7 Greeks
Page 4
That famous grace
Be my grace too.
32 Whoever is alive
Is pleased by song.
33 Stirred up and raving.
34 You are too old
For perfume.
35 And the heart
Is pleased
By one thing
After another.
36 He comes, in bed,
As copiously as
A Prienian ass
And is equipped
Like a stallion.
37 Their duenna in their midst,
Those girls
wore such perfume
In their hair
and on their breasts
Even old men
Desired them.
And, Glaukcos my boy,
Their cunts
[but here the papyrus is torn]
A parade of girls
From that shuttered house
With all its coming
And going.
What shoes!
[here the papyrus is too tattered to read]
Ignorance
Of the good
Of things.
38 You bring home
A bright evil.
39 But iron bends,
Too, and that poker
Is limp as a rag
Most of the time.
40 Friends hurt
The most.
41 A few citizens
Hung back,
But the majority.
42 There are other shields to be had,
But not under the spear-hail
Of an artillery attack,
In the hot work of slaughtering,
Among the dry racket of the javelins,
Neither seeing nor hearing.
43 Be bold! That’s one way
Of getting through life.
So I turn upon her
And point out that,
Faced with the wickedness
Of things, she does not shiver.
I prefer to have, after all,
Only what pleases me.
Are you so deep in misery
That you think me fallen?
You say I’m lazy; I’m not,
Nor any of my kin-people.
I know how to love those
Who love me, how to hate.
My enemies I overwhelm
With abuse. The ant bites!
The oracle said to me:
“Return to the city, reconquer.
It is almost in ruins.
With your spear give it glory.
Reign with absolute power,
The admiration of men.
After this long voyage,
Return to us from Gortyne.”
Pasture, fish, nor vulture
Were you, and I, returned,
Seek an honest woman
Ready to be a good wife.
I would hold your hand,
Would be near you, would have run
All the way to your house.
I cannot. The ship went down,
And all my wealth with it.
The salvagers have no hope.
You whom the soldiers beat,
You who are all but dead,
How the gods love you!
And I, alone in the dark,
I was promised the light.
44 Courtyard barricaded by a wall.
45 You led us
A thousand strong
At Thasos.
46 Athena daughter of thundering Zeus
Brings them courage in their battles,
That weeping people, every man of them a woman.
Whereupon, the sun of grace upon them,
They build new houses and clean new fields.
They have retreated, as if by habit,
From land after land, without arousing
The least pity in any possible defender.
Now by the will of all the gods on Olympos,
This island.
47 A coat of wool
That seems woven
Of piddock shell
And dyed purple.
48 Golden hair.
49 [This shred
Of Alexandrian
Paper, torn
Left side, right side,
Top and bottom,
With holes
In the middle,
Reads:
Your
]if
river[
]so[
I then, alone]
50 Watch, Glaukos, Watch!
Heavy and high buckles the sea.
A cloud tall and straight
Has gathered on the Gyrean mountain-tops,
Forewarning of thunder, lightning, wind.
What we don’t expect comes fearfully.
War, Glaukos, war.
51 Yes, yes,
As sure as a poppy’s
Green.
52 Zeus is the best priest among the gods;
He himself fulfills what he prophesies.
53 Fields fattened
By corpses.
54 The arrogant
Puke pride.
55 Until,
And,
Mountain tops.
56 Field rations,
Legitimacy,
Heart.
57 Hot tears cannot drive misery away,
Nor banquets and dancing make it worse.
58 From Paros
The lovely
We march.
59 Phasinos,
dawn shows,
And now it is the Thargelia.
60 But for what he did
To me,
He won’t get away
Unstruck.
61 Butt kisser!
62 The highly polished minds
Of accomplished frauds.
63 You’ve bolted
The door.
64 ]you are busy with
of Imbros[
]repulses[
]well wishing[
And I hope[
]making use of
]busy
to drive into confusion[
]having[
65 There is a fable among men:
How a fox and an eagle
Joined in partnership.
[three deciperable fragments survive:]
She brought her children a horrible meal.
EAGLE: See that high crag there?
The rough one,
the forbidding one?
To get up there you climb
With nimble wings,
Flying from the earth to
The high rock,
Lifting up thus.
o Zeus, Father Zeus,
yours is heaven’s strength,
And you see the works of men,
both villainous and law-abiding.
To you the uprightness and sinning pride
Of the animals are significant.
66 A sharp helmsman
And a brave heart
With a two-master.
67 Thief and the night,
Thief and the night.
68 I think
Know then
that I am so minded
To suffer.
69 Foggy island.
70 What breaks me,
Young friend,
Is tasteless desire,
Dead iambics,
Boring dinners.
71 Greet insolence with outrage.
72 Soul, soul,
Torn by perplexity,
On your feet now!
Throw forward your chest
To the enemy;
Keep close in the attack;
Move back not an inch.
But never crow in victory,
Nor mope hangdog in loss.
Overdo neither sorrow nor joy:
A measured motion governs man.
73 The old men are idle,
And should be.
Simplicity and stubbornness
Blunder and prate.
74 Little
boy.
75 Medlar trees.
76 To make you laugh,
Charilaos Erasmonides
And best of my friends,
Here’s a funny story
77 The son of
The fig eater.
78 Moral blindness[
Miserable[
lworthless[
Jealousy[
]O heart[
]and not[
79 Some Saian mountaineer
Struts today with my shield.
I threw it down by a bush and ran
When the fighting got hot.
Life seemed somehow more precious.
It was a beautiful shield.
I know where I can buy another
Exactly like it, just as round.
80 Twice the age of her apprentices,
That wrinkled old madam Xanthé
Is still regarded as an expert.
81 Her hair was as simple
As flax, and I,
I am heavy with infamy.
82 Desire,
Future,
Enemy.
Music:
My song
And a ftute
Together.
83 Keep a mercenary for a friend,
Glaukos, to stmd by in battle.
84 Touched girl.
85 That old goat
Patrolled his own corridors.
86 Everything,
Perikles,
A man has
The Fates
Gave him.
87 Everything
People have
Comes from
Painstiling
Work.
88 Recompense.
89 Plums.
90 [Paper
Snowflake:]
Dwells here
]hard fate[
Participate[
91 When Alkibié married,
She made of her copious hair
A holy gift to Hera.
92 There is no land like this,
So longable for, so pretty,
So enjoyable,
Here on the banks of the Siris.
93 The heart of mortal man,
Glaukos, son of Leptines,
Is what Zeus makes it,
Day after day,
And what the world makes it,
That passes before our eyes.
94 The cave,
And henceforth I intend to
Conduct my life with more order
[here the papyrus deteriorates]
Line, dog, solitude.
[the papyrus gets worse]
What an I offer in exchange?
[and worse]
Against the night-prowler
Mount guard around your house.
I have seen him in the streets,
Plotting burglaries.
95
96 To engage with an insatiable girl,
Ramming belly against belly,
Thigh riding against thigh.
97 Zeus gave them
A dry spell.
98 Long the time, hard the work
That went into heaping the wealth
He threw away on whores.
99 Boil in the crotch.
100 Naked.
101 With ships so trim and narrow,
Ropes fast and sails full,
I ask of the gods that
Our comrades have a wind too,
That they meet neither tall wave
Nor reef.
All fortune be with them.
102 Tenella Kallinike!
Hail Lord Herakles!
You and Iolaos, soldiers two,
Tenella Kallinike!
Hail Lord Heraldes!
103 Wild animals.
104 Our very meeting
With each other
Is an omen.
105 Has no liver,
But, even so,
Hot as a hornet.
106 [A thin
Ribbon of
Paper]
107 Begotten by
His Father’s
Roaring Carts.
108 His attachment to the despicable
is so affectionate and stubborn,
Argument can’t reach him.
109 Battle trumpet.
110 A man, Aisimides, who listens
To what people say about him
Isn’t ever going to be quiet of mind.
111 Lying down
In the olive press.
112 A ditch all around[
]game[
]and speed[
His inheritance from his father
That girl tried[
]cooked goose
Eaten.
113 There’s nothing now
We can’t expect to happen!
Anything at all, you can bet,
Is ready to jump out at us.
No need to wonder over it.
Father Zeus has turned
Noon to night, blotting out
The sunshine utterly,
Putting cold terror
At the back of the throat.
Let’s believe all we hear.
Even that dolphins and cows
Change place, porpoises and goats,
Rams booming along in the offing,
Mackerel nibbling in the hill pastures.
I wouldn’t be surprised,
I wouldn’t be surprised.
114 Venom of a water snake.
115 Gently cock
The trap’s spring.
116 Let us sing,
Ahem,
Of Glaukos who wore
The pompadour.
117 Damp crotch.
118 Where, where,
O Emas,
Is the guidon stuck
Of this company
With its luck shot?
119 Otherwise,
that stone of Tantalos
Will hang over this island.
120 Not a rampan held.
121 Grief and fasting in anguish
Strike city street and dinner table.
We complain, we dream, we blame.
This sea-cyclone calamity,
This storm-wave pounding our hearts
–with hiss and thunder together
It climbed to knock Rat
With an orchard of foam on top–
Has mauled us and choked us with hurt.
What are backbones if not ramrods?
The gods toughen us, Perikles,
To stand this pain. Fortune, misfortune;
Misfortune, fortune. Grit your teeth.
Not all of us need be women.
122 Night.
The wind
Blows landward.
Branches creak.
123 He made all secure against
High seas and wind.
124 Justice.
125
126 Thasos,
Calamitous city.
127 O Hephaistos Lord of Fire,
How awful to be your suppliant!
128 Put down the uproar.
129 Why should the sea be fat
With my drowned friends?
Why oil the knees of the gods?
Why, why should Hephaistos
The Fire dance his dance
On this splendid face
And feast on these runner’s legs
Poseidon the Water has stilled?
To the ecstatic fire we give to eat
This fine body wrapped in white,
Pleasure once of glad women,
Companion once of Ares, War.
130 Every man
Stripped naked.
131 Of holy Demeter
And of her daughter
The festival attending.
132 Mountain animal.
133 When the people went off to the Games,
Batousiades came along too.
134 Great virtue
In the feet.
135 And close to me.
136 The good-natu
red need no cutlery
In their vocabulary.
137
138 Elegant frog.
139 A great squire he was,
And heavy with a stick
In the sheeplands of Asia.
140 Rigidities melt,
Masts fall.
141 O forsaken and hungry
People of the city,
Hear me speak.
142 And no man thereafter
With the gods.
143 Hang iambics.
This is no time
For poetry.
144 Fortune is like a wife:
Fire in her right hand,
Water in her left.
145 Fast foot.
146 Like the men
Of Thrace or Phrygia
She could get her wine down
At a go,
Without taking a breath,
While the flute
Played a certain little tune,
And like those foreigners
She permitted herself
To be buggered.
147 Upon the roads
Of Ennyra.
148
149 Seam of the scrotum.
150 Into the jug
Through a straw.
151 Sparks in wheat.
152
153 You drink a lot of unmixed wine
That you haven’t paid for,
And weren’t invited to share,
Treating everybody as your dearest friend,
Greed having supplanted any shame
You once had.
154 [The right-hand
Line endings
Of an elegy:]
moves against;
staunching,
pointed penis
I, as usual,
situate;
suffice,
the city,
therefore you imagine
we establish beauty.
155 Eaten by fleas.
156 She sweetened
Her voice.
157 He turned.
158 Sabazians
Of the
Elegant
Hair.
159 Of the sons of Selles.
160 Humpbacked
Everytime he can.
161 Deer-heart.
162 He’s yoke-broke
But shirks work,
Part bull, part fox,
My sly ox.
163 Idle chatter.
164 This, this
We cannot do.
165 Illiusionist in language
And pretentious buffoon.
166 The crow was so ravished by pleasure
That the kingfisher on a rock nearby
Shook its feathers and flew away.
167 The thrones, there,
Of great Zeus,
And his rocks
For throwing.
168 Seven of the enemy
were cut down in that encounter
And a thousand of us,
mark you,
Ran them through.
169 They’ll say I was a mercenary,
Like a Carlan. Such was life.
Don’t call the medics over.
I know a way, not theirs,
To get a swelling like that down.
Listen here, now. No? Forget it.
They’ll say I was a mercenary.
Is there clean linen for a shroud?
170 One sizable thing I do know;
How to get back my own
With a man doing me wrong.
171 Ignorant and ill bred
Mock the dead.
172 With what springs
In my legs