Yet I can have no objection
to tears for any mortal who dies and goes to his destiny.
And this is the only consolation we wretched mortals
can give, to cut our hair and let the tears roll down our faces.
νεμεσσῶμαί γε μὲν οὐδὲν
κλαίειν ὅς κε θάνῃσι βροτῶν καὶ πότμον ἐπίσπῃ.
τοῦτό νυ καὶ γέρας οἶον ὀϊζυροῖσι βροτοῖσιν,
κείρασθαί τε κόμην βαλέειν τ ̓ ἀπὸ δάκρυ παρειῶν.
"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
Pages
▼
Friday, December 29, 2023
Mourning
Homer, Odyssey 4.195-198 (tr. Richmond Lattimore):