Comments & Greek painting, Greek artists: That here, obedient to their laws, we lie...

Ancient Greek poetry & Greek artists, modern Greek artists


Yannis Stavrou, Acropolis II, oil on canvas

Simonides of Ceos
(556 BC-468 BC)

Epitaph at Thermopylae - Simonides Epigram

Go, tell the Spartans, stranger passing by,
That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.

Fragment o1

When, upon the well-wrought chest,
Fiercely heat the howling wind,
And the oceans heaving breast
Filled with terror DanaCs mind ;
All in tears, her arm she throws
Over Perseus, as he lay
0, my babe, she said, what woes
On thy mothers bosom weigh!

Thou dost sleep with careless breast,
Slumbering in this dreary home,
Thou dost sweetly take thy rest,
In the darkness and the gloom.

In thy little mantle there,
Passing wave thou dost not mind,
Dashing oer thy clustering hair,
Nor fhe voices of the wind.

Yet if thou, my beauteous one!
Felt the weight of this deep woe,
Not unconscious would my son
Hear his mothers sorrows now.

Yet sleep on, my babe, I pray,
Sleep thou too, tumultuous deep
And th unmeasured cares that stay
On my heart,let them too sleep!

Father Jove! I ask of thee,
Vain their evil counsels make!
And, though bold the prayer may be,
Right my wrongs, for Perseus sake.