Monday, July 18, 2022

 

Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme!

Greek Anthology 11.25 (by Apollonides; tr. W.R. Paton):
Thou art asleep, my friend, but the cup itself is calling to thee:
"Awake, and entertain not thyself with this meditation on death."
Spare not, Diodorus, but slipping greedily into wine,
drink it unmixed until thy knees give way.
The time shall come when we shall not drink—long, long time; but come, haste thee;
the age of wisdom is beginning to tint our temples.

ὑπνώεις, ὦ ᾿ταῖρε· τὸ δὲ σκύφος αὐτὸ βοᾷ σε·
   ἔγρεο, μὴ τέρπου μοιριδίῃ μελέτῃ.
μὴ φείσῃ, Διόδωρε· λάβρος δ᾿ εἰς Βάκχον ὀλισθών,
   ἄχρις ἐπὶ σφαλεροῦ ζωροπότει γόνατος.
ἔσσεθ᾿ ὅτ᾿ οὐ πιόμεσθα, πολὺς πολύς· ἀλλ᾿ ἄγ᾿ ἐπείγου·        5
   ἡ συνετὴ κροτάφων ἅπτεται ἡμετέρων.
Paton's translation of μὴ τέρπου μοιριδίῃ μελέτῃ (line 2) doesn't seem quite right to me, nor does Hermann Beckby's "Reiß die Angst vor dem Tod dir aus dem Herzen!" Sleep is a rehearsal for death, and I would translate, "don't delight in this rehearsal of death," i.e. don't take pleasure in sleep. Cf. philosophy as μελέτη θανάτου (Plato, Phaedo 81a). Sleep and Death are brothers (Homer, Iliad 16.672, Hesiod, Theogony 756).



After writing the above, I found J.W. Mackail's translation, in Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology, 3rd ed. (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1911), p. 288:
Thou slumberest, О comrade; but the cup itself cries to thee, ‘Awake; do not make thy pleasure in the rehearsal of death.' Spare not, Diodorus; slipping greedily into wine, drink deep, even to the tottering of the knee. Time shall be when we shall not drink, long and long; nay, come, make haste; prudence already lays her hand on our temples.



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