Translated by Christopher Childers
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Heraclitus 1 (vii.465)
The earth is freshly dug, and the leaves wave
and drop from garlands draped about the grave.
Traveller, come, let’s read the stone and find
whose scoured bones it says are here enshrined.
“I’m Aretemias, kind Euphro’s wife,
from Cnidus. Birth-pangs brought me twins in life:
one helps my husband in infirmity;
one, to remind me of him, came with me.”
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Alcaeus 208
Which way the winds are blowing, I can’t tell.
From here, now from there, breakers are rocking the keel;
we’re swept along in the swell
right through the riotous heart of the gale,
stumbling and straining under the storm to bale
the bilge—now over the masthold, swamping it—
and big holes in the sail
open on sky-fragments opposite.
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Sappho 96
in Sardis,
where frequently she still remembers us.
…you always did impress her
as like a goddess in the flesh,
and when you sang it was her greatest pleasure.
Lydian now, she outshines the ladies there
as, after the sun has dipped his flaring
head, the moon’s rose fingers brush the air
and shutter all the stars, and an equal luster
shimmers the ocean’s salty surf
and lights the meadows where the flowers cluster,
where the dew scatters spangles and the rose
riots, where melilot uncloses
blossoms and, delicate, the chervil blows.
So she goes back and forth, and still recalls her
kind Atthis with desire, and mulls
what happened to you and, no doubt, it galls her.
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Horace 1.37
High time to drink now, time with unfettered feet
to pound the ground now; it was high time before
now, friends, to fix a seat
for the gods at the feast of our Priests of War.
To raid the family cellars for noble vintage
was wrong till now, while of the Capitol
the mad queen sought the wreckage;
insane, sought the Empire’s funeral,
wielding a flock of “men” sick from the stink
of their own squalor, possessed by an enervated
and grasping hope, and drunk
on luck’s sweet serum. Her fit abated
when hardly one ship fled burning and her blear
brain, spongy with the Mareotic grape,
back to the truth of fear
flew, far from Italy, flew to escape
Caesar, straining his oars, a hawk giving chase
to delicate doves, a hunter stalking the hare
through ice-blind fields of Thrace
with awful alacrity to ensnare
the fate-bedeviled creature—who, steeled to meet
a nobler end, did not, like a woman, cower
from swords, or speed her fleet
to a secret harbor and take cover,
but dared behold, with brow serenely blank,
her realm in rubble; dared with her hands constrain
venomous asps, and drank
caliginous liquor through every vein,
the fiercer now for her final freedom weighed,
denying our cruel ships—as a throneless, common
subject on parade—
glory of her, who was no low woman.
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Callimachus Ep. 31 (vii.524)
Does Charidas lie here?
You mean, I guess,
Arimmas of Cyrene’s son? Then yes.
Say, Charidas, what is it like below?
No light.
Is there an upward passage?
No.
And Pluto?
Just a fable.
Then we’re through—!
I’ve told the truth. But if the truth appalls,
an ox goes for a dime in Hades’ halls.
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Heraclitus 1 (vii.465)
Ἁ κόνις ἀρτίσκαπτος, ἐπὶ στάλας δὲ μετώπων
σείονται φύλλων ἡμιθαλεῖς στέφανοι.
γράμμα διακρίναντες, ὁδοιπόρε, πέτρον ἴδωμεν,
λευρὰ περιστέλλειν ὀστέα φατὶ τίνος.
“ξεῖν’, Ἀρετημιάς εἰμι· πάτρα Κνίδος· Εὔφρονος ἦλθον
εἰς λέχος· ὠδίνων οὐκ ἄμορος γενόμαν,
δισσὰ δ’ ὁμοῦ τίκτουσα τό μὲν λίπον ἀνδρὶ ποδηγόν
γήρως, ὃν δ’ ἀπάγω μναμόσυνον πόσιος.”
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Alcaeus 208
ἀσυν⟨ ν⟩έτημμι τὼν ἀνέμων στάσιν·
τὸ μὲν γὰρ ἔνθεν κῦμα κυλίνδεται,
τὸ δ’ ἔνθεν, ἄμμες δ’ ὂν τὸ μέσσον
νᾶι φορήμ⟨ μ⟩εθα σὺν μελαίνᾳ
χείμωνι μόχθεντες μεγάλῳ μάλα·
πὲρ μὲν γὰρ ἄντλος ἰστοπέδαν ἔχει,
λαῖφος δὲ πὰν ζάδηλον ἤδη,
καὶ λάκιδες μέγαλαι κὰτ αὖτο[.]
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Sappho 96
]Σαρδ . [ . . ]
πόλ]λακι τυίδε [ν]ῶν ἔχοισα
ὠσπ . [ . . . ] . ώομεν, . [ . . . ] . . χ[ . . ]-
σε θέαι σ’ ἰκέλαν ἀρι-
γνώται, σᾶι δὲ μάλιστ’ ἔχαιρε μόλπαι.
νῦν δὲ Λύδαισιν ἐμπρέπεται γυναί-
κεσσιν ὤς ποτ’ ἀελίω
δύντος ἀ βροδοδάκτυλος σελάννα
πάντα περρέχοισ’ ἄστρα· φάος δ’ ἐπί-
σχει θάλασσαν ἐπ’ ἀλμύραν
ἴσως καὶ πολυανθέμοις ἀρούραις·
ἀ δ’ ἐέρσα κάλα κέχυται, τεθά-
λαισι δὲ βρόδα κἄπαλ’ ἄν-
θρυσκα καὶ μελίλωτος ἀνθεμώδης·
πόλλα δὲ ζαφοίταισ’, ἀγάνας ἐπι-
μνάσθεισ’ Ἄτθιδος ἰμέρῳ
λέπταν ποι φρένα κ[ᾶ]ρ[ι σᾶι] βόρηται·
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Horace 1.37
Nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero
pulsanda tellus, nunc Saliaribus
ornare pulvinar deorum
tempus erat dapibus, sodales.
Antehac nefas depromere Caecubum
cellis avitis, dum Capitolio
regina dementis ruinas
funus et imperio parabat
contaminato cum grege turpium
morbo virorum, quidlibet impotens
sperare fortunaque dulci
ebria. Sed minuit furorem
vix una sospes navis ab ignibus,
mentemque lymphatam Mareotico
redegit in veros timores
Caesar, ab Italia volantem
remis adurgens, accipiter velut
mollis columbas aut leporem citus
venator in campis nivalis
Haemoniae, daret ut catenis
fatale monstrum. Quae generosius
perire quaerens nec muliebriter
expavit ensem nec latentis
classe cita reparavit oras,
ausa et iacentem visere regiam
voltu sereno, fortis et asperas
tractare serpentes, ut atrum
corpore conbiberet venenum,
deliberata morte ferocior:
saevis Liburnis scilicet invidens
privata deduci superbo,
non humilis mulier, triumpho.
ausa et iacentem visere regiam
voltu sereno, fortis et asperas
tractare serpentes, ut atrum
corpore conbiberet venenum,
deliberata morte ferocior:
saevis Liburnis scilicet invidens
privata deduci superbo,
non humilis mulier, triumpho.
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Callimachus Ep. 31 (vii.524)
—Ἦ ῥ’ ὑπὸ σοὶ Χαρίδας ἀναπαύεται; Χ. Εἰ τὸν Ἀρίμμα
τοῦ Κυρηναίου παῖδα λέγεις, ὑπ’ ἐμοί.
—Ὦ Χαρίδα, τί τὰ νέρθε; Χ. Πολὺ σκότος. —Αἱ δ’ ἄνοδοι τί;
Χ. Ψεῦδος. —Ὁ δὲ Πλούτων; Χ. Μῦθος. —Ἀπωλόμεθα.
Χ. Οὗτος ἐμὸς λόγος ὔμμιν ἀληθινός, εἰ δὲ τὸν ἡδύν
βούλει, Πελλαίου βοῦς μέγας εἰν Ἀίδῃ.
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Christopher Childers has poems, essays, and translations published or forthcoming from Yale Review, Barrow Street, Agni, Parnassus, and elsewhere. He has been a finalist for the Ruth Lilly Fellowship and is currently working on a new translation of Greek and Latin Lyric Poetry from Archilochus to Martial, under contract with Penguin Classics. He is an MFA candidate in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University.
