The Greek Anthology and other ancient Greek epigrams

445 Pages·1974·6.49 MB·English

by  Peter Jay (trans.

The Greek Anthology
AND OTHER ANCIENT GREEK
EPIGRAMS
A selection in modem verse translations,
edited with an
introduction by Peter Jay
ALLEN LANE
Copyright © Peter Jay, 1973
First published in 1973
Reprinted 1974
Allen Lane
A Division of Penguin Books Ltd
17 Grosvenor Gardens, London SW1
ISBN 0 7139 0344 9
Printed in Great Britain by
Hazell Watson & Viney Ltd
Aylesbury, Bucks
Set in Monotype Bembo
Contents
INTRODUCTION 9
EDITOR'S NOTE 27
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 31
I The Greek Period: Archilochos to Hegemon
(c. 700-350 B.c.) 33
Archilochos Parrhasios
Kleoboulos Thukydides
Phokylides Plato
Anakreon Demodokos
Simoni des Hegemon
Aischylos Anonymous Inscriptions
2 The Hellenistic Period: Menander to Meleager
(c. 350-90 B.c.) 53
Menander Erinna
Perses Moiro
Asklepiades Nossis
Philitas Theaitetos
Simias Kalli machos
Phalaikos Herakleitos
Alexander Euphorion
Douris Hegesippos
Poseidippos Leonidas of Tarentum
Hedylos Mnasalkes
Anyte Theodoridas
Theokritos Nikainetos
Nikias Tymnes
5
CONTENTS
Hermokreon Alkaios
Thymokles Philip V of Macedon
Aristodi.kos Artemidoros
Rhianos Zenodotos
Dioskorides Antipater of Sidon
Damagetos Meleager
3 Other Hellenistic Poets 149
Ariston Karphyllides
Chairemon Nikarchos
Dionysios Pamphilos
Diotimos Phanias
Glaukos Anonymous Epigrams
4 The Roman Period: Diodoros Zonas to Philip
(c. 90 B.C.-A.D. 50) 165
Diodoros Zonas Bianor
Philodemos Bass us
Krinagoras Pompei us
Erucius Thallos
Anti pater of Thessalonika Honestus
Marcus Argentarius Antiphanes
Statilius Flaccus Philip
Apollonides
S Other Poets of the Roman Period 221
Adaios Euenos
Alpheios Gaetulicus
Antimedon Isidoros
Antistius Julius Polyaenus
Arc hi as Maccius
Automedon Myrinos
Diodoros Parmenion
6
CONTENTS
Pinytos Anonymous Epigrams
Serapion
6 The Roman Empire: Antiphilos to ]ulianus of Egypt
(c. A.D. 50-450) 243
Antiphilos Skythinos
Lucilius Diogenes Laertios
Nikarchos Palladas
Leonidas of Alexandria Gregory
Trajan Flavius Claudius Julianus
Ammianus (Julian the Apostate)
Asklepiodotos 'The Delphic Oracle'
Strato Rufinus
Claudius Ptolemaeus The on
Lucian Julianus of Egypt
7 Other Poets under the Empire 315
Apollinarius Sa tyros
Capito Thyillos
Cerealius Tryphon
Cyrillus Anonymous Epigrams
Diophanes of Myrina Erotic
Euodos Dedicatory
Gauradas Epitaphs
Glykon The Famous Dead
Herodikos Gnomic
Killaktor Satirical
Plato Miscellaneous
8 The Early Byzantine Period (c. A.D. 500-600) 337
Marianos Agathias
Eratosthenes Isidoros
Paulos Leontios
7
CONTENTS
Macedonius Theaitetos
Johannes Barbukollas Damocharis
Damaskios Theophanes
Irenaios
9 Anonymous Byzantine Epigrams 367
10 The Later Byzantines 371
Kometas
Kephalas
APPENDIX I - The Proems 375
Meleager - to the Garland Agathias - to the Cycle
Philip - to the Garland
APPENDIX 2 -A Poem by Palladas 379
NOTES 381
GLOSSARY 394
A SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 423
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS AND INDEX TO THE
TRANSLATIONS 425
INDEX OF GREEK POETS 431
INDEX TO POEMS FROM THE PALATINE
ANTHOLOGY 434
INDEX TO POEMS FROM OTHER SOURCES 440
MAPS 443
Introduction
I
Four thousand poems: half a dozen, at least, of the great
names of Greek poetry: a poetic genre preserved in quantity,
with a traceable history: poems which are much closer to the
modern reader's poetic habits than any other classical verse,
save perhaps Catullus and the Augustan elegists - and yet the
compendium of epigrams which is The Greek Anthology
remains largely Wlknown and little read.
To be sure, there have been many slim 'selections from The
Greek Anthology' in English versions. And now the labours
of A. S. F. Gow and Sir Denys Page have provided the
student with critical texts and commentaries on the Hellenistic
poets and the poets of Philip's Garland. Yet since the last
edition of J. W. Mackail's Select Epigrams from the Greek
Anthology (1911), there has been no useful selection of the
texts in circulation. And not since 1833, and the last edition
of Bland and Merivale's anthology, has there been anything
like a representative selection in verse translation of the
epigrammatists. I have attempted to fill this gap by providing
versions of all the poems of living interest - to wrest them
from the disorganized mass of the sixteen books which form
The Greek Anthology, and to provide something of a his
torical framework in which all aspects of this astonishing
range of poetry can be enjoyed.
2. GREEK EPIGRAM - A HISTORICAL OUTLINE
The reader must for the moment put aside his modern notion
of' epigram' as a short poem of pointed humour: throughout
9
INTRODUCTION
this book the term is used in its Greek senses - the develop
ment of which is of some importance in understanding the
role of epigram in its later, more literary forms.
The primary meaning of 'epigram' is 'inscription'. The
earliest metrical inscriptions appeared in Greece in about the
seventh century B.C. Votive offerings and tombstones had a
few lines of commemorative verse - hexameter, elegiac or
iambic in metre - inscribed on them. At this stage the inscrip
tions simply recorded facts: the name of the dedicator, his
family and town, and the name and title of the god, with
perhaps the reason for the offering. Even the tombstone
inscriptions were impersonal in nature, employing no phrases
of personal regret. Wayside tombstones often bore a few lines
addressing the passer-by, inviting him to meditate on the
human condition as evinced by the circumstances of the life
and death of the tomb's occupant. Most of these inscriptions
came to be written in the elegiac couplet, a verse-form which
developed in the late seventh and early sixth centuries, and
which became the most common medium for formal in
scriptions.
Elegiac verse* seems originally to have been the metre of
flute-songs. The root survives in the Armenian word for the
flute, elegn. The metre itself is an extension of the hexameter,
the metre of Homeric epic, to bring it closer to a lyric, non
narrative form.
The first line of the elegiac couplet is the hexameter, a line
*Unless otherwise noted all the Greek originals of poems in this book
were written in elegiac couplets. A very small number of poems
employ hexameters, iambic trimeters (the metre of dialogue in tragedy),
hendecasyllables (adopted so frequently by the Romans, Catullus and
Martial) or other, mixed metres. The metres of these poems, which
are marked with an asterisk against the reference to the Greek text, are
given in the Notes.
One or two poets, such as Philip, seem to have been particularly
interested in wiusual metres to give a new twist to their epigrams.
IO
INTRODUCTION
of six feet with a caesura (pause) in the middle of the third
foot. Each foot is either a dactyl (-u u: a long and two short
syllables), or a spondee (--: two long syllables). The second
line is the so-called pentameter - which is really two half
2!
lines of feet, each half-line being metrically equivalent to
the first part of the hexameter. There is a pronounced pause
between the two halves of the pentameter.
kt;;a"; ds-;lthrris, Als;r ;m;;.
I 11 I Eit~ g-;ln~im~
I h;;; II -;,,,m;;fn I ds;
o~r;;,;;, p~lll~s blelp~.
(Plato: no. 27 here)
The scansion is quantitative, that is to say, determined by
the length or duration of vowels - not by a count of stressed
syllables. Despite this, both stress and pitch play a part in the
metric. The nature of Greek pitch is now little understood,
but the stress, in counterpoint to the length of syllables, creates
the rhythmical tensions of Greek verse. A glance at the poem
by Palladas printed in Appendix 2 will give a picture of what
this means in practice.
The couplet has a tendency to end-stop; it is very rare that
enjambement occurs between two couplets. It is therefore less
suited to narrative poetry than the simple hexameter, and in
the poets of the seventh century B.C. - Archilochos, Tyrtaios,
Kallinos and Mimnermos - we find two main uses of it: both,
as it happens, associated with flute-music. The first is basically
military: exhortations, such as those of Tyrtaios, to soldiers
to fight bravely. This was in the time of prolonged wars
between Sparta and the Messenians, when every male citizen
was also a soldier. Flute-music was used for marching, and
also to accompany convivial songs swig over the wine.
Archilochos' poems of life in the camp are of this second kind,
II
INTRODUCTION
as are Mimnermos' reflective poems. The poems of Kallinos
are really a combination of the two types.
With the convivial elegiac we may include the historical
and mythological poems - such as Mimnermos' lost Smyrneis
- in which poets recounted their city's legends and past
glories; and also poems commemorative of the dead. These
were exemplary poems, holding up the virtues of a dead
warrior, say, for emulation by young recruits, rather than
elegies in the modern sense. The use of the elegiac couplet for
epitaphic inscriptions probably derives from this, rather than
from the almost unknown brand of elegiac lament which
existed, and from which elegy got its reputation as a gloomy
and mournful kind of poetry(jlebilis elegeia, as Ovid calls it).
Inscribed dedications may also be a development of the con
vivial type of elegiac poem - though the simple convenience
of the form is an equally plausible explanation.
In the sixth and fifth centuries the elegiac couplet was
mostly used for epitaphic inscriptions, and for longer reflec
tive poems. The inscriptional epigram reached its peak of
refinement with Simonides, who harnessed the form's brevity
and impersonality for his art of concentrated intensity and
pathos. No translation can give any sense of the qualities
which raise
0 xdn' ;;gclldn II LdedaTm~iois h;ii £-;a;
kdm-;th";;, t-;;s kdn~n II rh-;masi pdth;m-;nO; (no. 10)
to the highest level by exploiting all the qualities inherent in
the language. No explanation of the subtle word-disposition,
the assonances, the texture and shades of meaning of the
eleven simple words can recreate this inaccessible art.
With Theognis, the sixth-century master of the reflective
elegy, the seeds of the subjective epigram were sown. By
400 B.c. Plato was writing personal epigrams which fore-
12