590 B.C. ALKAIOS by Alcaeus Translated and Annotated by Willis Barnstone Copyright(C) 1962, 1967, 1988 by Willis Barnstone şiElectronically Enhanced Text (c) Copyright 1996, World Library(R) DAK Upgraded Edition, Copyright 2000, DAK Industries 2000, Inc(R)şI {INSTANT Instant I already hear the flowering spring. {PRAYER Prayer to the Constellation Dioskouroi, Patron Deities of Mariners Come with me now and leave the land of Pelops, mighty sons of Zeus and Leda, and in kindness spread your light on us, Kastor and Polydeukes. You who wander above the long earth and over all the seas on swift horses, easily delivering mariners from pitiful death, fly to the masthead of our swift ship, and gazing over foremast and forestays, light a clear path through the midnight gloom for our black vessel. {WINTER Winter Evening Zeus rumbles and a mammoth winter of snow pours from the sky; agile rivers are ice. Damn the winter cold! Pile up the burning logs and water the great flagons of red wine; place feather pillows by your head, and drink. Let us not brood about hard times. Bakchos, our solace is in (r)you¯ and your red wines: our medicine of grape. Drink deeply, drink. {SUMMER Summer Star Wash your gullet with wine for the Dog-Star returns with the heat of summer searing a thirsting earth. Cicadas cry softly under high leaves, and pour down shrill song incessantly from under their wings. The artichoke blooms, and women are warm and wanton- but men turn lean and limp for the burning Dog- Star parches their brains and knees. {LIGHTING_LAMPS Why Wait for the Lighting of the Lamps? Let us drink. Why wait for the lighting of the lamps? Night is a hair's breadth away. Take down the great goblets from the shelf, dear friend, for the son of Semele and Zeus gave us wine to forget our pains. Mix two parts water, one wine, and let us empty the dripping cups- urgently. {DRINK_SONG_SHIPS Drink, Song and Ships Why water more wine in the great bowl? Why do you drown your gullet in grape? I cannot let you spill out your life on song and drink. Let us go to sea, and not let the wintry calm of morning slip by as drunken sleep. Had we boarded at dawn, seized rudder and spun the flapping cross-jack into the wind, we would be happy now, happy as swimming in grape. But you draped a lazy arm on my shoulder, saying: "Sir, a pillow, your singing does not lead me to ships." {COSTUME Costume But let them hang braided garlands of yellow dill around our necks, and drape strands of redolent myrrh across our breasts. {BROTHERS_HOMECOMMING On His Brother's Homecoming You have come home from the ends of the earth, Antimenidas, my dear brother; come with a gold and ivory handle to your sword. You fought alongside the Babylonians and your prowess saved them from annihilation when you battled and cut down a warrior giant who was almost eight feet tall. {LYRE The Lyre Daughter of the rock and the gray sea, you fill all hearts with triumph, tortoise shell of the sea. {BIRDS Birds What birds are these wildgeese- flying from precincts where the earth and oceans end- with their enormous wings and speckled throats? {MONEY On Money Aristodemos wasn't lying when he said one day in Sparta, "Money is the man; and a poor man can be neither good nor honorable." {HEBROS To the River Hebros Hebros, most beautiful river near Ainos, you carry a shining bath of Thracian foam out into the purple sea. And many girls stand near you, and with soft hands rub oil on the smooth flesh of their beautiful thighs. And they pour your water over themselves like a sooth- ing unguent. {HELEN_THETIS Helen and Thetis Helen, your sinful deeds brought a bitter end to Priam and his lovely children. They say because of you holy Ilium was destroyed by climbing fire. But the son of Aiakos did not find such a wife when he summoned the blessed gods to his wedding and took the delicate sea-nymph Thetis from the watery palace of Nereus, bringing her to the mountain cave of the centaur Cheiron. There, the love of Peleus for his sea-nymph led him to lie naked with the untouched virgin, and within the year she bore a son, Achilles; bravest demigod and splendid driver of tawny stallions. But for Helen, Ilium and her people were destroyed. {APOLLO Hymn to Apollo *001 Our king Apollo, O child of mighty Zeus, when you were born your father gave you a gold headband and a lyre of tortoise shell, and more: a chariot drawn by swans. You were to go to Delphi and the Kastalian springs whose waters are the gift of broad Kephissos, and there deliver justice to the Hellenes through the oracles. But when you seized the reins, you made the swans sail north to the distant land of the Hyperboreans, and though the Delphians begged you to return- with paeans of flutes and circles of girls dancing about the tripod- Apollo, you remained to rule that people through the long year. Came the season when the tripod rings loud and clear in Delphi, you turned the swans to Parnassos. It was high noon of summer when you glided back from the far northlands; swallows and nightingales were singing; cicadas also sang about you; silver brooks poured down from the Kastalia, and the great river Kephissos threw blue-foaming waves into the bright wind: yes, even the waters knew a god was coming home. {PEOPLES_SICKNESS The People's Sickness Poverty- our painful and uncontrolled disease- you maim great peoples with your sister Helplessness. {A_WOMAN A Woman *002 Bad, every misery and disaster I've known, a woman with a home of shameful death, incurable decrepitude coming on and madness in the terrorized heart of the stag, out of his mind and ruined. {THINGS_WAR Things of War The great house glitters with bronze. War has pat- terned the roof with shining helmets, their horsehair plumes waving in wind, headdress of fighting men. And pegs are concealed under bright greaves of brass which block the iron-tipped arrows. Many fresh-linen corslets are hanging and hollow shields are heaped about the floor, and standing in rows are swords of Chalkidian steel, belt-knives and warriors' kilts. We cannot forget our arms and armor when soon our dreadful duties begin. {WALLS_CITY Walls and the City Not homes with beautiful roofs, nor walls of permanent stone, nor canals and piers for ships make the city- but men of strength. Not stone and timber, nor skill of carpenter- but men brave who will handle sword and spear. With these you have: city and walls. {HIPOCRISY Hipocrisy Father Zeus, in our worst moment of hardship, the Lydians selflessly gave us two thousand staters, and gave us hope that we might re-enter our sacred city of Mytilene. There we were only strangers, but in our own homeland the cunning fox made honeyed speeches for the blackmail gold, and then betrayed us. {PREMATURE_ACTIVITY On Premature Political Activity It is late; for the harvest is in. Before, we hoped that the full vines would bring a plenitude of fine grapes, but the clusters are slow to ripen and the landlords picked unripe bunches from the branch. We have many grapes now- green and sour. {TYRANT_PITTAKOS On the Tyrant Pittakos One and all, you have proclaimed Pittakos, the lowborn, to be tyrant of your lifeless and doomed land. Moreover, you deafen him with praise. {NATION_SEA A Nation at Sea I can't tell you which way the gale has turned for waves crash in from west and east, and we are tossed and driven between, our black ship laboring under the giant storm. The sea washes across the decks and maststep and dark daylight already shows through long rents in the sails. Even the halyards slacken as windward waves coil above the hull. What sore labor to bale the water we've shipped! Let us raise bulwarks and ride out the storm, heeding my words: "Let each man now be famous." Yet base cowards betray the state. {MYTILENIANS To the Mytilenians The local tyrant rants and blusters and you are silenced like a school of frightened neophytes confronting the dead in holy rituals. But I tell you, O citizens of Lesbos, rise up and quench the smoldering logs before their flames climb and consume you all in total fire! {EARTHQUAKE Earthquake The tyrant's craze for absolute power will soon demolish his country; already the earth trembles. {BASEBORN_TYRANT To the Baseborn Tyrant I say this to him too: his is a strident lute who would like to he heard at a party of the well-born people of Lesbos. Better had he chosen to drink with the filthy herd. He married a daughter from the ancient race of Atreus; now let him offend our people as he did the former tyrant Myrsilos, until the Wargod makes us revolt. We must forget our anger and cease these pitiful clashes between brothers. Only a god could have maddened our people into war and so give Pittakos his bit of glory. {FRIEND_MELANIPPOS To His Friend Melanippos Drink and be drunk with me, Melanippos. Do you think when you have crossed the great fuming river, you will ever return from Hell to see the clean bright light of the sun? Do not strive for wild hopes. Even the son of Aiolos, King Sisyphos, wisest of men, thought he had eluded death. But for all his brains Fate made him recross Acheron, and the son of Kronos assigned him a terrible trial below the dark earth. Come, I beg you not to brood about these hopeless matters while we are young. We will suffer what must be suffered. When the wind is waiting in the north, a good captain will not swing into the open sea. THE END {FOOTNOTES Footnotes *001 Text is derived from a paraphrase of Alkaios' poem. *002 Very fragmentary text but not reconstructed.