Thursday, December 18, 2014
The Golden Mean
Greek Anthology 5.37 (by Rufinus; tr. W.R. Paton):
I briefly considered λεπτὸν for λεῖπον in the last line, but it was a bad idea—λεῖπον (present participle of λείπω) balances πλέον perfectly and reprises λείπει in the preceding line.
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Take not to your arms a woman who is too slender nor one too stout, but choose the mean between the two. The first has not enough abundance of flesh, and the second has too much. Choose neither deficiency nor excess.Denys Page in his commentary calls this "the feeblest of Rufinus' epigrams."
μήτ᾿ ἰσχνὴν λίην περιλάμβανε μήτε παχεῖαν,
τούτων δ᾿ ἀμφοτέρων τὴν μεσότητα θέλε.
τῇ μὲν γὰρ λείπει σαρκῶν χύσις, ἡ δὲ περισσὴν
κέκτηται· λεῖπον μὴ θέλε μηδὲ πλέον.
I briefly considered λεπτὸν for λεῖπον in the last line, but it was a bad idea—λεῖπον (present participle of λείπω) balances πλέον perfectly and reprises λείπει in the preceding line.
