Part 2

Ausonian earth contains me That was a Libyan maid, And in the sea's sand hard by Rome My virgin form was laid. Pompeia with a mother's care Watched o'er my tender years, Entombed me here among the free, And gave me many tears. Not as she prayed the torch was fired, She would have burned for me; The lamp which took the torch's place Was thine, Persephone.

AUTHOR UNKNOWN

FRIENDSHIP'S EPITAPH

This stone, my good Sabinus, although it be but small, Shall be of our great friendship a witness unto all. Ever shall I desire thee, and thou, if this may be, Forbear to drink among the dead the lethe-draft for me.

Note 9

THE COUNSEL OF PAN

In this green meadow, traveller, yield Thy weary limbs to rest: The branches of the stone pine sway To the wind from out the west; The cricket calls, and all noon long The shepherd's piping fills The plane-grove's leafy shadows By the spring among the hills. Soothed by these sounds thou shalt avoid The dogstar's autumn fires, And then to-morrow cross the ridge;-- Such wisdom Pan inspires.

BÉNITIER

Touch but the virgin water, clean of soul, Nor fear to pass into the pure god's sight: For the good a drop suffices. But the whole Great ocean could not wash the unclean white.

THE END OF THE COMEDY

Fortune and Hope, a long adieu! My ship is safe in port. With me is nothing left to do, Make other lives your sport.

Note 10

STRATO

2ND CENTURY A.D.

THE KISS

It was at even and the hour in which good-nights are bid That Mœris kissed me, if indeed I do not dream she did. Of all the rest that happened there is naught that I forget, No word she said, no question of all she asked,--and yet If she indeed did kiss me, my doubt can not decide, For how could I still walk the earth had I been deified!

AMMIANUS

2ND CENTURY A.D.

THE LORD OF LANDS

Though till the gates of Heracles thy land-marks thou extend, Their share in earth is equal for all men at the end; And thou shalt lie as Irus lies, one obol all thy store, And be resolved into an earth that is thine own no more.

Note 11

ALPHEUS

2ND CENTURY A.D.

MYCENAE

The cities of the hero age thine eyes may seek in vain, Save where some wrecks of ruin still break the level plain. So once I saw Mycenae, the ill-starred, a barren height Too bleak for goats to pasture,--the goat-herds point the site. And as I passed a greybeard said, 'Here used to stand of old A city built by giants, and passing rich in gold.'

Note 12

MACEDONIUS

6TH CENTURY A.D.

THE THRESHOLD

Spirit of Birth, that gave me life, Earth, that receives my clay, Farewell, for I have travelled The stage that twixt you lay. I go, and have no knowledge From whence I came to you, Nor whither I shall journey, Nor whose I am, nor who.

NOTES

Note 1.

In this, No. 68 of the Sappho fragments, I have followed the reading

_κατθάνοισα δὲ κείσεαι οὐδέ ποτα μναμοσύνα_ _σέθεν_ _ἔσσετ' οὐδ' ἔρος εἰς ὔστερον·_

rather than

_κατθάνοισα δὲ κείσεαι πότα, κωὐ μναμοσύνα σέθεν._ _ἔσσετ' οὔτε τότ' οὔτ' ὔστερον·_

'Dying thou shalt lie in nothingness, nor of thee There nor thereafter shall memory abide.'

Note 2.

A portion of this fragment was adopted by Catullus.

Note 3.

Anacreon's date is 563-478 B.C. It must, alas, be admitted that the poems attributed to him are, with the exception of a few fragments, all of them dubious and most of them certainly spurious. He had a great number of imitators down to a much later time, and a considerable number of the pseudo-Anacreontic poems are preserved in an appendix to the Palatine anthology. It may be assumed that some of them reflect a portion of his spirit, and many of them are graceful in conceit and beautiful in form. The specimens here given must be classed upon the productions of his later imitators, although they are inserted in the place where in chronological order the real Anacreon would have followed.

Note 4.

The portraiture of the Greeks was executed with tinted wax, and not with colours rendered fluid by a liquid or oily medium. The various tints and tones of wax were probably laid on with the finger tips or with a spatula.

Note 5.

There was more than one Plato, but the great Plato is evidently referred to in the prefatory poem of Meleager as included among the poets of his anthology.

Captives from Eretria were established in a colony in Persia by Darius after the first Persian war. The colony at Ardericca was, however, hundreds of miles from Ecbatana.

If the epigram on Lais is not attributed to the great Plato by the most competent authorities, the dates of the two famous courtesans who bore the name would not exclude the possibility of his being the author.

Note 6.

Tychon is identified with Priapus.

Note 7.

Rintho founded a new school of serio-comic drama about 300 B.C. The ivy was sacred to Dionysus, in whose worship the drama had its origin.

Note 8.

Also attributed to Meleager. The phrase, _βάσκανος ἔσσ' Ἀΐδα_, here quoted is from Erinna's lament for Baucis, one of the rare surviving lyrics of the Rhodian poetess.

Note 9.

The anonymous epigrams here inserted are probably not in their proper chronological places. But as they could not be definitely assigned to any date I have placed them between the two categories of B.C. and A.D.

Note 10.

There is a Latin version of this epigram on a tomb in the pavement of a church in Rome (S. Lorenzo in Panisperna).

Inveni portum, spes et fortuna valete, Nil mihi vobiscum, ludite nunc alios.

Note 11.

Irus was the beggar of the Odyssey who ran messages for the suitors of Penelope. The obol referred to is the small coin placed between the lips of the dead to pay the toll to the ferryman of Hades.

Note 12.

It is interesting to know from the evidence of Alpheus, who visited the sites of the Homeric cities, that nearly two thousand years ago the site of Mycenae was just as it remained until the excavations of Schliemann.