7 Greeks
Page 9
What time remains is short and sweet.
Therefore I often cry and dread
Dark Tartaros where I shall meet
In dreary rooms the weeping dead.
For Hades’ house is dark, and black
The downward road, the hateful way,
Unwilling and with no way back,
Downward ever, and there to stay.
54 Bring water and bring wine
And garlands of honeysuckle
And yourself alone, my bonny boy.
I must wrestle Eros down.
55 They wore plaited garlands
Of clover across their chests.
56 Toss knucklebones with Eros:
Madness and confusion every throw.
57 Took off her dress
And went naked
Like a Dorian.
58 Off to Pythomandros’,
Trying to elude Eros.
59 I take up my shield.
The strap is of Karian make.
60 I love it when we play together.
You do it with such grace and verve.
61 Here is Eros. If he remains,
Beauty will have to do for brains.
62 Boys will love me still
When I am gone.
In their ears my tongue
Will yet trill on.
My words, my music
Will survive
And be loved as I would be
Were I alive.
63 I slide by, but as over
Rocks hidden in the sea.
64 Young and healthy.
65 As wretched as if dead.
66 Made off with much treasure.
67 And then be gracious with,
O loving friend, your slender thighs.
68 Be as gentle with that boy as with a suckling fawn
Lost in the forest from its antlered mother.
69 Into a clean jug pour
The wine mixed five to three.
70 Garlands of celery around our brows,
We’re off to celebrate the Dionysia.
71 Let me die. No other way
Can I be free of this grief.
72 The wide-legged dance
Of Dionysos’ Bassarids.
73 Show me the way to go home.
I’m drunk and I need to go to bed.
74 Eros the blacksmith
Hammers me again,
Striking while I’m hot,
And thrusts me sizzling
In the ice-cold stream.
75 You’ve snipped the delicious blossoms off,
Your perfect curls [with your own hand].
76 has an elbow
For Sicilian dice.
77 I despise the rude, earthy manners
Of these barbarians. But you,
Megistês, are as shy as a child.
78 Watch me out of the corners of your eyes,
Do you, Thracian colt? Prance away, do you,
As if I didn’t know how to catch you?
You’d better know that I can bridle you,
Rein you in, ride you to the finish line.
You play in the meadow, nibbling, romping.
That’s for now. Soon enough I’ll break you in.
79 Girl in a golden robe,
Girl with curly hair,
Listen to an old man,
Listen to me.
80 Of all my stalwart friends, Aristokleides,
I grieve most for you, who died young
To keep your country free.
81 When my dark hair
Shall be streaked with white.
82 The edge of my spirit dulled.
83 Shaking your Thracian mane.
84 Silence, O God,
Those who speak
Such awful Greek.
85
86 As comfortable as travelers who ask only
To come in out of the cold and sit by the fire.
87 Once, long ago,
the Milesians were brave.
88 Quit chattering on
Like the waves of the sea
To the accompaniment
Of Gastrodora’s laughter
Clanging like bronze,
Both of you drinking
From the winejar by the fire.
89 I am perhaps in love
Again, perhaps not,
And crazy to boot.
No, not crazy.
90 Let him who wants
To fight fight.
91 You carry on over it
Far too much.
92 He sleeps soundly
With his bedroom door
Always unbolted.
93 I become misty-eyed and ready
When you want me.
94 And I, I took the cup
And drained it in honor
To the whitemaned Erxion.
95 Men each wearing three garlands,
Two of roses and one of marjoram.
96 [Tables] sagging with their load
Of good things [to eat].
97 Plunging our hands into the stewpot.
98 Like the cuckoo,
I made myself scarce
When she was about.
99 wants
To seduce us.
100 Twining thigh with thigh.
101 Lovely, too lovely,
And too many love you.
102 Cut the collar through
Ripped the coat down the back.
103 As drunk and rolling
As if he were Dionysos.
104 [Spring wind] shakes
The darkleaved laurel and green olive tree.
105
Glowing with desire,
Gleaming with spiced oil
106 [Eros’] wanton, reckless, aimless
Arrows circle around my ears.
107 Sea-purple dye.
108 [The beauty of water,]
The dwelling of nymphs.
109 [Kallikritê, Kyanê’s daughter]
Rules as a tyrant.
110 Drinking Eros.
111 The sun beautifully bright.
112 Walking along with a haughty neck.
113 Chattering swallow.
114 Wine-server.
115 Wine-drinking woman.
116 Swift colts.
117 A filthy behind.
118 Walking with swaying hips.
119 When the winejar goes around,
Silence the man whose gossip’s war,
Grief of fighting, ugly death.
With wine we want the talk to be
Of Aphrodite’s glancing eye
And supple dancers to the lyre.
120 Eros melting in the mouth.
121 INSCRIPTION ON A HERM
Pray to Hermes, friend and stranger,
For Timonax who put me here
Splendid before these lovely doors
To honor the messenger of the gods.
Welcome to my gymnasium, all.
122 Eros heavy on my shoulders.
123 Pretty.
124 Stalks of slim white celery
In a wicker basket.
125 (A mare named Breeze belonging to Pheidolas the Corinthian threw her jockey soon after the field left the gate on the track at Elis. She raced on, however, just as if she had a mount, turned at the post, improved her gallop as she heard the trumpet, crossed the finish line first, and stopped, seeing that she had won. The umpires announced Pheidolas the winner and gave him permission to set up a statue of Breeze at Olympia.
–Pausanias, Travels in Greece: Elis II [Book VI:13].)
This is Pheidolas’ mare, name of Breeze,
Raised in Korinthos of the double dancing floors,
Standing here, honor to Kronos’ son, that we remember
The splendor of her legs.
126 [Teos] the daughter of Athamas.
127 Aithiopian child.
128 Short straight [Persian] sword.
129 To rise up [lightly and swiftly
As an arrow of elder wo
od].
130 He was a soldier in the wars.
Timokritos. This is his grave.
Sometimes unkind Ares kills
Not the cowards but the brave.
131 Sauce.
132 Stubborn [as a mule].
133 Side saddle.
134 For Zeus Prexidikê sewed
This cloak Dyseris designed.
Two arts, one mind.
135 Self-admiring.
136 The flute of handsome Bathyllos.
137 [Crowned with garlands of myrtle,
Coriander, willow, marjoram, aniseed].
138 Knockkneed [coward].
139 Mother of two children.
140 Brave Agathon died for Abdera.
All Abdera wept at his pyre.
The blooddrinker Ares had never
Met such a fire as his fire.
141 He understood.
142 He gave pleasure.
143 Affectionately [drunk].
144 INSCRIPTION ON AN ALTARPIECE
Elikonias carries the thyrsos
Between Xanthippê and Glaukê,
Dancing down from the mountain,
Bringing with them grapes, ivy,
And a goat [for Dionysos].
145 In a sacred manner.
146 The kalyx a flower.
147 Worthy of being spit on.
148 INSCRIPTION ON A HERM
I was put here first by Kallitelês
Whose children have put me here again,
A new image. Stand, all, and pray.
149 Lydianized gentry.
150 To gaze in fear.
151 Polykrates.
152 To cry in grief.
153 A song of praise.
154 Phillos.
155 Graceful.
156 As white as milk.
157 Prouder of his sword than Peleus.
158
159 I am the shield which brought Python home alive.
Now I hang in Athena’s quiet sanctuary, her gift.
160 Grace to the son of Aiskhylos, Silver Bow.
Give thanks, Apollo, to worshipping Naukrates.
161
162 A line of Anakreon coming from the mouth of
Ekphantides in a vase drawing by Euphronios:
O Apollon, and you, Ho[ly Artemis!]
HERAKLEITOS
1 The Logos is eternal
but men have not heard it
and men have heard it and not understood.
Through the Logos all things are understood
yet men do not understand
as you shall see when you put acts and words to the test
I am going to propose:
One must talk about everything according to its nature,
how it comes to be and how it grows.
Men have talked about the world without paying attention
to the world or to their own minds,
as if they were asleep or absent-minded.
2 Let us therefore notice that understanding is common to all men. Understanding is common to all, yet each man acts as if his intelligence were private and all his own.
3 Men who wish to know about the world must learn about it in its particular details.
4 Men dig up and search through much earth to find gold.
5 Our understanding of the greatest matters will never be complete.
6 Knowledge is not intelligence.
7 I have heard many men talk, but none who realized that understanding is distinct from all other knowledge.
8 I have looked diligently at my own mind.
9 It is natural for man to know his own mind and to be sane.
10 Sanity is the highest excellence. The skillful mind speaks the truth, knowing how everything is separate in its own being.
11 I honor what can be seen, what can be heard, what can be learned.
12 Eyes are better informers than ears.
13 Eyes and ears are poor informers to the barbarian mind.
14 One ought not to talk or act as if he were asleep.
15 We share a world when we are awake; each sleeper is in a world of his own.
16 Awake, we see a dying world; asleep, dreams.
17 Nature loves to hide. [Becoming is a secret process].
18 The Lord who prophesies at Delphoi neither speaks clearly nor hides his meaning completely; he gives one symbols instead.
19 In searching out the truth be ready for the unexpected, for it is difficult to find and puzzling when you find it.
20 Everything flows; nothing remains. [Everything moves; nothing is still. Everything passes away; nothing lasts.]
21 One cannot step twice into the same river, for the water into which you first stepped has flowed on.
22 Cold things become hot; hot things, cold. Wet things, dry; dry things, wet.
23 Change alone is unchanging.
24 History is a child building a sand-castle by the sea, and that child is the whole majesty of man’s power in the world.
25 War is the father of us all and our king. War discloses who is godlike and who is but a man, who is a slave and who is freeman.
26 It must be seen clearly that war is the natural state of man. Justice is contention. Through contention all things come to be.
27 When Homer said that he wished war might disappear from the lives of gods and men, he forgot that without opposition all things would cease to exist.
28 Everything becomes fire, and from fire everything is born, as in the eternal exchange of money and merchandise.
29 This world, which is always the same for all men, neither god nor man made: it has always been, it is, and always shall be: an everlasting fire rhythmically dying and flaring up again.
30 Not enough and too much.
31 Divides and rejoins, goes forward and then backward.
32 The first metamorphosis of fire is to become the sea, and half of the sea becomes the earth, half the flash of lightning.
33 As much earth is washed into the sea as sea-stuff dries and becomes part of the shore.
34 The life of fire comes from the death of earth. The life of air comes from the death of fire. The life of water comes from the death of air. The life of earth comes from the death of water.
35 Lightning is the lord of everything.
36 There is a new sun for every day.
37 The sun is one foot wide.
38 If there were no sun, all the other stars together could not dispel the night.
39 Morning is distinguished from evening by the Bear who rises and sets diametrically across from the path of Zeus of the Burning Air.
40 The most beautiful order of the world is still a random gathering of things insignificant in themselves.
41 All beasts are driven to pasture.
42 No matter how many ways you try, you cannot find a boundary to consciousness, so deep in every direction does it extend.
43 The stuff of the psyche is a smoke-like substance of finest particles that gives rise to all other things; its particles are of less mass than any other substance and it is constantly in motion: only movement can know movement.
44 The psyche rises as a mist from things that are wet.
45 The psyche grows according to its own law.
46 A dry psyche is most skilled in intelligence and is brightest in virtue.
47 The psyche lusts to be wet [and to die].
48 A drunk man, staggering and mindless, must be led home by his son, so wet is his psyche.
49 Water brings death to the psyche, as earth brings death to water. Yet water is born of earth, and the psyche from water.
50 That delicious drink, spiced hot Pramnian wine mixed with resin, roasted barley, and grated goat’s cheese, separates in the bowl if it is not stirred.
51 It is hard to withstand the heart’s desire, and it gets what it wants at the psyche’s expense.
52 If every man had exactly what he wanted, he would be no better than he is now.
53 Hide our ignorance as we
will, an evening of wine reveals it.
54 The untrained mind shivers with excitement at everything it hears.
55 The stupid are deaf to truth: they hear, but think that the wisdom of a perception always applies to someone else.
56 Bigotry is the disease of the religious.
57 Many people learn nothing from what they see and experience, nor do they understand what they hear explained, but imagine that they have.
58 If everything were smoke, all perception would be by smell.
59 In Hades psyches perceive each other by smell alone.
60 The dead body is useless even as manure.
61 Men are not intelligent, the gods are intelligent.
62 The mind of man exists in a logical universe but is not itself logical.
63 The gods’ presence in the world goes unnoticed by men who do not believe in the gods.
64 Man, who is an organic continuation of the Logos, thinks he can sever that continuity and exist apart from it.
65 At night we extinguish the lamp and go to sleep; at death our lamp is extinguished and we go to sleep.
66 Gods become men; men become gods, the one living the death of the other, the other dying the life of the one.
[Wheelwright translates: Immortals become mortals, mortals become immortals; they live in each other’s death and die in each other’s life.]
67 In death men will come upon things they do not expect, things utterly unknown to the living.
68 We assume a new being in death: we become protectors of the living and the dead.
69 Character is fate.
70 The greater the stakes, the greater the loss. [The more one puts oneself at the mercy of chance, the more chance will involve one in the laws of necessity and inevitability.]
71 Justice stalks the liar and the false witness.
72 Fire catches up with everything, in time.
73 How can you hide from what never goes away?
74 There are gods here, too.
75 They pray to statues of gods and heroes much as they would gossip with the wall of a house, understanding so little of gods and heroes.
76 Paraders by night, magicians, Bacchantes, leapers to the flute and drum, initiates in the Mysteries—what men call the Mysteries are unholy disturbances of the peace.
77 Their pompous hymns and phallic songs would be obscene if we did not understand that they are the rites of Dionysos. And Dionysos, through whom they go into a trance and speak in tongues and for whom they beat the drum, do they realize that he is the same god as Hades, Lord of the Dead?
78 They cleanse themselves with blood: as if a man fallen into the pigsty should wash himself with slop. To one who does not know what’s happening, the religious man at his rites seems to be a man who has lost his mind.