Translator’s Notes:
I have compiled
a complete verse collection of Palladas in English for several reasons. First, of course, the merits of the best
lines speak for themselves and much of this is lost in prose translation. Second, almost all that is known of Palladas
comes from his verse. Much like the
historical search for the identities of Shakespeare’s young man and dark lady
in his sonnets, Palladas’s epigrams provide most of the fodder for speculation
about the poet himself. This of course
cannot be done as fully in the absence of every available epigram and therefore
requires inclusion of his lesser lines.
Third, this sort of inquiry applies to characters in the epigrams
themselves such as Hypatia and the wife of Palladas. Fourth, the epigrams show the fascinating
state of the world as the Greek gods gave way to the god of Christianity. Finally, the epigrams show the fate of a
grammarian who would have lived solely by his art but had to abandon that art
in the face of starvation. This perhaps
gives some comfort to other poets who have chosen a trade as well as a poet’s
life.
The surviving poems of Palladas are strewn through the various volumes of the Palatine Anthology. The arrangement of Palatine Anthology that I have followed is that of the Paton parallel Loeb edition and the poems of Palladas begin in Book 5. For this collection, I have numbered the poems of Palladas using the volume number of the Palatine Anthology Book in which they are contained followed by the poem number in such Book. For example, Poem 7-607 is poem 607 in Book 7 of the Loeb edition of the Palatine Anthology. The poems are therefore presented in the order in which they are interspersed among the poems by other poets in the Anthology in that edition.
To my ear, I found blank verse to be the most natural vehicle in English for the bulk of the poems and I have used it where it seemed right. I have also used indentations to preserve the sight and feel of the originals where appropriate. For that same reason, I also have striven to match the number of lines used in the originals. Although Palladas did not use rhyme, sometimes rhyme or slant rhyme seemed appropriate in English and I followed my own instincts in that regard.
As a fair warning to the reader, I am not a scholar of Classical Greek. I have relied heavily upon Paton’s parallel prose translation, my dictionaries, grammars, MacGregor’s almost complete but far from satisfactory “Greek Anthology,” and the wonderful online Perseus digital library at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper.
Finally, a brief caveat on the inherent perils of literary translation seems appropriate. Foreign language literary translation consists of (i) retelling a literary piece (ii) by a person other than the author (iii) in another language. Each level of this process has its own pitfalls. In retelling the epigrams in English, I have tried to capture their meanings as I understood them rather than simply providing a literal word for word “translation.” That process is of course subjective and the reader may or may not agree with my understanding in each case. Even more removed from Palladas, is the second part of translation: my hand instead of his. Everyone has his own unique style and translation is not immune. Finally, English and Ancient Greek obviously differ in how they convey information and in what they can and cannot say. Where I could not reasonably mimic Greek puns in English, for example, I have tried to footnote some of the more interesting ones. To counterbalance the loss of untranslatable Greek wordplay, I have also used some English wordplay which is not in the Greek but which I think is in the spirit of Palladas.
The Poems
5-71
You will have war at home, Zeno. You’ve wed
Protomachus’[1]
and Nicomache’s girl.
Seek kind seducers like Lysimachus
To rescue
you from their Andromache.
5-72
We’ve life and nothing else.
Life is delight--
But
short. Be off dull cares! Today life shares
Its wine and dances, flowers and pretty girls.
Live
well. One can’t know what tomorrow
brings.
5-257
I would condemn Zeus as too tepid in
His love since he did not transform
himself
For this proud beauty’s sake. She’s no less fair
Than Leda
or Europa or Danae--
Yet, maybe he disdains a courtesan.
The latter
were all virgins he seduced.
6-60
In lieu of golden offerings and an ox,
Pamphile dedicated her bright locks
To Isis who was more pleased we are told
Than Apollo
was with Croesus’ Lydian gold.
6-61
O happy, heavenly razor Pamphile
Employed to
offer up her plaited locks!
No human smiths could make a blade so fine.
Next to the
very forge of Hephaestus,
The Grace with bright headbands (in Homer’s words)
Honed you herself with hammers made
of gold.
7-607
Old Psyllo had a grudge against her kin
And therefore
made herself her only heir.
She meant to jump from this world to the next
The very moment
she was penniless.
She therefore freely spent.
At her last cent,
She leapt to
Hades instantly as planned.
7-610
A groom and fate both carried off their prize:
A wife, a
wedding group respectively.
One marriage buried twenty-four within
A common
chamber made a common grave.
Sad Penthesilea and Pentheus[2],
How rich in
death your ceremony proved!
7-681[3]
For honor’s sake you did not go abroad-
You did for
death’s. Though lame, still, Gessius,
You ran to Hades faster than the Fates
Because you
weren’t promoted as you’d dreamed.
7-682
Fate did not hurry Gessius to death.
He got to
Hades earlier than Fate.
7-683
The wisest sage of all the Seven said,
“None to
excess.” Though educated well,
You, Gessius, ignored this and desired
No less to
reach the heavens. Thus, you would
Like Bellerophon saddle Pegasus
In hopes of
learning more about the stars.
But that boy had a horse and youth’s resolve
While you
lacked even courage to be calm.
7-684
Let mortals neither seek to be a god
Nor hold
high office. Such pride ruins man.
Old Gessius is proof--he reached high then
Collapsed unsatisfied
by mortal good.
7-685
By seeking office of the highest kind,
You sought
the end of life and happiness.
Yet, Gessius, you got such honor with
Insignia of
office after death.
7-686
When Baucalus saw Gessius in death
He found
him there still lamer and inquired:
“What brought you naked down to Hades and
Denied you
both a funeral and a shroud?”
In anger, Gessius responded fast:
“The pride of
wealth can cause a man to die.”
7-687
When just before his death in foreign lands
He learned
the fraud of Ammon’s oracle,
An angry Gessius blamed his belief,
Astrology
itself, and those who trust
In anything astrologers have said.
7-688
The two soothsayers killed Gessius with
False
forecasts he’d receive a consular’s chair.
Oh what self-hating and vain race of men
Who lack all knowledge even to the end!
9-5
My hand’s sweet work in summer changed the fruit
Of this
pear tree by grafting to its bark
A shoot that gave it fragrant limbs above
Though it
remained a wild pear tree below.
9-6
I was a wild pear tree until your graft
Gave
fragrance. I reward you for your deed.
9-119
A ruler tolerating flatterers
Condemns a
multitude to their foul mouths.
The best men therefore righteously detest
The
flattered no less than the flatterer.
9-165
The wrath of Zeus is woman!
To burn man,
Zeus has inflicted him with woman
who
Will wither, singe and take his youth too soon.
Why, even Hera troubles Zeus
himself
Who on his golden
throne will often throw
Her in the clouds away from other
gods
(As Homer tells us when he sings of Zeus.)
Therefore, no fiery woman ever is
In harmony with man, not even when
They lie together on a golden
floor.
9-166
As Homer shows, each woman’s threatening, vile.
She’s no
less deadly whether she’s a whore
Or virgin. Helen with
adultery
Killed men.
The Iliad recounts the woes
She bred. Penelope with
chastity
Killed men
as well. She caused the Odyssey.
9-167
In lieu of fire, Zeus gave us woman’s blaze.
Oh, had he
kept that conflagration back!
Fire’s soon put out but woman can’t be doused.
Her flares
and flames are always burning hot.
9-168
Pernicious wrath! I
wed it as my wife
And my
profession starts with it as well.[4]
As a grammarian, I must live with wrath
Both in my craft
and in my warring wife.
9-169
Achilles’ wrath caused me pernicious wrath
Because I
chose to do grammarians’ work.[5]
If only wrath had killed me with the Greeks
Before
grammarians’ bitter hunger had!
Alas, for letting Agamemnon have
Briseis,
Paris Helen, I am poor.
9-170
With reasoning severe, I warned my gut,
With
temperance chastised its wantonness.
But if the mind is truly higher, how
Explain its
failure to reign in my gut?
9-171
I’m selling off the Muses’ implements,
Those books
that caused me so much groaning, pain.
I’m turning to another kind of work
9-172
No longer do I care for Fortune, Hope
Or their
deceits. I’ve found my haven now.
Though poor, I share my house with freedom and
Now turn from
wealth that slanders poverty.
9-173
The first five lines of grammar[7]
are a curse.
At first
there’s “wrath.” Then next “pernicious”
plus
“Innumerable woes” of the Achaeans.” Then
As third
there’s “souls to Hades” and then fourth
There’s “prey for dogs.”
Then fifth there’s “birds of prey”
As well as
“will of Zeus.” That said, how could
Grammarians not suffer mightily
Because of those
five curses and five falls?
9-174
The teachers here have raised Sarapis’[8]
ire.
“Pernicious
wrath” is where they have commenced.
A nurse brings monthly fees, a pittance wrapped
In small
papyrus like a bit of myrrh
Placed by the teacher’s seat as by a tomb.
In placing
it, she’ll steal from that small fee
By substituting lead coins and therefore
Receive her
own commission for the deed.
Boys pledge a gold coin for a year of work
Then change
their teacher in eleven months
Before they pay and mock ungratefully
The master
that they’ve robbed of one year’s pay.
9-175
Callimachus and Pindar I now sell
Plus all my
grammar books, too. I am poor
Since Dorotheus stopped my contract,[9]
since
He made his
foul complaints against me. Please,
Dear Theo,[10]
give me your protection. Don’t
Let my last
days end up in poverty.
9-176
Although invited, if I did not eat
With you, O
Rhetor, I no less received
The honor paid and have remained your friend--
I’d rather
feast on honor than on meat.
9-180[11]
You ply your trade, O Fortune, through our life.
With nature like strong wine, you ever mix
And pour from one jug to the next since you’ve
Become a tavern-keeper rather than
A goddess as quite suits your character.
9-181
I see that all is turned upon its head
Including Fortune in misfortune, too.
9-182
O Fortune, you are now unfortunate
Despite good
fortune you have power to give.
Now that your fortune’s turned, you, too, must learn
To bear
reversals you bring to the world.
9-183
They mock you, Fortune, now that you have changed
And have
not spared yourself misfortune here.
You had a temple here, but now you keep
A tavern in
your old age where one sees
You serving men hot drinks instead of fate
And suffer now ill fortune like the rest.
9-377
Since all the fruit on limbs above his head
Eluded Tantalus,
he never ate.
Unfed, he was therefore less thirsty. Yet,
If he had
had some apples, plums or figs,
Could eating fresh fruit give a dead man thirst?
In
contrast, living men eat salted food.
They dine on cheeses, quail and goose’s fat,
Eat veal
and chicken and on top of that
Drink but one glass.
It follows from such fare
That they
fare worse by far than Tantalus.
9-378
They say Sarapis spoke within a dream
To a killer
one night sleeping underneath
A failing wall: “Poor
wretch, get up and seek
Another
place to sleep.” The man complied.
The wall collapsed right after he had moved.
His life so
spared, the villain then rejoiced
Believing that Sarapis must approve
Of murderers. The man gave sacrifice
Of thanks for his escape when morning came.
Sarapis
spoke again to him at night:
“You think I guard the evil?
You escaped
A painless
death to die upon a cross.”
9-379
A quip goes: “Even pigs will bite bad men.”
I do not
think that right. I’d say instead:
“Yes, even pigs would bite good, peaceful men
But even
snakes would fear to bite bad men.”
9-393
We never had one magistrate who was
Both mild
and clean of hand—such traits conflict.
The proud are pure while thieves are mannered mild.
States need
both traits and hire both kinds of men.
9-394
Gold, sire of flatterers and son of pain and care,
We fear to
have you, suffer when we don’t.
9-395
Odysseus said, “There’s nothing sweeter than
One’s
fatherland.” But he did not partake
Of sweets on Circe’s Isle whose mere fumes would
Have made
him cast off ten Penelopes.
9-397
A Spartan fleeing battle faced the sword
His mother lifted
to his breast. She raged,
“If you should live, I’ll be disgraced in breach
Of Sparta’s
ancient laws unless you’re slain.
That done, they’ll say I’m a poor mother who
Has spared
herself and Sparta from disgrace.”
9-400
O wise and stainless star of scholarship,
When I look up at Virgo I see you
There in the sky my dear Hypatia[12]
And worship you whenever I observe
Your brilliant discourse in the spheres above.
9-401
Because she values friendship, Nature has
Created
means for absent friends to speak:
Handwriting, paper, pens and ink all serve
As tokens
for sad hearts that mourn apart.
9-441
I marveled in the crossroads--Zeus’s son[13]
We’d often sought in prayer lay
toppled there.
Much vexed I said, “Our guard from evil, child
Of three nights,
one beyond defeat, you fell.”
But then at night he came and smiling said,
“Although a
god, I, too, can learn the times.”
9-484
When sailing on the seas, Odysseus
Was given
once a precious bag of winds
That proved quite useful billowing his sails.
But windy-hearted Aeolus[14]
sends me
Birds stuffed with wind.
I can’t feast on pressed air
And yet you
send me, friend, just winds with wings.
9-486
My boy untied the gut you’d tied and sent.
He found it
but a bellows full of air.
9-487
You served me dry and thirst-provoking pork
From
Cyprian pigs all fattened up with figs.
When you have fattened me enough with figs,
Kill me or
kill my thirst with Cyprian wine.
9-489
A grammarian’s daughter made love and then bore
A masculine
and feminine and neuter child.[15]
9-502
I need that spicy wine--though wonder where
You know the Latin tongue.
Is it from it?
In any case,
prepare a glass for me.
I understand that very wine’s required
To treat my
stomach’s present malady.
9-503
I was correct. Dizyphos[17]
works quite well.
I shared
its godly virtues with a man
In throws of chronic four-day fevers and
It cured
him of his illness right away.
9-508
One wishing to enjoy a happy day
Will have that wish come true in meeting you.
But if one wishes otherwise, the day
Becomes unhappy by not meeting you.[18]
9-528
About the House of Marina
Because they’re Christian now, Olympians[19]
May live here unmolested where they won’t
Be melted in the fire to make small coins.
9-773
The clever smith forged Love[20]
into a cooking pan
Since both
such things can badly burn a man.
10-32
There are many slips between the cup and lips.[21]
10-34
Have worries if they are of help to you.
But how are
they of help if God keeps you?
Without God there is neither thought nor care.
Therefore,
your sole concern should be of God.
10-44
If friends receive a gift, they write at once
To their
“Lord Brother.” If they get no gift,
They write but “Brother”--words are bought and sold.
With
nothing much to give, I get no “Lord.”[22]
10-45
O man, if you recall your father’s act,
His means of
sowing you, you’d not be proud.
But you’ve read Plato and his claims that you’re
Immortal
and some kind of godly plant.
You’re made of dust!
How can you be so proud?
You can of
course speak grand, fictitious words.
But if you seek the truth, you must concede
You simply
sprang from filthy drops of lust.
10-46
Of all man’s learning, silence is the best.
Pythagoras
himself is proof of this.
Well spoken, he taught others to be quiet
Once he
discovered that most tranquil drug.
10-47
Eat, drink and mourn in silence--it is wrong
To mourn
with stomachs . Homer tells us so.
He writes that when Niobe buried twelve
Of her own
brood she still had thoughts of food.
10-48
“Don’t ever make a mistress of a slave,”
The proverb
says. In that vein, I would add,
“No advocate should ever be a judge,
Not even if
he beats Isocrates.”
For how can one once hired out like a whore
Avoid a
dirty judgment in a case?
10-49
We’re told that even ants and gnats have bile.[23]
Yet, though
the least of living things have wrath,
You’d have me suffer all the world’s attacks
Without a
bit of anger, not return
Ill deeds at least with words? Am I to sew
My mouth up
tight so I can’t even breathe?
10-50
Circe did not, as Homer says, transform
Guests into
pigs or wolves. Instead, she used
Her charms to rob them of their reasoning.
That done,
they were just like dull animals
That could no longer manage their affairs.
She thus could rear them safely as
she chose.
And yet Odysseus himself maintained
His reason
and avoided youth’s mistakes
Including Circe’s many wiles and charms.
10-51
Pindar says envy outranks pity so
That envied
men lead much more splendid lives
Than pitied men do in ill-fated days.
Yet, I’d
not be too fortunate or pained.
The golden mean is always
best because
Luck lures
great dangers, pity mockery.
10-52
Like a true Muses’ and true Graces’ child,
Meander
said that Opportunity[25]
Must be a god; for often lucky thought
Produces
more than pondering at length.
10-53
I’m not surprised to see good fortune bless
The
murderer. That is the gift of Zeus
Who would have killed his father had he been
A
mortal. Lacking such an option, he
Sent Cronus like a robber to the pit
With Titans
where he’s bound in punishment.
10-54
Consumption’s[26]
not the only cause of death.
Obesity
kills, too, as proven by
The fate of Heraclea Pontica’s
Gargantuan tyrant Dionysius.[27]
10-55
You’re talking nonsense if you claim you don’t
Obey the
orders of your wife. You’re not,
As sayings go,[28]
composed of trees or stone.
You suffer
woman’s rule like mankind must.
However, if you say that she does not
Assault you
with her shoes or cheat on you,
You’ve milder servitude than others and
Have sold
out to a chaste and temperate wife.
10-56
I try to tell the foolish cuckold that
There is no
obvious mark of chastity.
Not every pretty woman’s vicious nor
Is every
ugly woman past the reach
Of some suspicion.
There are gorgeous girls
Who will
not yield for any price; and there
Are hags who’re never satisfied, who’ll pay
Tremendous
sums to satiate themselves.
Nor does long frowning, lack of laughter or
Seclusion
prove a pledge of chastity.
The gravest woman may whore secretly
And yet a
girl who’s kind to everyone
May still have virtue (if a woman can).
Could age
serve as a mark? No, even old
Age can’t avoid our Aphrodite’s reach.
Thus, we
can only trust a woman’s oath
And her religious fear--though after oaths,
She can go
out and find twelve other gods.
10-57
May god despise the belly and its meals
For they’re
the reasons that our temperance[29]
fails.
10-58
Unclothed I came to earth and naked I’ll
Go under
it. For that, why work at all?
10-59
Anticipating death is painful but
Death frees
up mortals from such misery.
Thus, do not grieve for those who pass away
Since there
can be no suffering after death.
10-60
So you have wealth.
What is the point of that?
Upon your
death, can you drag loot along
As they transport your corpse into its tomb?
One can
trade time for wealth, not more of life.
10-61
Shun rich folk. Brash
domestic tyrants, they
Despise the
mother of temperance, poverty.
10-62
In Fortune there’s no reason, there’s no law.
That despot
drags man by her currents that
Aren’t logical, that lean toward evil and
Against the
just to show their random force.
10-63
The poor man never lives—what seems alive
Is like a
corpse. He therefore never dies.
The rich man on the other hand will die
And face in death the ruining of life.
10-65
Life is a stormy, dangerous passage that
Risks
shipwreck with wild Fortune at the helm.
Some have a pleasant passage. Some do not.
But all end up at that same port in
hell.
10-72
Life is no more than theaters and games.
Drop
seriousness in play or bear life’s pains.
10-73
Just bear life’s currents, brook where they have gone.
Why fight
or worry? They’ll still bear you on.
10-75
All those who live the kind of life we do,
Who gaze
upon the sun and breathe but wind,
Are creatures who derive their health from air.
If anyone
should squeeze us with his hand
So tightly that it presses out our breath,
He steals
our life and sends us down to Hell.
As nothing, we eat vanity and graze
On breaths
of wind in pastures of the air.
10-77
Why do you vainly work so hard, O man,
When
Fortune made a slave of you at birth?
Don’t fight what Fortune never lets you change.
Instead,
content yourself with your own fate
And tranquilly attempt to find delight
In that
which Fortune has assigned to you.
10-78
Your days upon the earth are very brief.
Therefore,
cast off your worries and complaints.
Don’t live like you’re already damned and dead
Before
you’re thrown into the ground for worms.
10-79
As night gives way, we’re daily born again
And keep no
portion of our prior life.
We start each day estranged both from the past
And our
remaining life. Old man, don’t say
Your life has been too long because today
You have no
part of any prior years.
10-80
Plaything of Fortune, that’s the life of man
Who wanders
wretchedly, who’s tossed between
Great wealth and want. Like balls, Luck throws men high
She dropped
before, bats men from clouds to hell.
10-81
Alas, the pleasures of our lives are brief!
Grieve over time’s haste.
While we sit, or sleep,
Or work, or revel in delights, swift time
Continues its relentless forward march
Advancing always on us wretched men
To bring to all of us the end of life.
10-82
Are not we Greeks[30]
in truth already dead?
Do we but
seem alive in our hard times?
Do we somehow imagine dreams are life?
Or do we
live though life itself is dead?
10-83
The wealthy even find that wisdom[31]
is
Hard,
troubling, necessary . . . .
10-84
I wept at birth and after weeping more
I find at
death my life was filled with tears.
O sad and sobbing, fragile race of men,
You’re
barely born before you’re rendered dust.
10-85
Just kept and fed for death, we’re held the way
Swine’s
kept for slaughter on some pointless day.
10-86
Though not in luxury, I rear as well
A wife and slave, fowl, children and a dog.
No flatterers, therefore, come in my house.
10-87
Unless we laugh at life that runs off and
At that whore, Fortune, shifting with the sand,
We’ll cause ourselves unnecessary fuss
When those less worthy prosper over us.
10-88
The soul’s affliction is the body which
Weighs
down, chains, grates, and punishes the soul.
But when death comes to take away that skin,
The
unchained soul flies up to timeless God.
10-89
If Rumor[32]
is a goddess, she hates Greeks
(As all
gods do) and tricks them with her words.
If things fail fast as they will often do,
That gives
quick “proof” of Rumor’s trickery.
10-90
How fast we are enslaved in foolishness!
The wickedness of envy is extreme.
We often hate the lucky ones god loves
And envy leads us foolishly astray.
We Greeks[33]
have been reduced to ashes--we
Have buried aspirations of the dead
In times when all is turned upon its head.
10-91
The person who would hate the man god loves
Commits of course the greatest foolishness
Since he thereby would fight the god himself.
One should instead embrace the man god loves
And not fall prey to envy’s senseless spite.
10-92
To A Magistrate
Since you adjudicate and speak well, too,
I bring my solemn epigram to you--
You’re worthy of my muse, my nightingale
And praising you lauds Justice just as well.
10-93
It’s better suffering blows of Fortune than
The
arrogance of men possessing wealth.
10-94
I think God’s, too, a true philosopher--
When faced with blasphemy, he does not mete
Out punishment at once but lets it grow
With time to punish worse the wicked man.
10-95
I hate the two-faced man whose words are kind
And yet whose deeds are evilly inclined.
10-96
When I observe the tragedies of life,
When I see Fortune’s unfair whimsies, when
I see her make the wealthy poor and break
The rich, I am quite blinded by my own
Disgust, by my revulsion toward such things,
Toward such a universe whose harshness and
Unfairness I can never comprehend--
How can I ever outwit Fortune who
Continues to appear from who knows where
To play the prostitute and do her tricks?
10-97
I toiled in grammar for a pound[34]
of years
For a
Senate seat in Hell to serve the dead.
10-98
Uneducated men should seal their lips
And keep their
speech concealed like shameful sores.
10-99
Your kindness and your insolence I’ve put
Quite
frequently upon my scales and found,
O Sextus, that your insults weigh way more--
Way more in
fact than I want in a “friend.”
11-54
These days the women mock me telling me
To look
into the mirror and behold
My time-wrecked self.
But as I near life’s end,
It doesn’t
bother me my hair is white
Instead of black. I
cover up such cares
With
flowers, scented oils and sips of wine.
11-55
I’ve turned to drink since wine dilutes the pain
And Bacchus
warms a freezing heart again.
11-62
Death is a debt that’s due from every man
Who
therefore never knows when life will end.
O man, while there is time, heed this fact well
And have
your merriment (including love)
Before too late. Use
wine to wash death from
Your
thoughts and leave the rest to Fortune’s whim.
11-204
On Maurus a Master of Rhetoric
He was a shocking site--a pound of lips,
An elephant’s trunk that spewed out
deadly sound.
11-255
Performing Daphne,[35]
snub-nosed Memphis seemed
Quite wooden; as Niobe he looked
stoned.
11-263
Remarks to the Comedian Paulus
Meander standing over sleeping Paulus said,
“I never
did you harm. Why slander me?”
11-280
It’s better to fall in Hegemon’s hands
Than in
Gennadius the surgeon’s grasp--
The first kills murderers with justice while
The second’s paid for sending men
to Hell.
11-281
On Magnus the Learned Physician
At the descent of Magnus into Hell,
Scared
Pluto said, “He’ll raise the dead as well.”
11-283
On Demonicus the Prefect
Though people can say many complex things,
Words can’t convey your evil’s scope and
breadth.
Yet, I can speak of one thing that I find
Incredible
in you: your thieving tears.
From Chalcis you’ve come here to sob in theft,
To weep in
profit as you’re robbing us.
11-284
On the Same
Left Chalcis and the lotus lands[38]
for us.
11-285
On the Same
He startled us as strangely quite effete
In how he
stole with tears and pitied those
He robbed, in how he played the pure man though
Unclean in
all his deeds and body, too.
11-286
“However good, a woman still is vile.”
The same applies to any slave as well.
They both are necessary evils. Since
Slaves hate us, best ones have two broken legs.[39]
11-287
Men having ugly wives are cursed each night
To see the dark when they turn up the light.
11-288
A barber and a tailor had a brawl
And needles
beat the razors after all.[40]
11-289
How rapidly we’re robbed of our short life!
A usurer with interest in one hand
Dropped dead just as his other hand began
To log the interest that his corpse still held.
11-290
Death voted down the counter[41]
that he held
Within his
hands and cast him quick to Hell.
That counter now lives on without the man
Whose soul
Death voted rapidly below.
11-291
How do you benefit the city with
Your verses and your slanders that you trade
For gold like merchants peddling their oil?
11-292
About a Philosopher
Turned Prefect of Constantinople
During the Reign of Valens and
Valentinian
Though charioted in Heaven, you desired
A Prefect’s
silver carriage down below
And have therefore debased yourself in shame--
You rose to
depths, descended down to heights.
11-293
Olympius who’d promised me a horse
Instead
brought me one’s tail cut from its corpse.
11-299
Your insults cause me no distress at all--
The
insolent are punished by their gall.
11-300
O man soon in the grave, you chatter on.
Be quiet! Practice death until you’re gone.
11-301
Men praise the Sun as god of light--though should
It slight them, even light’s no
longer good.
11-302
Your insults strike my indigence, not me--
Though
they’d strike Zeus were he as beggarly.[42]
11-303
How can I suffer taint from poverty?
How can one
hate what’s caused by fate, not me?
11-304
Whatever other faults of men may be,
They all
are boastful, all are cowardly.
Yet, men of reason hide such faults. They’re wise
Not
flaunting flaws before their neighbors’ eyes.
But you have flung your soul’s doors open wide--
All see
when you’re too bold or terrified.
11-305
O child of shamelessness and folly, too,
How can you
hold that empty head so high?
You are a Platonist when grammar calls
Yet cling
to grammar when near Platonists.
You hide from each field in the other since
You know no
grammar nor what Plato wrote.
11-306
From Alexandria to Antioch,
From Syria
to Italy you move.
You wander dreaming that you’ll snag a prize
Though none
in fact will ever marry you.
11-307
With a wife named Aphrodite and a son with Eros’ name,
No wonder,
Blacksmith, that your leg is lame.[43]
11-317
I got a donkey as a gift that sped
Or lagged
as backward as it moved ahead.
It was a haven, dream, work that was sired
By slowness,
that proved first for those retired.
11-323
There’s “crow” in “crawler” (change but “a” and “er”[44])
Which means
a flatter’s much like the bird.
Beware therefore of such a human beast
That scavenges
upon the living, too.
11-340
Ten thousand times I’d sworn I’d write no more
Since
epigrams brought fools’ wrath down on me.
But I slipped up on seeing that face of
Pantagathus
the Paphlagonian.
11-341
Though speaking ill is Attic honey, praise
Is better. Blame can bring one more malaise.
11-349
How can you size the Earth and Universe
When you’re
no more than some small bit of clay?
No, measure first yourself and know yourself
Before you
try to fathom endless earth,
And if you cannot grasp your little self,
How can you
calibrate infinity?
11-351
I leased space to a brewer yesterday
And found a
boxer living there today.
When I asked who he was and how he came,
He raised his
hands to start a boxing match.
I fled that savage fast amazed at how
A brewer
had become a vicious brute.
O Pollux and O Castor and O Zeus,
Who hear
the prayers of men, I beg of you
To keep this awful creature off of me.
I cannot box
him monthly for his rent!
11-353
Hermolycus’s daughter screwed an ape
And then
gave birth to baby Hermo-apes.
And Zeus in swan’s disguise had Leda who
Bore
Castor, Pollux and bore Helen, too,
And Hermione mated with a crow
And bore a
brood of foulest Hermi-fowl.
11-355
You claim you know all things but you do not--
You merely
taste. What have you fully known?
11-357
A son and father had a contest once
To find the
bigger spender of the two.
They ran through all their property until
They only
had each other to expend.
11-371
Don’t serve me merely pumpkin as pretense
To flaunt
your flashy dinnerware at me.
Though solid silver, one can’t eat the stuff
And you
thereby defraud poor souls like me
Who’re starving for a meal.
Invite instead
The fasting
who’ll admire such light-filled plates.
11-373
On a Poet Playing Dice
A poet’s goddess?
Calliope--though
Your
Calliope’s “Tabliope”[45]
now.
11-377
We guests were served some awful fowl to eat
Then found
ourselves served up to other birds--
Below, two vultures tore at Tityus
While four
disgusting birds tore into us.[46]
11-378
I can’t bear both a wife and grammar that
Have injured
me and left me penniless.
I can’t escape the claws of Death and Fate--
Though I’ve
with difficulty now escaped
From grammar, I can never flee that shrew.
I’m bound
by contract and by statutes, too.
11-381
All women are a pain (though they have two
Good seasons: wedding
nights and when they’re dead.)
11-383
The asses, too, have good and evil times,
And Kronos
governs births of beasts as well.
Thus, this poor ass that was a magistrate’s
Now lives
with a grammarian instead.
But, donkey, bear your new fate patiently.
A grammarian’s
half loaf beats no loaf at all.
11-384
How can a monk withdraw in groups from life?
A crowd of
“solitaries” is a lie.
11-385
Your love is false and comes from fear and force.
There is no
greater danger than such “love.”
11-386
A man saw grim-faced Victory in town
Just
yesterday and asked her what was wrong.
Objecting to her fate, she sadly said,
“You
haven’t heard? They treat me like some
breeze
Patricius caught while sailing. Though he seized
Me wrongly,
they all say I now am his.”
11-387
On Salaminus
We take one meal unless he is the host--
In that case, we go home and eat
again.
Finis
[1] To understand these puns, “mache” means “fight. Thus, the father Protomachus is “First In
Fight,” the mother Nichomache is “Victory in Fight,” Lysimachus is “Divorcer
From Fight,” and Andromache is “Husband Fighter.”
[2] The root of both names is “penthos” which means
grief, sorrow or misfortune. He may have
also had in mind the words “pentheros” and “penthera” meaning father-in-law and
mother-in-law respectively.
[3] These eight poems allude to his failure to obtain a consulate
astrologers had promise he would obtain.
[4] The first line of the Iliad also uses the word “menis” which means wrath.
[5] See note to 9-168.
[6] Palladas plays on “syntassomai” (I bid farewell) and
“syntaxis” (syntax).
[7] A reference to the first five lines of the Iliad.
[8] An Hellenic-Egyptian god created to bridge the gap
between the two cultures.
[9] The Greek word for contract and for contribution is
also “syntaxis” allowing for obvious wordplay for a grammarian teaching syntax.
[10] Theo was another famous grammarian.
[11] The first of four poems on the conversion of a
Fortune temple to a tavern. Again,
Palladas lived while the old gods fell.
[12] The Neoplatonist Hypatia was a virgin pagan
mathematician and astronomer brutally murdered by Christians.
[13] The poem refers to a bronze statue of Heracles. This powerful poem obviously had an impact on
Cavafy as can be seen in his “Song of Ionia,” “Remembrance,” and perhaps as
well in his “One of Their Gods” and “The Gods Abandon Antony.”
[14] Master of the winds who gave Odysseus the bag of
winds to help him sail home.
[15] What seems at first a light-hearted epigram is more
likely quite dark: she gave birth to
twins (a boy and a girl) and at least one of them died thus giving the three
declensions.
[16] The word is “Konditos” in Greek or “Conditum” in
Latin.
[17] Term of uncertain meaning.
[18] This was surely not directed to his wife. Some have suggested it was directed to
Hypatia.
[19] I.e., bronze pagan statues which will not be melted
into change.
[20] Again, referring to the melting of a pagan statue in
the new Christian order.
[21] Also attributed to Homer.
[22] In the original there is a pun on “domenai” (“to
give” in Greek) and “Domine” (“Lord” in Latin).
[23] The word is “kole” which literally means bile or
gall; metaphorically anger or wrath.
[24] I.e., Palladas also rejects this portion of Homer’s
tale.
[25] The word is “kairos.”
[26] The word is “phthisis” meaning waning, perishing,
declining, or consumption in that sense.
[27] He supposedly grew so obese that he choked to death
on his own fat.
[28] Homer, Odyssey
xix. 162.
[29] The word is “sophrosune.”
[30] I.e., pagan Greeks.
[31] “Phronis” means practical wisdom.
[32] The word is “pheme” which can mean, among other
things, rumor, legend, omen, report, talk.
[33] “Greek” here most likely means pagan persecuted by
the new Christian order.
[34]A “litra” or
pound contains 72 solidi; Paton believes that the speaker may therefore mean
that he vainly sought a senate seat for 72 years in life.
[35] In Greek myth Daphne was turned into a laurel tree
and Niobe was turned into stone.
[36] Paton believes Palladas gives him this other name to
suggest “lukos” meaning “wolf.”
[37] The word “antiocheuomenos” appears to be a hapax
legomenon in this case and therefore presents translation problems. Literally the word suggests driving or pushing
back against. However, “oxeuo” can also refer to passive animal intercourse and
I agree with Paton that this was meant to have a sexual meaning. The word may also play on Antioch and
MacGregor in fact incorrectly translates the passage to say he is from
Antioch.
[38] I.e., the land of the Lotus Eaters.
[39] I.e., with the slave’s legs broken he can do less
mischief to his master.
[40] I.e., the barber’s blades were dull.
[41] There is a pun on two senses of “psephos” which can
mean both vote and counter.
[42] Presumably the point is Zeus should be able to escape
poverty while Palladas cannot.
[43] The allusion is to the crippled god Hephaestus who
was a smith and in some accounts married
to Aphrodite.
[44] The Greek word for “crows” is “corakes” while the
Greek word for “flatterers” is “colakes” and thus the terms differ only by a consonant.
[45] “Tabla” means game board.
[46] The sense of this strange poem is not clear to me.
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