The hen ark Book

A fun read and a great reference, this selection of epigrams from the Greek Anthology is well worth the time. Some have advice, some are funny, some are crude, others will make you cry. Almost all of them will make you think.

Several interesting ones are Plato's 7.670 (#28 in this edition), used by Shelley in his Adonais elegy, and 9.506 (#36), calling Sappho the 10th Muse. Theokritos offers sage advice on drinking and night sailing in 7.660 (#122).

Herakleitos had a tombstone epigram that struck me to the core: "Stranger, I am Aretemias of Cnidus. I was the wife / of Euphro. Labour-pains were not withheld / from me. I left one twin to guide my husband's old age / and took the other to remind me of him” (7.465, #162)

Anything that invokes Homer for me is special, so I liked Antipater of Thessalonika talking of morning with "You grow old, Tithonos. Why else would you thus chase / your bedfellow Dawn from your pillow at first light?" (5.3, #380) This reminds me of the opening lines of Iliad 11. He also mentions the seven wonders of the ancient world in 9.58 (#404) when discussing the Temple of Artemis at Ephesos. Asklepiodotos mocks Achilles and Thetis in an epigram on Memnon's statues in Egypt (M9.19, #595). Memnon's statue was said to "sing" when the morning sun touched it. The epigram calls to Thetis, Achilles's mother, to say that this statue speaks. "But your son speaking, war-hungry Achilles? / Not a word in the Trojan plain or Thessaly." Memnon fought with the Trojans and killed one of the Greek's best fighters; Achilles then slew him.

Antimedon shows us that some things in human nature never change: Drinking together in the evening we are human. / When dawn comes, animals / we rise up against each other" (11.46, #481).

Ammianus has a strong comment on a grave marker: "May the soil cover / your interred corpse / lightly, pathetic Nearchos, / so that the dogs / have less trouble dragging you out" (11.226, #593).

Palladas reminds me of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot. Beckett wrote "They give birth astride a grave, the light gleams an instant, then its night once more." Palladas say "Born naked. Buried naked. So why fuss? / All life leads to that first nakedness" (10.58, #644). Another piece of Palladas on death: "Fate didn't hustle Gessius to his death / He ran there well before it, out of breath" (7.682, #646). For the grammarians, he offers us "Having slept with a man / the grammarian's daughter / gave birth to a child, in turn / masculine, feminine & neuter" (9.489, #681).