Part 18 (2/2)

Wayfarer, I shall know whether thou dost reverence the good, or whether the coward is held by thee in the same esteem. 'Hail to this tomb,' thou wilt say, for light it lies above the holy head of Eurymedon.

XVI--For a statue of Anacreon.

Mark well this statue, stranger, and say, when thou hast returned to thy home, 'In Teos I beheld the statue of Anacreon, who surely excelled all the singers of times past.' And if thou dost add that he delighted in the young, thou wilt truly paint all the man.

XVII--For a statue of Epicharmus.

Dorian is the strain, and Dorian the man we sing; he that first devised Comedy, even Epicharmus. O Bacchus, here in bronze (as the man is now no more) they have erected his statue, the colonists {165} that dwell in Syracuse, to the honour of one that was their fellow- citizen. Yea, for a gift he gave, wherefore we should be mindful thereof and pay him what wage we may, for many maxims he spoke that were serviceable to the life of all men. Great thanks be his.

XVIII--The Grave of Cleita.

The little Medeus has raised this tomb by the wayside to the memory of his Thracian nurse, and has added the inscription -

HERE LIES CLEITA.

The woman will have this recompense for all her careful nurture of the boy,--and why?--because she was serviceable even to the end.

XIX--The statue of Archilochus.

Stay, and behold Archilochus, him of old time, the maker of iambics, whose myriad fame has pa.s.sed westward, alike, and towards the dawning day. Surely the Muses loved him, yea, and the Delian Apollo, so practised and so skilled he grew in forging song, and chanting to the lyre.

XX--The statue of Pisander.

This man, behold, Pisander of Corinth, of all the ancient makers was the first who wrote of the son of Zeus, the lion-slayer, the ready of hand, and spake of all the adventures that with toil he achieved.

Know this therefore, that the people set him here, a statue of bronze, when many months had gone by and many years.

XXI--The Grave of Hipponax.

Here lies the poet Hipponax! If thou art a sinner draw not near this tomb, but if thou art a true man, and the son of righteous sires, sit boldly down here, yea, and sleep if thou wilt.

XXII--For the Bank of Caicus.

To citizens and strangers alike this counter deals justice. If thou hast deposited aught, draw out thy money when the balance-sheet is cast up. Let others make false excuse, but Caicus tells back money lent, ay, even if one wish it after nightfall.

XXIII--On his own Poems. {167}

The Chian is another man, but I, Theocritus, who wrote these songs, am a Syracusan, a man of the people, being the son of Praxagoras and renowned Philinna. Never laid I claim to any Muse but mine own.

BION

[Greek].--Callimachus.

Bion was born at Smyrna, one of the towns which claimed the honour of being Homer's birthplace. On the evidence of a detached verse (94) of the dirge by Moschus, some have thought that Theocritus survived Bion. In that case Theocritus must have been a preternaturally aged man. The same dirge tells us that Bion was poisoned by certain enemies, and that while he left to others his wealth, to Moschus he left his minstrelsy.

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