“I want to lay out a seat
Of soft myrtle shoots
And lotus flowers to give a toast,
Once love binds his tunic
Right below his neck with papyrus
Have him pour me some wine.
Life races by, turning
like the wheel of a chariot.
Soon we will be stretched out,
dust from crumbling bones.
Why should you perfume a stone?
Why pour wine pointlessly on the earth?
Anoint me while I live instead.
Crown my head with roses.
Call my girlfriend to come..
Love, before I leave here
For the underworld dance,
I want to scatter my worries away.”
These are fragments which may or may not be a whole.
P. Oxy. xv. 1921, no. 1795, p. 113 [Anonymous = LCL Anonymous Hexamers 125]
“Don’t try to do injustice nor to return injustice done
Avoid murders and avoid battles, don’t deign to argue—
Then you will hurt only a short time and you won’t think about it later.
Play a song for me.
You saw the spring, winter, the summer. These are eternal.
Even the sun has set and night is taking what’s owed her.
Don’t try to find where the sun comes from or where the water’s home,
But where you can buy some fragrance and and wreaths.
Play a song for me.
I used to want to have three free-flowing honey springs,
five milk rivers, ten of wine, twelve of perfume
two from clear fountains and three from snow.
I used to want a boy and a girl near a fountain.
Play a song for me.
The Lydian pipe and the Lydian games of the lyre work for me.
The Phrygian reed and the leather-topped drum work for me too.
As long as I live I love to sing these things and when I die
Put a flute above my head and a lyre near my feet.
Play a song for me.
Who has ever discovered how to measure wealth and poverty?
Or who again has ever found how much gold human beings need?
Today, still, whoever has money always wants more of it
And the wretch is tortured like the poor even though he’s rich.
Play a song for me.
If you ever see a corpse or walk by quiet graves,
That’s when you look into the mirror we all share: the dead expected this.
Time is on loan and life’s lender is a prick.
Whenever he demands repayment, you must pay the bill by grieving.
Play a song for me.
It was the king Xerxes who said he shared everything with god,
But he crossed the Lemnian water in defeat with a single rudder.
Midas was rich; Kinyras was triply blest,
But who has ever gone to Hades with more than a single coin?
Nireus: Look here, Menippos, this one will teach which one is better looking. Tell me, Menippos, don’t I look prettier to you?
Menippus: Who are you two? I think I need to know that first.
Nireus: Nireus and Thersites
Menippos: Which of you is Nireus and which is Thersites? This is not at all clear to me.
Thersites: I have this one thing already, that I am similar to you and you are not at all different now than when Homer that blind guy praised you as the most beautiful of all when he addressed you, but he said that I am a cone-headed hunchback no worse for a beating. But, Menippos, examine which ever one you think is better looking.
Nireus: Be he said that I am “the son of Aglaia and Kharops, the most beautiful man who came to Troy.”
Menippos: Eh, you did not come as the most beautiful under the earth, I think: but the bones are the same and your head can only be distinguished from Thersites’ head by that little bit, that yours is a bit better shaped. For you do not have the same peak and you are not as manly.
Nireus: Ask Homer what sort I was when I joined the expedition to Troy!
P. Oxy. xv. 1921, no. 1795, p. 113 [Anonymous = LCL Anonymous Hexamers 125]
“Don’t try to do injustice nor to return injustice done
Avoid murders and avoid battles, don’t deign to argue—
Then you will hurt only a short time and you won’t think about it later.
Play a song for me.
You saw the spring, winter, the summer. These are eternal.
Even the sun has set and night is taking what’s owed her.
Don’t try to find where the sun comes from or where the water’s home,
But where you can buy some fragrance and and wreaths.
Play a song for me.
I used to want to have three free-flowing honey springs,
five milk rivers, ten of wine, twelve of perfume
two from clear fountains and three from snow.
I used to want a boy and a girl near a fountain.
Play a song for me.
The Lydian pipe and the Lydian games of the lyre work for me.
The Phrygian reed and the leather-topped drum work for me too.
As long as I live I love to sing these things and when I die
Put a flute above my head and a lyre near my feet.
Play a song for me.
Who has ever discovered how to measure wealth and poverty?
Or who again has ever found how much gold human beings need?
Today, still, whoever has money always wants more of it
And the wretch is tortured like the poor even though he’s rich.
Play a song for me.
If you ever see a corpse or walk by quiet graves,
That’s when you look into the mirror we all share: the dead expected this.
Time is on loan and life’s lender is a prick.
Whenever he demands repayment, you must pay the bill by grieving.
Play a song for me.
It was the king Xerxes who said he shared everything with god,
But he crossed the Lemnian water in defeat with a single rudder.
Midas was rich; Kinyras was triply blest,
But who has ever gone to Hades with more than a single coin?
Nireus: Look here, Menippos, this one will teach which one is better looking. Tell me, Menippos, don’t I look prettier to you?
Menippus: Who are you two? I think I need to know that first.
Nireus: Nireus and Thersites
Menippos: Which of you is Nireus and which is Thersites? This is not at all clear to me.
Thersites: I have this one thing already, that I am similar to you and you are not at all different now than when Homer that blind guy praised you as the most beautiful of all when he addressed you, but he said that I am a cone-headed hunchback no worse for a beating. But, Menippos, examine which ever one you think is better looking.
Nireus: Be he said that I am “the son of Aglaia and Kharops, the most beautiful man who came to Troy.”
Menippos: Eh, you did not come as the most beautiful under the earth, I think: but the bones are the same and your head can only be distinguished from Thersites’ head by that little bit, that yours is a bit better shaped. For you do not have the same peak and you are not as manly.
Nireus: Ask Homer what sort I was when I joined the expedition to Troy!
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