Epigrams, Greek; Greek poetry -- Translations into English
Hapless Nicanor, doomed by the grey sea, thou liest then naked on a
strange beach, or haply by the rocks, and those wealthy halls are
perished from thee, and lost is the hope of all Tyre; nor did aught of
thy treasures save thee; alas, pitiable one! thou didst perish, and
all thy labour was for the fishes and the sea.
XXVI
THE SINKING OF THE PLEIAD
AUTOMEDON
O man, be sparing of life, neither go on sea-faring beyond the time;
even so the life of man is not long. Miserable Cleonicus, yet thou
didst hasten to come to fair Thasos, a merchantman out of hollow
Syria, O merchant Cleonicus; but hard on the sinking of the Pleiad as
thou journeyedst over the sea, as the Pleiad sank, so didst thou.
XXVII
A RESTLESS GRAVE
ARCHIAS
Not even in death shall I Theris, tossed shipwrecked upon land by the
waves, forget the sleepless shores; for beneath the spray-beaten
reefs, nigh the disastrous main, I found a grave at the hands of
strangers, and for ever do I wretchedly hear roaring even among the
dead the hated thunder of the sea.
XXVIII
TELLURIS AMOR
CRINAGORAS
O happy shepherd, would that even I had shepherded on the mountain
along this white grassy hill, making the bleating folk move after the
leader rams, rather than have dipped a ship's steering-rudders in the
bitter brine: so I sank under the depths, and the east wind that
swallowed me down cast me up again on this shore.
XXIX
A GRAVE BY THE SEA
ASCLEPIADES
Keep eight cubits away from me, O rough sea, and billow and roar with
all thy might; but if thou pullest down the grave of Eumares, thou
wilt find nothing of value, but only bones and dust.
XXX
AN EMPTY TOMB
CALLIMACHUS
Would that swift ships had never been, for we should not have bewailed
Sopolis son of Diocleides; but now somewhere in the sea he drifts
dead, and instead of him we pass by a name on an empty tomb.
XXXI
THE DAYS OF THE HALCYONS
APOLLONIDES
And when shall thy swirling passage be free from fear, say, O sea, if
even in the days of the halcyons we must weep, of the halcyons for
whom Ocean evermore stills his windless wave, that one might think dry
land less trustworthy? but even when thou callest thyself a gentle
nurse and harmless to women in labour, thou didst drown Aristomenes
with his freight.
XXXII
A WINTER VOYAGE
AUTHOR UNKNOWN
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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