Aphorism of the Day
La “instrucción” es toxina letal para el espíritu.
“Education” is a lethal toxin for the soul.
(Nicolás Gómez Dávila, Escolios a un Texto Implícito, 2.179)
Thursday: April 20, 2006
Two Anonymous Epigrams on Timon
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.