On a seashell, and asking questions of monuments

An unusual epigram by Theodoridas, a lyric poet and epigrammatist of the 3rd century BC. Theodoridas was from Syracuse on the eastern coast of Sicily, and the following epigram suggests a fairly local setting: Pelorias (modern Capo Peloro) is the promontory at the island's northeastern point.

The shell is a marine 'labyrinth' in the original because of its spiral shape. The Greek of the poem is unusually convoluted and comes back round on itself in near-repetition, like the shell it describes:

Εἰνάλιε λαβύρινθε, τύ μοι λέγε: τίς  ς᾽ ἀνέθηκεν 
ἀγρέμιον πολιᾶς ἐξ ἁλὸς εὑρόμενος; — 

παίγνιον ἀντριάσιν Διονύσιος ἄνθετο Νύμφαις 
（δῶρον δ᾽ ἐξ ἱερᾶς εἰμι Πελωριάδος,） 
υἱὸς Πρωτάρχου: σκολιὸς δ᾽ ἐξέπτυσε πορθμός, 
ὄφρ᾽ εἴην λιπαρῶν παίγνιον Ἀντριάδων.

Whether or not they were really used in that way (and it can sometimes be hard to tell), dedicatory poems are written as if for inscription on objects and structures in plain view: tombs by the roadside, offerings in sanctuaries, statues of victors in sport and war. Often they explicitly anticipate a passer-by or visitor who will read them aloud, and sometimes that reading-aloud becomes a dialogue between the visitor and the monument. Any such dialogue is also a monologue twice over, albeit a collaborative one. The visitor supplies both of the voices; the monument supplies all of the lines.

It is a cliché for these dialogues to open with the visitor posing questions to the monument -- what are you, why are you here, who placed you here? -- and requesting answers. The difference with a seashell is that it is an object that might speak back without needing to resort to inscription. If you hold it to your ear and listen, you will hear the sea...and maybe, just maybe, something more.

6.224 (on YouTube)

THEODORIDAS

You spiral seashell, whisper in my ear — 

Who set you here, who was the beachcomber

That took you trophy from the surging sea?

‘I am a toy for Nymphs within the cave,

And it was Dionysius set me here,

A gift from holy Cape Pelorias.

He is Prōtarchus’ son. The winding strait

Spat me upon the shore, that I might be

A toy for glistening spirits of the cave.’