Sympotic poetry – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE

From the fragmentary Anacreonta (imitations of Anacreon once thought to be real), we have another mention of Thebes and Troy together:

Anacreonta, fr. 26

“You narrate the events of Thebes;
he tells Trojan tales;
but I tell my conquests.
No horse has destroyed me,
nor foot soldier, nor ships,
nor will any other new army
hurl me from my eyes.”

Σὺ μὲν λέγεις τὰ Θήβης,
ὃ δ’ αὖ Φρυγῶν ἀυτάς,
ἐγὼ δ’ ἐμὰς ἁλώσεις.
οὐχ ἵππος ὤλεσέν με,
οὐ πεζός, οὐχὶ νῆες,
στρατὸς δὲ καινὸς ἄλλος
ἀπ’ ὀμμάτων με βάλλων.

This complaint is a generic and contextual one: the narrator doesn’t want a mixing of the themes of war with his own, which are love, drinking and the feast. Another fragment of Anacreon makes this clear:

Anacreon fr. 2

“I don’t love the man who while drinking next to a full cup
Talks about conflicts and lamentable war.
But whoever mixes the shining gifts of Aphrodite and the Muses
Let him keep in mind loving, good cheer.”

οὐ φιλέω, ὃς κρητῆρι παρὰ πλέωι οἰνοποτάζων
νείκεα καὶ πόλεμον δακρυόεντα λέγει,
ἀλλ’ ὅστις Μουσέων τε καὶ ἀγλαὰ δῶρ’ ᾿Αφροδίτης
συμμίσγων ἐρατῆς μνήσκεται εὐφροσύνης.

The Megaran Elegiac poet Theognis leaves us over a thousand lines of conventional advice presented in a traditional order. Four couplets attributed to him (or his tradition) don’t fit into this order and are thus “fragments of uncertain place” (Fragmenta Sedis Incertae). I don’t know if I read them before today; but I am certain they’re worth reading again:

“Logic is in the habit of inflicting upon men, Kurnos
The many stumbles of troubled judgment.”

Πολλὰ φέρειν εἴωθε λόγος θνητοῖσι βροτοῖσιν
πταίσματα τῆς γνώμης, Κύρνε, ταρασσομένης.

“Nothing, Kurnos, is more unjust than anger, which pains
The man who has it even as it appeals to the baser parts of his heart.”

Οὐδέν, Κύρν’, ὀργῆς ἀδικώτερον, ἣ τὸν ἔχοντα
πημαίνει θυμῶι δειλὰ χαριζομένη.

“Nothing, Kurnos, is sweeter than a good woman.
I am a witness to this, and you are witness to the truth”

Οὐδέν, Κύρν’, ἀγαθῆς γλυκερώτερόν ἐστι γυναικός.
μάρτυς ἐγώ, σὺ δ’ ἐμοὶ γίνου ἀληθοσύνης.

“Even now the sea’s corpse calls me home,
But when dead, I will sound through the mouth of a living man”

῎Ηδη γάρ με κέκληκε θαλάσσιος οἴκαδε νεκρός,
τεθνηκὼς ζωιῶι φθεγγόμενος στόματι.