For a Statue of the Muses
To you this marble statue, maids divine,
Xenocles raised, one tribute unto nine.
Your votary all admit him: by this skill
He gat him fame: and you he honours still.
poem by Theocritus
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For a Tripod Erected by Damoteles to Bacchus
The precentor Damoteles, Bacchus, exalts
Your tripod, and, sweetest of deities, you.
He was champion of men, if his boyhood had faults;
And he ever loved honour and seemliness too.
poem by Theocritus
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Epitaph of Cleita, Nurse of Medeius
The babe Medeius to his Thracian nurse
This stone-inscribed To Cleita-reared in the midhighway.
Her modest virtues oft shall men rehearse;
Who doubts it? Is not 'Cleita's worth' a proverb to this day?
poem by Theocritus
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Ortho's Epitaph
Friend, Ortho of Syracuse gives thee this charge:
Never venture out, drunk, on a wild winter's night.
I did so and died. My possessions were large;
Yet the turf that I'm clad with is strange to me quite.
poem by Theocritus
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Epitaph of Eurymedon
Thou hast gone to the grave, and abandoned thy son
Yet a babe, thy own manhood but scarcely begun.
Thou art throned among gods: and thy country will take
Thy child to her heart, for his brave father's sake.
poem by Theocritus
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Epitaph of Eurymedon
Thou hast gone to the grave, and abandoned thy son
Yet a babe, thy own manhood but scarcely begun.
Thou art throned among gods: and thy country will take
Thy child to her heart, for his brave father's sake.
poem by Theocritus
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To Archilochus
Pause, and scan well Archilochus, the bard of elder days.
By east and west
Alike's confest
The mighty lyrist's praise.
Delian Apollo loved him well, and well the sister-choir:
His songs were fraught
With subtle thought,
And matchless was his lyre.
poem by Theocritus
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For a Statue of Anacreon
This statue, stranger, scan with earnest gaze;
And, home returning, say 'I have beheld
Anacreon, in Teos; him whose lays
Were all unmatched among our sires of eld.'
Say further: 'Youth and beauty pleased him best;'
And all the man will fairly stand expressed.
poem by Theocritus
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For a Statue of Æscalupius
Far as Miletus travelled Paean's son;
There to be guest of Nicias, guest of one
Who heals all sickness; and who still reveres
Him, for his sake this cedarn image rears.
The sculptor's hand right well did Nicias fill;
And here the sculptor lavished all his skill.
poem by Theocritus
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Poor Thyrsus!
Poor Thyrsis! What boots it to weep out thine eyes?
Thy kid was a fair one, I own:
But the wolf with his cruel claw made her his prize,
And to darkness her spirit hath flown.
Do the dogs cry? What boots it? In spite of their cries
There is left of her never a bone.
poem by Theocritus
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