Friday 29 April 2022

Three offerings from the Athenian Acropolis

 Three sixth-century dedications to Athena, again from Hansen's wonderful Carmina Epigraphica Graeca, and nicely illustrating the formulaic character of votive language. Athena received a lot of one-tenth shares.

194
To Pallas spur of battle and as tithe
Promised to her by Dionysius,
Coloeus’ son, a statue here I stand.
 
197
Lady of Athens, Aristaechmus’ son
Timocrates made you this offering,
And you the child of aegis-bearing Zeus.
 
202
Aeschines to Athena dedicates
This statue that he promised as his tithe,
Gift to the child of aegis-bearing Zeus.

Friday 15 April 2022

Two more sailor's graves, adorably flawed

These two are taken from p.12 of Woodward's Tales of Sea-Sorrow. The first hinges on an 'eye rhyme'; the second eccentrically Anglicises the Greek personal name Pheidōn (which might ordinarily come to us Latinised as Phido) and makes the poem's sense more dogged than I think Woodward can have intended.

I love them already for their control of tone, but more so for their imperfections.

JULIAN, PRAEFECT <OF EGYPT>: VII.582

Ship-wreckt sea-man, fare thee well!
E'en within the gates of hell
Dub not thou the sea unkind:
Rather blame the stormy wind,
For it proved the death of thee.
But the billow of the sea
On her breast thy body bore
To thy fathers' tombs ashore.
 
LEONIDAS OF TARENTUM: IX.107

Avoid the storms of life, and run
To Hades' port as Fido, son
Of Kritès, I myself have done.



Friday 1 April 2022

Two from Woodward's 'Tales of Sea-Sorrow'

 Dipping back into Woodward, I learned a new word that I do not expect to be allowed in Scrabble. These two quite lovely versions from the Anthology's epitaphic seventh book appear on p.41 of Tales of Sea-Sorrow (1931) and are what you might expect from the title.

As in previous posts, I have replaced the long 's's that moft modern readers would otherwife find abfurd and diftreffing, but otherwise do not meddle with the translator's archaising charm. The more I dip into Woodward, the more I find to enjoy and admire.

ANTIPATER OF SIDON: VII.639

Every where the sea's the sea.
Why to Hellè straits give we,
Or to Cycladés, ill name?
Why the Needles idly blame?
They deserve no evil fame.
Safely past these spots I came,
Doom'd to meet, in sorry sort,
Death at Skarphè, when in port.
Proy who will, 'Fair passage home,'
After all, the foam's the foam,
As declareth, nigh the wave,
Aristagoras his grave.

ISIDORE: VII.532

Eteókles is my title:
Sea-born hopes from off my pightle
Drew me for to try my hand
Trafficking in foreign land.
So I trod on ridge and back
Of the Tyrrhene salt-way track,
Until ship and man were drown'd,
Overwhelm'd by wave profound,
Feeling full brunt of the blast.
No man may the twain contrast:
Airs, that winnnow chaff from wheat;
Airs, that blow on canvas-sheet.