Laudator Temporis Acti

Alexis, fragment 25, from the Teacher of Profligacy = Ἀσωτοδιδάσκαλος (tr. Charles Burton Gulick):

What's this nonsense you are talking, for ever babbling, this way and that,
of the Lyceum, the Academy, and the Odeum gates —
mere sophists' rubbish? There's no good in them.
Let's drink, and drink our fill, my Sicon, Sicon!
Let's have a good time while we may still keep the life in our bodies.        5
Whoop it up, Manes! There's nothing nicer than the belly.
That is your father, and again, your only mother.
Ethics, embassies, army tactics —
fine pretences that sound hollow, like dreams.
Fate will snuff you out at the appointed time.        10
You will have only what you eat and drink.
All the rest is dust — Pericles, Codrus, Cimon.

τί ταῦτα ληρεῖς, φληναφῶν ἄνω κάτω
Λύκειον, Ἀκαδήμειαν, Ὠιδείου πύλας,
λήρους σοφιστῶν; οὐδὲ ἓν τούτων καλόν.
πίνωμεν, ἐμπίνωμεν, ὦ Σίκων, Σίκων,
χαίρωμεν, ἕως ἔνεστι τὴν ψυχὴν τρέφειν.        5
τύρβαζε, Μάνη· γαστρὸς οὐδὲν ἥδιον.
αὕτη πατήρ σοι καὶ πάλιν μήτηρ μόνη.
ἀρεταὶ δὲ πρεσβεῖαί τε καὶ στρατηγίαι
κόμποι κενὰ ψοφοῦντες ἀντʼ ὀνειράτων.
ψύξει σε δαίμων τῷ πεπρωμένῳ χρόνῳ·        10
ἕξεις δʼ ὅσʼ ἂν φάγῃς τε καὶ πίῃς μόνα·
σποδὸς δὲ τἄλλα, Περικλέης, Κόδρος, Κίμων.

See W. Geoffrey Arnott, Alexis: The Fragments, A Commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 819-830, who includes this fragment among the "False or Doubtful Attributions".