Theognis of Megara Poems

No costly sacrifice nor offerings given
Can change the purpose of the powers of Heaven;
Whatever Fate ordains, danger or hurt,
Or death predestined, nothing can avert.
...

The daily marriages we make,
Where price is everything: for money's sake
Men marry; women are in marriage given.
The churl or ruffian that in wealth has thriven
...

For human nature Hope remains alone
Of all the deities; the rest are flown.
Faith is departed; Truth and Honour dead;
And all the Graces too, my friends, are fled.
...

For noble minds, the worst of miseries,
Worse than old age, or wearisome disease,
Is Poverty. From Poverty to flee,
From some tall precipice into the sea,
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Learning and wealth the wise and wealthy find
Inadequate to satisfy the mind
A craving eagerness remains behind;
Something is left for which we cannot rest,
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To rear a child is easy, but to teach
Morals and manners is beyond our reach;
To make the foolish wise, the wicked good,
That science yet was never understood.
The sons of Esculapius, if their art
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You soar aloft, and over land and wave
Are borne triumphant on the wings I gave,
The swift and mighty wings, music and verse;
Your name in easy numbers smooth and terse,
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Pride and oppressive rule destroy'd the state
Of the Magnesians-Such was Smyrna's fate;
Smyrna the rich, and Colophon the great!
And ours, my friend, will follow, soon or late.
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While only I quaffed yonder secret spring,
'Twas clear and sweet to my imagining.
'Tis turbid now. Or it no more I drink,
But hang o'er other stream or river-brink.
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I envy not these sumptuous obsequies,
The stately car, the purple canopies;
Much better pleased am I, remaining here,
With cheaper equipage, and better cheer.
A couch of thorns, or an embroidered bed,
Are matters of indifference to the dead.
...