From the Greek Anthology: a scribe hangs up his tools

Callimenes, a scribe retiring from employment, dedicates the tools of his trade to the Muses, patron goddesses of the literature he has spent his career copying out.

The first version is by Philip, who compiled a Garland of epigrams by recent and contemporary poets in the middle of the first century AD.

The second is by a friend of Agathias, who compiled a Cycle of contemporary epigrams in the sixth century AD. Paul was a 'Silentiary' (Usher), a palace official in Byzantium. Philip's epigram was a popular model for imitation at that time: book 6 of the Anthology has half a dozen versions like this one.

This pair of poems is a striking example of Greek epigram's remarkable resilience and continuity: they could have been written five minutes apart, but in fact are separated by half a millennium.

Philip's Garland and Agathias' Cycle were important sources for Constantine Cephalas when he collated the biggest-ever compilation of epigrams, the work we know as the Greek Anthology, in the tenth century.

6.62 

PHILIP OF THESSALONICA 

The disk of lead, that marked the column’s edge;
The penknife, notcher of his pointed reeds;
The guiding rule; dry pumice from the beach,
That porous sea-stone; these, Callimenes
Gives to the Muses. He has ceased from toil
Because his eye is clouded with old age.

6.66 

PAUL THE SILENTIARY 

Unwetted lead, that scribes the steadfast line
In which we root the letters’ harmony;
The ruler, helmsman of that rolling lead;
The porous, spongy stone; the well for ink,
Stained black; the ink-tipped pens, precise of line;
The sea-born sponge, soft flower of the deep; 
The knife, bronze carpenter of slender reeds:
These are the offerings of Callimenes
To laugher-loving Muses, since old age
Has spent in toil his eye and cunning hand.

A note on scribal tools: used with the ruler, the rotating lead disk drew a straight vertical margin. As it did so, it marked the papyrus or vellum with the regularly spaced intervals for the horizontal line guides (as in 6.66, immediately below). Scribes used pumice to smooth the surface prior to writing (cf. Catullus 1), and cut their pens from reeds; they could erase mistakes before the ink was dry by wiping with a sponge.