Greek Texts & Translations

16.22 Poor simple fools! what profits it a man that he have thousands of gold laid by? To the wise the enjoyment of riches is not that, but rather to give first somewhat to his own soul, and then something, methinks, to one of the poets; to wit, it is first to do much good as well to other men as to his kinsfolk, to make offering of sacrifice unceasingly upon the altars of the Gods, and, like on hospitably minded, to send his guests, when go they will, kindly entreated away; and secondly and more than all, it is to bestow honour upon the holy interpreters of the Muses, that so you may rather be well spoken of even when you lie hid in Death, than, like some horny-handed delving son of a poor father bewailing his empty penury, make your moan beside chill Acheron’s brink without either name or fame.

16.34 Many indeed were the bondmen earned their monthly meed in the houses of Antiochus and King Aleuas, many the calves that went lowing with the horned kine home to the byres of the Scopads, and ten thousand were the fine sheep that the shepherds of he plain of Crannon watched all night for the hospitable Creondae; but once all the sweet wine of their life was in the great cup, once they were embarked in the barge of the old man loathsome, the joyance and pleasure of those things was theirs no more: and though they left behind them all that great and noble wealth, they had lain among the vile dead long ages unremembered, had not the great Ceian ^note cried sweet varied lays to the strings and famoused them in posterity, and had not the coursers that came home to them victorious out of the Games achieved the honour and glory which called the poet to this task.

16.48 Then too the lords of the old Lycians, then the long-haired children of Priam or that Cycnus that was wan as a woman, – say who had known aught of them, had not poets hymned the battle-cries of an elder day? Moreover Odysseus had wandered his hundred months and twenty through all the world, come to uttermost Hades alive, and gone safe from out the cave of the fell Cyclops, and then had never enjoyed the long and lasting glory of it all; and as well great-heart Laertes himself as Eumaeus the hog-ward and Philoetius the keeper of herded kine, all alike had been under silence had it not profited them of the lays of a man of Ionia. ^note

16.58 Yes; good fame men may get of the Muses, but riches be wasted of their posterity after they are dead. But seeing one may as well strive to wash clean in clear water a sun-dried brick, ^note as well stand on the beach and number the waves driven shore-ward of the wind from the blue sea, as seek to win by words one whose heart is wounded with the love of gain, I bid all such a very good day, and wish them silver beyond counting and long life to their craving for more. For myself, I would rather the esteem and friendship of my fellow-men than hundreds of mules and horses.

16.68 And so now I am on my way to seek to whom in all the world I with the Muses may come and be welcome; – with the Muses, for ‘tis ill travelling for your poet if he have not with him the Daughters of the Great Counsellor. Not yet are the heavens wearied of bringing round the months nor the years; many the horses yet will roll the wheel of the day; and I shall yet find the man who therefore shall need me for his poet because he shall have done as doughtily as ever did great Achilles or dread Aias by the grave of Phrygian Ilus in Simoeis vale.

16.76 For lo! the Phoenician dweller in the foot of Lilybè ^note in the west shudders already and shakes; the Syracusan hath already his spear by the middle of the wicker targe upon his warm; and there like one of the olden heroes stands Hiero girding his loins among his men, a horse-hair plume waving on his crest. And I would to thee, renowned Father, and to thee, Lady Athena, I would to thee, Maiden ^note who with thy Mother dost possess by Lysimeleia’s side the great city of the rich Ephyreans, I would that evil necessities may clear our island of hostile folk and send them down the Sardinian wave with tidings of death to wives and children, a remnant easy to number of a mighty host; and I pray that all the towns the hands of enemies have laid so utterly waste, may be inhabited again of their ancient peoples, and their fields laboured and made to bring forth abundantly, their lowlands filled with the bleating of fat flocks in their tens of thousands, and the twilight traveller warned to hasten his steps to the home-going of innumerable herds; and I pray likewise that against the time when the cricket is fain to sing high in the twigs over head because of the noontide-resting shepherds, against that time, the time of sowing, none of the fallows be left unturned of the plough, and as for the weapons of war, may spiders weave over them their slender webs, and of the war-cry the very name be forgot. And the glory of Hiero, that may poets waft high both over the Scythian main and eke where Semiramis reigned within that broad wall she made with mortar of pitch; and of these poets I am one, one of the many beloved by the daughters of Zeus, which are concerned all of them to magnify Sicilian Arethuse with her people and her mighty man of war.