“I claim and I will always claim
That excellence has the greatest glory.
Wealth will flock to worthless people
And always tends to swell a person’s thoughts.
But the one who does well for the gods
Has more glorious hopes
To settle their heart.
But if someone has health
Even if mortal
And can live through their own household
They rival the best.
Truly, all pleasure
In a person’s life
Comes apart from disease
And a poverty with no cure.
Rich people desire big things
No less than the poor something smaller,
And there’s nothing sweet for mortals
In being able to get everything at all
Because they’re always straining to catch
Whatever is getting away.”
Anonymous, Papiri Greci e Latini, x. 1932, no. 1181, p. 169. 7-23
“When a wave carried from Troy
[a vessel made] of many trees,
Some god announced that one [person]
Would stay there….
But the other would escape
Ruinous death.
Cries went up to the sky
In great numbers in response
To the unexpected joy.
The song of men [restrained]
On their seats was not unheard,
And the young girls prayed aloud
Ie, ie…”
On the internal surface, around the rim, four ships. Cemetery of Ancient Thera. 3rd quarter of the 6th cent. BC Archaeological Museum of Thera. [Wikimedia Commons]
“Then, the unconquerable god
Wove for Deianeira a plan
Of many tears and guile,
Once she learned
The report of enduring grief
that Zeus’ indomitable son
Was sending to his bright home
White-armed Iole as a wife.
Oh! that unlucky, unhappy woman,
To have made such plans!
Broad-powered envy crushed her
Along with the opaque veil
Of events to come later
On that day at rose-covered Lukormis
When she took from Nessos
That divine sign.”
“The best thing for humans is
To have good luck from god.
See: a heavy-enduring suffering,
Debases even a good person when it comes,
While the elevated path,
Straightens out even a wicked one.
People have different kinds of honor
And their excellence is beyond counting–
Yet one thing looms above the rest:
When someone directs the work in front of them
With just thoughts.
The lyre’s tone
And the clear-voiced choruses
Are dissonant in battles weighed down by grief,
Just as the clash of bronze sounds off at feasts.
For every human act
The right time is the most important thing:
God straightens out the one who starts well.”
“I am a guest here, holding off shadowy blame–
I will praise my dear friend and bring him
Real glory like streams of water.
This is the correct payment for good people
If any Achaean man approaches he will not criticize me,
Even one living beyond the Ionian sea.
I rely on hospitality too–and I shine bright
In the sight of these townspeople because I haven’t cross a line
Once I removed everything forced on me from my way.
Let the rest of time come kindly.
Someone who knows me will inform
If I ever near a corrupt word with a false tune.”
Column crater in red figure, ca 420 BC, Pantoxena Painter. Side Aː Symposium scene, youth and female double-flute player, detail. Archaeological Museum of Agrigento, C 1582. from Wikimedia commons
“A celebration is the best medicine
For labors completed well, and yet
Songs, those wise daughters of the Muses,
Bewitch our minds when they touch them.
Not even hot water makes the limbs as supple
As praise can when it’s partnered with a lyre.
For the word lives a longer life than deeds,
At least the one the tongue lures from the depths of thought
With the Graces’ good fortune.”
“Oh, my heart, to what foreign shore
Are you turning my ship?
I want you to bring the Muse to Aiakos and his kin.
The heart of justice follows the principle “praise the good”–
Yet, lusts for different tales are not better for a man to endure.
Look for these at home.
You have earned the proper place
Of singing something sweet.”
“I am easily convinced to send
A glorifying word to Hiero, one [not outside] the path—
For this is how the roots of good things grow full
And may Zeus, the greatest father, safeguard them
Immoveable in peace.”
“Yet when the maiden [Athena] rescued that dear man [Perseus]
From his labors, she composed a song with every note of the pipes,
So she might recall the resounding wail elicited from *Euryale’s
Gasping cheeks with musical instruments.
The goddess created this, but she made it for mortal men to possess
And she named it the tune of many heads,
The well-famed reminder of the contests that attract people,
The sound that issues through fine bronze and reeds
That grow near to the city of beautiful dancing grounds,
The city of the Graces, in the precinct of Kephisos, trusty audiences for dancers.
If humankind has any happiness at all, it never shows up
Without hard work. But what is fated cannot be escaped–
A god will make it happen, maybe today, but
There will be a time that finds someone completely surprised
And give them one thing, but not yet another.”
She invented an aulos melody and handed it over for humans and named it the “many headed song”. This is because there were many hissing heads of snakes around [Euryale’s] head.
Some people call this many-headed and explain that there were fifty men in the chose that performed the song as an aulete led them. Others claim that the heads are preludes. They claim that an ode is made up of many preludes and that Olympos was the first to invent them”
“Before the painful onset of old age,
Let everyone shelter a heart free of anger
In happiness within measure,
Once they have seen
The strength safeguarded in their home.
Iē, Iē! now the Full Year
And the Seasons, Themis’ offspring,
Have arrived at the horse-whipping city of Thebes,
Bearing a garland-loving banquet for Apollo.
May Paian crown the offspring of these people
With the blooms of good government for a long time.”
