“My nurse was the Island of Tyre but the country which bore me
Was Atthis which rests in Assyrian Gadara.
I, Meleager, came as a shoot of the Muses from Eukrates
And I ran first in play with the Menippiean Graces.
If I am Syrian, why is it a surprise? Friend, we inhabit
One country, the world. One Khaos gave all mortals this life.
I inscribe these words on a tablet before my tomb, now very old.
For old age is Hades’ neighbor next door.
Offer a word to bid this chatty old man farewell,
And may you come to a chatty old age too.”
“Previously Homeric grooves [arrows] were sounding out
The master-loving habit of Eumaios on golden tablets,
But now this stone, repeating the unforgetting word,
Will sing your wise wit even into Hades, Inakhos.
Philoskos, who reveres your home, will always increase
The fine gifts and honor you both among the living and the dead—
Along with your wife who honors your son who is weeping,
A young child who draws deep from the spring of her breasts.
O, inescapable Hades, why do you hoard this kind of blessing,
Taking away the famous son of Kleumakhis?”
“The books of Aristophanes—divine labor—over which
Archanean ivy dangled its massive green hair.
See how much of Dionysus a page holds, how the stories
Echo, full of frightening charms.
Comic poet, best of heart, equal to the characters of Greece,
You both hated and mocked things that deserved it.”
“Pitiless god, why did you show me the light
Only for a brief number of few years?
Is it because you wanted to afflict my poor mother
With tears and laments through my short life?
She bore me and raised me and paid much more
Mind to my education than my father.
For he left me as a small orphan in this home
While she endured every kind of labor for me.
It would have been dear for me to have had success
Before our respected leaders with speeches in the law courts.
But the adolescent bloom of lovely youth did not
Reach my face. There was no marriage, no torches.
She did not sing the famous marriage song for me,
And the ill-fated woman never saw a child, a remnant
Of our much-lamented family. And it hurts me even when dead
My mother Polittê’s still growing grief
In her mourning thoughts over Phronto, the child she bore
Swift-fated, the empty pride of a dear country.
B. “Pôlittê, endure your grief, rein in your tears.
Many mothers have seen dead sons.
But they were not like him in their ways and life,
They were not so reverent toward their mother’s sweet face.
But why mourn so uselessly? Why weep without purpose?
All mortals will go to Hades in common.”
“Don’t say it, if you look upon here,
The little Atthis…
Woe for the muse whose fine gifts she knew—
Her soul went to heaven when she was eight years old.
She left tears and moans of grief for her dear parents
Who, terribly, made her this monument instead of a marriage
When she went down to deep Acheron and Hades’ home,
All their hopes were poured into the fire and ash.”
This dust holds Kratinos the son of Zôpuros, Traveler,
A child who brought the least pain to all mortals
And when he was just 18 years old he was killed
By a strong disease and went to the Hagesilan home.
You left groans and griefs for you mother and will not return,
Nor will they be diminished by your marriage [?]
But Sôsitô mourned while weeping much with her kin
When she saw your unmarried and childless corpse.
O toilsome daughter Aphrodisia, what kind of a child
You raised in your home! Chance did not allot a fate
But he could have lived enough, Zeus, with faith….
Of Zôpuros….”
Funerary epigram for Stibos. White marble stele with upper molding.
“Stibos, before when you were still among the living
You took pleasure delighting in many valleys in glorious hunts.
But now that you’re dead the dark earth covers over you,
Hades brought death at only eighteen years old.
But you, Kyllenian god…
Take this child at the height of his youth to the reverent dead.”
