameter This hammered cauldron of bronze, won by his speed in the long race,
the son of Aristomachus carried off as his prize.
- Callimachus
A bacchic pentameter. The epigram is not complete. Many an amphora comes cleaving the Aegean from the vineyards of Chios,
and many a one bringing the choice nectar of the Lesbian vine.
- Callimachus
A tetrameter of sixteen syllables. This too is incomplete. O ship, that snatched from me the one sweet light of my life,
I beg you, by Zeus the watcher of the harbour . . .
- Simonides
A pentameter for the dance
A. Who set up this statue? B. Dorieus of Thurii.
A. Was he not Rhodian by birth? B. Yes, before he fled his homeland,
having done with terrible hand many deeds of violence.
- Hegesippus
A trimeter sung in answer to a hexameter Cursed be that day, and the deadly dark,
and the dread roaring of the wind-tossed sea,
that once overturned the ship on which that man, so sweet of soul,
prayed in vain to the gods for the Abderites;
for it was wrecked through all, and driven by the surge
upon rough Seriphus, where, granted fire
by the hands of reverent hosts, he came at last to his homeland,
Abdera, his ashes wrapped in an urn of bronze.
- Anonymous epigrammatists
A pentameter upon a hexameter, then a trimeter Pyres, the dear son of Polymnestus, dedicated this,
having vowed a tithe to Pallas Tritogeneia;
Cresilas of Cydonia wrought it.
- Simonides
A pentameter upon a hexameter and two trimeters, then a hexameter Here lies Dandes of Argos, runner of the stadium,
who brought glory to his horse-pasturing homeland with his victories—
twice at Olympia, three times at Pytho,
twice at the Isthmus, fifteen times at Nemea;
and his other victories it is not easy to count.
- Anonymous epigrammatists
A pentameter upon two hexameters I am Dicon, son of Callimbrotus; and I won
four times at Nemea, twice at Olympia, five times at Pytho,
three times at the Isthmus; I crown the city of Syracuse.
- Anonymous epigrammatists
A pentameter upon three hexameters. Kings of Sparta were my fathers and my brothers;
and I, Cynisca, victorious with my chariot of swift-footed horses,
set up this statue. I declare that I alone of women
in all Greece have won this crown.
- Anonymous epigrammatists
A dimeter upon a hexameter Iphion painted this with his own hand,
he whom the water of Pirene once nourished.
- Parmeniscus
An eleven-syllable line upon a hexameter Works of bronze, proclaim the victory of the swift filly,
who, goaded into a charge, threw off her rider
and, riderless, raced over the level course. From that time on
Parmenon won the golden victory.
Phocritus, to your son the Amyclean kings
granted to win the prizes of his fathers.
- Simonides
A nine-syllable line upon a hexameter Nicoladas of Corinth, who won the victory
at Delphi in the foot-race, dedicated this offering,
and at the Panathenaea took five crowns in the contests,
amphorae of oil one after another;
at the holy Isthmus three times in a row
the shore of the Lord of the Sea knew him take the prize;
three times he won at Nemea, and four more times
at Pellene, twice in the Lycaean games,
and at Tegea, and at Aegina, and at mighty Epidaurus,
and at Thebes, and among the people of Megara;
and in the stadium at Phlius, winning all five events,
he gladdened the heart of great Corinth.
- Simonides
Upon a hexameter, alternating, the comic tetrameter short by two syllables and the limping Archilochian trimeter
Glorifying his homeland, the holy city of Athena's people,
Opis, child of the dark earth, fashioned these lovely pipes
together with Hephaestus, and dedicated them to Aphrodite,
mastered by his longing for the lovely Bryson.
- Theodoridas
Upon the regular trimeter a dimeter taken from the dance pentameter This is the tomb of Mnasalces of Plataea,
the maker of elegies;
and his Muse was a torn-off fragment
of Simonides' broad style—
empty in its clamour, a flask-thumping bawler of dithyrambs.
He is dead—let us not throw at him; but if he lived,
he would be banging on his drum.
- Phaedimus
Upon the regular trimeter a heroic tetrameter as refrain, limping at the next-to-last The bow with which you slew the Giant's strength,
restrain its force, far-shooting lord:
. . . his wolf-slaying quiver is not unloosed;
but turn upon these young men an arrow
of Eros, that they may defend their homeland,
made bold by their love of youths;
for it kindles valour, and this, the highest of the gods,
ever exalts the champions in the front.
And you, ancestral glory of the men of Schoenus,
receive the grateful offering of Melistion.
- Asclepiades
Upon the tetrameter formed from a regular trimeter by the addition of a final foot, a curtailed trimeter O passer-by, even if you are in some haste, stop a moment, I beg you, and hear
how great, indeed, was the sorrow of Botrys,
who, an old man of eighty years, buried his son of nine,
a child already wise and skilled in speech.
Alas for the father, and alas for you too, dear child of Botrys,
bereft of how many pleasures you have perished.
- Callimachus
An eleven-syllable line upon the last metron of the foregoing tetrameter The gifts to Aphrodite.
Simon, the wanderer, dedicated her own image,
and the girdle
that loved her breasts, and the torch,
and the thyrsi she once tossed aloft,
shrieking, poor woman, up among the hills.
- Callimachus
Upon the doubled metron, an epodic tetrameter, exceeding the hexameter by one syllable To Demeter of the Gates, for whom Acrisius
once built this temple, not the Pelasgian one, these gifts
did Timodemus of Naucratis set up,
and to her daughter below—a tithe of his gains; for so he vowed.
- Simonides
Upon the same tetrameter, a curtailed trimeter I will remember; for it is not fitting that the radiant wife
of Archenautes should lie here nameless in death,
Xanthippe, descendant of Periander, who once
gave law to the people, holding the high-towered bounds of Corinth.
- Phalaecus
Upon the tetrameter a regular trimeter, then a hexameter alternating Phocus perished in a foreign land; for the black ship
did not bear him up above the wave, nor receive him,
but down into the deep gulf of the Aegean sea he sank,
when the South Wind drove its violence over the farthest deep.
He won a share of an empty tomb among his fathers, around which Promethis,
his mother, like a mournful bird in her fate,
cries "Alas!" for her own child all her days,
telling how, before his time, he perished.
27a. Callimachus
Upon the same tetrameter, an eleven-syllable line
. . .
- Simonides
Upon the same tetrameter, a tetrameter like "if only a maiden fair and tender were mine," exceeding by one syllable alone; in the fourth foot it has not an iamb but an anapaest Often, indeed, in the dances of the Acamantid tribe the Seasons
have raised the cry over the ivy-crowned dithyrambs,
the daughters of Dionysus, and with fillets and the choicest roses
they shaded the glistening hair of the skilled singers,
who set up this tripod for themselves, a witness of the Bacchic contests;
and it was Antigenes who trained those men.
Well did Ariston of Argos nurse the sweet voice for the Dorian strains,
pouring his sweet breath purely through the pipes;
and Hipponicus, son of Struthon, furnished the choir
of honey-voiced singers, borne in the chariot of the Graces,
who set upon him among men a glorious name and shining victory,
by the will of the violet-crowned goddesses, the Muses.
- Nicaenetus
Upon a hexameter, a trimeter Wine is a swift horse to the graceful singer;
but drinking water you would bring forth nothing wise.
This Cratinus said, Dionysus, and he breathed the fragrance
not of one wineskin, but reeked of a whole great jar.
And so he flourished mightily under the garlands, and his brow
was wreathed with ivy, as is yours, in saffron decked.
- Simonides
This too is a hexameter and a trochaic tetrameter by transposition of the words
Muse, sing to me the son of fair-ankled Alcmena.
The son of Alcmena sing to me, Muse, of the fair ankles.
- Timocreon
Likewise The folly of Ceos came upon me against my will.
Against my will the folly of Ceos came upon me.