Laudator Temporis Acti quotes Basil L. Gildersleeve:

Platonic scholars, with rare exceptions, are roughly to be divided into two classes, those who can understand the thought but not the Greek and those who can read the Greek but cannot understand the thought . . .

According to Palladas (A.P. 11.305) there is, or was in his day, a third kind, who belongs to neither class but pretends to belong to both:

Child of shamelessness, most ignorant, foster-child of stupidity, tell me, why do you hold your head high, though you know nothing? Among the grammarians you are a Platonist, but if someone asks about Plato’s teachings, you are once again a grammarian. You flee from the one to the other, but neither do you know the grammatical art nor are you a Platonist.

Here is the Greek:

Τέκνον ἀναιδείης, ἀμαθέστατε, θρέμμα μορίης,
    εἰπέ, τί βρενθύηι μηδὲν ἐπιστάμενος;
ἐν μὲν γραμματικοῖς ὁ Πλατωνικός· ἂν δὲ Πλάτωνος
    δόγματά τις ζητῆι, γραμματικὸς σὺ πάλιν.
ἐξ ἑτέρου φεύγεις ἐπὶ θάτερον· οὔτε δὲ τέχνην
    οἶσθα γραμματικήν, οὔτε Πλατωνικὸς εἶ.

If the Greek text is unintelligible, try the PDF version at my long-abandoned Ioci Antiqui page: scroll down to Joke 43 on page 13 (December 13th, 2000).

I wonder if Gildersleeve was thinking of Palladas: he does write “roughly”.

. . . please e-mail me. My address is gro.oilucruc@oilucruc turned backwards (don’t want to encourage spambots by making it harvestable).

If you are not Michael Gilleland, but happen to know his e-mail, that would be good, too. (I can’t find it anywhere on his site, and have some not-ready-for-publication thoughts on Palladas and Martial I’d like to share with him.)

Update: Thanks, I’ve gotten hold of him.

(This is a rewrite of a previous Memorial Day post.)

1. Simonides’ epitaph on the 300 Spartans who died at Thermopylae:

ὦ ξεῖν᾿, ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε
    κείμεθα τοῖς κείνων πειθόμενοι νομίμοις.

Stranger, tell the Lacedemonians that we lie here, obedient to their laws/customs.

The epitaph appeals to the passerby to deliver the message because these men died and were buried far from Sparta: with no post offices or telephones in the ancient world, epitaphs for those who died away from home were often in the form “If you are ever in the town of X, tell Y the son of Z that his son is buried here, far from home”. The only way to send the message was to have it ‘hitchhike’ with someone who happened to be headed in the right direction. In this case, specific names are unnecessary.

Simonides was one of the greatest Greek poets, though little of his work survives — just enough to show us what we’re missing. He was particularly known for his elegies, epitaphs, and threnodies — all the gloomier genres — which were simple and moving. His epitaphs were written for the actual monuments, not as literary exercises. This is Simonides XXIIb in the Oxford Classical Text of Epigrammata Graeca and (with commentary) Further Greek Epigrams, both edited by D. L. Page. The meter is elegiac couplet. Other sources give the last two words as ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι, “obedient to their words”. However, whether he said that the Spartans were “obedient to the words” (= commands) of their kings or “obedient to the customs” of their country, it means that they were willing to follow orders without question even when there was no chance of survival. The word I have translated “obedient to” also means “persuaded by” — a nice example of small-d democracy in the very structure of the Greek language. The movie Go Tell The Spartans takes its title from Simonides’ epitaph, either directly or (perhaps through Cicero) indirectly.

2. Cicero’s paraphrase, from Tusculan Disputations 1.101:

Dic, hospes, Spartae, nos te hic vidisse iacentes
    dum sanctis patriae legibus obsequimur.

Stranger, tell Sparta that you saw us lying here, as we obey the sacred laws of our fatherland.

3. A. E. Housman, More Poems XXXVI:

Here dead we lie because we did not choose
    To live and shame the land from which we sprung.
Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose;
    But young men think it is, and we were young.

The first two lines are a paraphrase of Simonides, generalized for all nations. The last two are Housman’s own addition, though the thought is very pagan and very Greek. Housman’s little poem achieves an impressive degree of Simonidean simplicity. Every word but two is monosyllabic, and even the exceptions hardly count, since ‘nothing’ was originally ‘no thing’ and ‘because’ originally (I think) ‘by cause’. It’s odd that a professional Latinist should write such a thoroughly unLatin poem: just about every word is pure Anglo-Saxon.

Book VII of the Greek Anthology includes a sequence of eight supposed epitaphs of Timon of Athens, the famous misanthrope, epigrams 313-320. Having already posted seven of them, here is the eighth, by “Zenodotus or Rhianus” (A.P. 7.315), with W. R. Paton’s Loeb translation:

Τρηχεῖαν κατ᾿ ἐμεῦ, ψαφαρὴ κόνι, ῥάμνον ἑλίσσοις
    πάντοθεν, ἢ σκολιῆς ἄγρια κῶλα βάτου,
ὡς ἐπ᾿ ἐμοὶ μηδ᾿ ὄρνις ἐν εἴαρι κοῦφον ἐρείδοι
    ἴχνος, ἐηεμάζω δ᾿ ἥσυχα κεκλιμένος.
ἦ γὰρ ὁ μισάνθρωπος, ὁ μηδ᾿ ἀστοῖσι φιλἠεὶς
    Τίμων οὐδ᾿ Ἀΐδῃ γνήσιος εἰμι νέκυς.

Dry earth, grow a prickly thorn to twine all around me, or the wild branches of a twisting bramble, that not even a bird in spring may rest its light foot on me, but that I may repose in peace and solitude. For I, the misanthrope, Timon, who was not even beloved by my countrymen, am no genuine dead man even in Hades.

This is the work of “Leonidas or Antipater” (A.P. 7.316). By including it in Hellenistic Epigrams as Leonidas C, Gow and Page imply that it is likely to be by Leonidas of Tarentum or Antipater of Sidon, not their later homonyms Leonidas of Alexandria and Antipater of Thessalonica.

Τὴν ἐπ᾿ ἐμεῦ στήλην παραμείβεο, μήτε με χαίρειν
    εἰπών, μήθ᾿ ὅστις, μὴ τίνος ἐξετάσας·
ἢ μὴ τὴν ἀνύεις τελέσαις ὁδόν· ἢν δὲ παρέλθῃς
    σιγῇ, μηδ᾿ οὕτως ἣν ἀνύεις τελέσαις.

Pass by this monument, neither wishing me well [= greeting me], nor asking who, or whose son, I was. Otherwise may you never reach the end of the journey you are on, but if you pass by in silence, not even then may you reach your journey’s end.

This hexameter couplet purports to be the inscription on Timon’s tomb. It is A.P. 7.313, with the author given as ‘anonymous’, though Plutarch, in his life of Mark Antony (§ 70), says that Timon wrote it himself.

Ἐνθαδ᾿ ἀπορρήξας ψυχὴν βαρυδαίμονα κεῖμαι·
τοὔνομα δ᾿ οὐ πεύσεσθε, κακοὶ δὲ κακῶς ἀπόλοισθε.

Here I lie, having broken away from my luckless soul. My name you will not learn, but may you come, bad men, to a bad end.

Like the preceding, A.P. 7.319 is anonymous, and neither is included in any of Gow and Page’s collections:

Καὶ νέκυς ὢν Τίμων ἄγριος· σὺ δέ γ᾿, ὦ πυλαωρὲ
    Πλούτωνος, τάρβει, Κέρβερε, μή σε δάκῃ.

Even as a corpse Timon is savage: Cerberus, door-keeper of Pluto, be afraid lest he bite you.

This is Hegesippus VIII in Gow and Page, Hellenistic Epigrams, A.P. 7.320:

Ὀξεῖαι πάντη περὶ τὸν τάφον εἰσὶν ἄκανθαι
    καὶ σκόλοπες· βλάψεις τοὺς πόδας, ἢν προσίῃς·
Τίμων μισάνθρωπος ἐνοικέω· ἀλλὰ πάρελθε,
    οἰμώζειν εἴπας πολλά, πάρελθε μόνον.

All around the tomb there are sharp thorns and stakes: you will hurt your feet if you go near. I, Timon the misanthrope, dwell in it. But pass by – wish me all evil if you like, only pass by.

This charming piece is Ptolemaeus II in Page’s Further Greek Epigrams, A.P. 7.314:

Μὴ πόθεν εἰμὶ μάθῃς, μηδ᾿ οὔνομα· πλὴν ὅτι θνήσκειν
    τοὺς παρ᾿ ἐμὴν στήλην ἐρχομένους ἐθέλω.

Learn not whence I am nor my name; know only that I wish those who pass my monument to die.

These are Callimachus LI and LII in Gow and Page, Hellenistic Epigrams, 7.317-318 in the Greek Anthology. The first is a dialogue, with the translation mostly borrowed from Paton’s Loeb:

— Τίμων, οὐ γὰρ ἔτ᾿ ἐσσί, τί τοι, σκότος ἢ φάος, ἐχθρόν;
    — Τὸ σκότος· ὑμέων γὰρ πλείονες εἰν Ἀΐδῃ.

Q. Timon, since you are no more, which is more hateful to you, darkness or light?
A. Darkness: for there are more of you in Hades.

The second is a bit confusing, and depends on a pun. Here is my best guess at a translation:

Μὴ χαίρειν εἴπῃς με, κακὸν κέαρ, ἀλλὰ πάρελθε·
    ἶσον ἐμοὶ χαίρειν ἐστὶ τὸ μὴ σὲ πελᾶν.

Do not greet (= bless) me, evil heart, but pass by; your not coming near is as good as a blessing.

Just to show that even Palladas can be boring, here is the shorter of his two surviving epigrams about grafting pear trees (A.P. 9.6):

᾿Αχρὰς ἔην· θῆκας σέο χερσὶ μυρίπνοον ὄχνην
    δένδρῳ πτόρθον ἐνείς· σὴν χάριν εἰς σὲ φέρω.

I was a wild-pear tree (pyraster); by inserting a graft, your hand made me a fragrant pear-tree, and I reward you for your kindness.

(translation adapted from W. R. Paton’s Loeb)

Not Palladas but Ammianus this time (A.P. 11.413):

Ὡς κῆπον τεθυκώς, δεῖπνον παρέθηκεν Ἀπελλῆς,
    οἰόμενος βόσκειν ἀντὶ φίλων πρόβατα.
ἦν ῥαφανίς, σέρις ἦν, τῆλις, θρίδακες, πράσα, βολβοί,
    ὤκιμον, ἡδύσμον, πήγανον, ἀσπάραγος·
δείσας δ᾿ ἐκ τούτων μὴ καὶ χόρτον παραθῇ μοι,
    δειπνήσας θέρμους ἡμιβρεχεῖς, ἔφυγον.

Apelles gave us a supper as if he had butchered a garden, thinking he was feeding sheep instead of friends. There was radish, chicory, fenugreek, lettuces, leeks, onions, basil, mint, rue, asparagus. I was afraid that after these things he would put hay before me, so when I had eaten some sodden lupins I fled.

(translation adapted from W. R. Paton’s Loeb)

Palladas again (A.Pl. 317):

Κωφὸν ἄναυδον ὁρῶν τὸν Γέσσιον, εἰ λίθος ἐστί,
    Δήλιε, μαντεύου, τίς τίνος ἐστὶ λίθος.

Looking here on Gessius, dumb and speechless, if he be of stone, tell by thy sooth, Delian Apollo, which is the stone statue of which.

(translated by W. R. Paton)

Palladas once more (A.P. 9.489):

Γραμματικοῦ θυγάτηρ ἔτεκεν φιλότητι μιγεῖσα
    παιδίον ἀρσενικόν, θηλυκόν, οὐδέτερον.

A grammarian’s daughter, having known a man, gave birth to a child which was masculine, feminine, and neuter.

(translated by W. R. Paton)

Since Laudator Temporis Acti asks for more, here’s another epigram of Palladas. I teach high school, and my students occasionally read this weblog, so I won’t be able to print the one to which he alludes in his last line (A.P. 10.45). Here is 11.340 instead:

῎Ωμοσα μυριάκις ἐπιγράμματα μηκέτι ποιεῖν·
    πολλῶν γὰρ μωρῶν ἔχθραν ἐπεσπασάμην.
ἀλλ᾿ ὁπόταν κατίδω τοῦ Παφλαγόνος τὸ πρόσωπον
    Πανταγάθου, στέξαι τὴν νόσον οὐ δύναμαι.

I swore ten thousand times to make no more epigrams, for I had brought on my head the enmity of many fools, but when I set eyes on the face of the Paphlagonian Pantagathus I can’t repress the malady.

(translated by W. R. Paton)

Another epigram of Palladas (A.P. 10.98):

Πᾶς τις ἀπαίδευτος φρονιμώτατός ἐστι σιωπῶν,
    τὸν λόγον ἐγκρύπτων ὡς πάθος αἰσχρότατον.

Every uneducated man is wisest if he remains silent, hiding his speech like a disgraceful disease.

(translated by W. R. Paton)

Those who found the last epigram a bit morbid may wish to skip the first of this matched pair:

“Posidippus, or Plato the Comic Poet” (A.P. 9.359):

Ποίην τις βιότοιο τάμῃ τρίβον; εἰν ἀγορῇ μὲν
    νείκεα καὶ χαλεπαὶ πρήξιες· ἐν δὲ δόμοις
φροντίδες· ἐν δ᾿ ἀγροῖς καμάτων ἅλις· ἐν δὲ θαλάσσῃ
    τάρβος· ἐπὶ ξείνης δ᾿, ἢν μὲν ἔχεις τι, δέος·
ἢν δ᾿ ἀπορῇς, ἀνιηρόν. ἔχεις γάμον; οὐκ ἀμέριμνος
    ἔσσεαι· οὐ γαμέεις; ζῇς ἔτ᾿ ἐρημότερος·
τέκνα πόνοι, πήρωσις ἄπαις βίος· αἱ νεότητες
    ἄφρονες, αἱ πολιαὶ δ᾿ ἔμπαλιν ἀδρανέες.
ἦν ἄρα τοῖν δισσοῖν ἐνὸς αἵρεσις, ἢ τὸ γενέσθαι
    μηδέποτ᾿, ἢ τὸ θανεῖν αὐτίκα τικτόμενων.

What path of life should one pursue? In the market place are broils and business difficulties, and at home are anxieties; in the country there is too much labour, and at sea there is fear. In a foreign land there is apprehension if you possess anything, and if you are ill off, life is a burden. You are married? You won’t be without cares. You are unmarried? You live a still more lonely life. Children are a trouble, and a childless life is a crippled one. Youth is foolish, and old age again is feeble. There is then, it seems, a choice between two things, either not to be born or to die at once on being born.

Metrodorus (A.P. 9.360):

Παντοίην βιότοιο τάμοις τρίβον; εἰν ἀγορῇ μὲν
    κύδεα καὶ πινυταὶ πρήξιες· ἐν δὲ δόμοις
ἄμπαυμ᾿· ἐν δ᾿ ἀγροῖς Φύσιος χάρις· ἐν δὲ θαλάσσῃ
    κέρδος. ἐπὶ ξείνης δ᾿, ἢν μὲν ἔχεις τι, κλέος·
ἢν δ᾿ ἀπορῇς, μόνος οἶδας. ἔχεις γάμον; οἶκος ἄριστος
    ἔσσεται· οὐ γαμέεις; ζῇς ἔτ᾿ ἐλαφρότερος.
τέκνα πόθος, ἄφροντις ἄπαις βίος· αἱ νεότητες
    ῥωμαλέαι, πολιαὶ δ᾿ ἔμπαλιν εὐσεβέες.
οὐκ ἄρα τῶν δισσῶν ἐνὸς αἵρεσις, ἢ τὸ γενέσθαι
    μηδέποτ᾿, ἢ τὸ θανεῖν· πάντα γὰρ ἐσθλὰ βίῳ.

Pursue every path of life. In the market place are honours and prudent dealings, at home rest; in the country the charm of nature, and at sea profit; in a foreign country, if you have any possessions, there is fame, and if you are in want no one knows it but yourself. Are you married? Your house will be the best of houses. Do you remain unmarried? Your life is yet lighter. Children are darlings; a childless life is free from care. Youth is strong, and old age again pious. Therefore there is no choice between two things, either not to be born or to die; for all in life is excellent.

(translations from W. R. Paton’s Loeb)

Another epigram of Palladas (A.P. 10.85):

Πάντες τῷ θανάτῳ τηρούμεθα καὶ τρεφόμεσθα,
    ὡς ἀγέλη χοίρων σφαζομένων ἀλόγως.

We all are tended and fed for death, like a herd of pigs slaughtered at random.

An epigram of Palladas (A.P. 15.20):

Σιγῶν παρέρχου τὸν ταλαίπωρον βίον,
αὐτὸν σιωπῇ τὸν χρόνον μιμούμενος·
λαθὼν δὲ καὶ βίωσον, εἰ δὲ μή, θανών.

Pass by this miserable life in silence, imitating by your silence Time himself. Live likewise unnoticed; or if not, you will be so in death.

(translated by W. R. Paton, with archaic forms updated)

Callimachus XXXIV G-P (A.P. 7.80):

Εἰπέ τις, Ἡράκλειτε, τεὸν μόρον ἐς δέ με δάκρυ
    ἤγαγεν ἐμνήσθην δ᾿ ὁσσάκις ἀμφότεροι
ἠέλιον λέσχῃ κατεδύσαμεν. ἀλλὰ σὺ μέν που,
    ξεῖν᾿ Ἁλικαρνησεῦ, τετράπαλαι σποδιή,
αἱ δὲ τεαὶ ζώουσιν ἀηδόνες, ᾗσιν ὁ πάντων
    ἁρπακτὴς Ἀίδης οὐκ ἐπὶ χεῖρα βαλεῖ.

Someone told me of your death, Heraclitus, and it moved me to tears, when I remembered how often the sun set on our talking. And you, my Halicarnassian friend, lie somewhere, gone long long ago to dust; but they live, your Nightingales, on which Hades who siezes all shall not lay his hand.

(translated by W. R. Paton, with archaic forms updated)

They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead;
They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed;
I wept, as I remembered, how often you and I
Had tired the sun with talking, and sent him down the sky.

And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest,
A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest,
Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake;
For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take.

(“Heraclitus”, by William Johnson Cory, 1823-92)

Heraclitus of Halicarnassus I G-P:

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 τὸ μὲν λίπον ἀνδρὶ ποδηγόν
    γήρως, ἓν δ᾿ ἀπάγω μναμόσυνον πόσιος.᾿

The earth is newly dug and on the faces of the tomb-stone wave the half-withered garlands of leaves. Let us decipher the letters, wayfarer, and learn whose smooth bones the stone says it cover. “Stranger, I am Aretemias, my country Cnidus. I was the wife of Euphro and I did not escape travail, but bringing forth twins, I left one child to guide my husband’s steps in his old age, and I took the other with me to remind me of him.”

(A.P. 7.465, translated by W. R. Paton)