Palladas

The women mock me for being old,
Bidding me look at the wreck of my years in the mirror.
But I, as I approach the end of my life,
...

Waking we burst, at each return of morn,
From death's dull fetters and again are born.
No longer ours the moments that have passed;
...

Pity, says the Theban bard,
From my wishes I discard;
Envy, let me rather be,
...

s I approach the end of my life,
Care not whether I have white hair or black,
And with sweet-scented ointments
And crowns of lovely flowers and wine
I make heavy care to cease.
...

Breathing the thin breath through our nostrils, we
Live, and a little space the sunlight see-
Even all that live- each being an instrument
To which the generous air its life has lent.
If with the hand one quench our draught of breath,
He sends the stark soul shuddering down to death.
We that are nothing on our pride are fed,
Seeing, but for a little air, we are as dead.
...

Better to be judged by Hegemon,
The slayer of robbers,
Than to fall into the hands
Of the surgeon Gennadius.
For he executes murderers in just hatred,
But Gennadius takes a fee
For sending you down to Hades.
...

Someone gave me
A long-suffering donkey
That moves backwards
As much as forward
Their journey's haven
To those who ride on it;

A donkey,
The son of slowness,
A labour,
A delay,
A dream,
But first instead of last
For those who are retiring.
...

Drink and be merry. What the morrow brings
No mortal knoweth: wherefore toil or run?
Spend while thou mayst, eat, fix on present things
Thy hopes and wishes: life and death are one.
One moment grasp life's goods; to thee they fall:
Dead, thou hast nothing, and another all.
...

Every woman is a source of annoyance,
But she has two good seasons,
The one in her bridal chamber
And the other when she is dead.
...

Pity, says the Theban bard,
From my wishes I discard;
Envy, let me rather be,
Rather far, a theme for thee.
Pity to distress is shown;
Envy to the great alone.
So the Theban. But to shine
Less conspicuous be mine.
I prefer the golden mean,
Pomp and penury between.
For alarm and peril wait
Ever on the loftiest state;
And the lowest to the end
Obloquy and scorn attend.
...

Life is a perilous voyage;
For often we are tempest-tossed in it
And are in a worse case than shipwrecked men.
With Fortune at Life's helm we sail uncertainly
As on the open seas,
Some on a fair voyage,
Others the reverse:
But all alike reach one harbour
Under the earth.
...

This life a theatre we well may call,
Where every actor must perform with art,
Or laught it through, and make a farce of all,
Or learn to bear with grace his tragic part.
...

Upon life's tempest-troubled seas afloat,
We strike worse rocks than shipwrecked sailors know;
Wich Chance the pilot of our storm-tossed boat,
Upon a doubtful dangerous voyage we go;
Though some fair weather, and some foul have found,
We all meet in one haven underground.
...

Tell me whence comes it
That thou measurest the Universe
And the limits of the Earth,
Thou who bearest a little body
Made of a little earth?
Count thyself first
And know thyself,
And then shalt thou
Count this infinite Earth.
And if thou canst not reckon
Thy body's little store of clay,
How canst thou know
The measures of the immeasurable?
...

I swore ten thousand times
To make no more epigrams,
For I had brought on my head
The enmity of many fools,
But when I set eyes on the face
Of the Paphlagonian Pentagathus
I can't repress the malady.
...

Thou hast a score of parts no good,
But two divinely shown:
Thy Daphne a true piece of wood,
Thy Niobe a stone.
...

I was born weeping, having wept I die,
And all my life in many tears is passed.
O tearful race of weak humanity!
Dragged under earth to moulder at the last.
...

Why toil in vain, O man, thy soul disquieting?
Fate's slave from birth thou art, without release.
Suffer it thus- with destiny contend not;
To love thy lot- this is to love thy peace.
Nay, better- strive to wrest, in fate's despite,
Some sweetness from thy life, some soul's delight.
...

Waking we burst, at each return of morn,
From death's dull fetters and again are born.
No longer ours the moments that have passed;
To a new remnant of our lives we haste.
Call not the hours thine own, that made thee grey,
That left their wrinkles, and have fled away;
The past no more shall yield thee ill or good,
Gone to the silent times beyond the flood.
...

All mortal men are doomed to pay Death's debt,
And no one knows if he will live tomorrow.
Learn this, O man! Make merry and forget
In wine's oblivion fear and death and sorrow.
With love and pleasure thy brief days enhance,
And leave all else to the control of chance
...