EPIGRAMS.[1]
I. TO THE CUMÆANS.
Respect one who is in want of hospitable gifts and a home, ye who inhabit the lofty city Cyme, beauteous maid,[2] the extreme foot of high-foliaged Sardene, drinking the ambrosial water of the divine river of eddying Hermus, whom immortal Jove begat.
II. ON RETURNING TO CUMA.
Swiftly may my feet bear me to the city of merciful men, for their mind is willing and their prudence excellent.
III. ON MIDE.[3]
I am a brazen virgin, and am placed upon the sepulchre of Midas. And as long as water flows, and the lofty trees flourish, and the rising sun gives light, and the shining moon, †and the rivers overflow, and the sea inundates,†[4] remaining here upon the mournful tomb, I will inform the passers-by, that Midas is buried here.
- ↑ "Under the title of Epigrams are classed a few verses on different subjects, chiefly addressed to cities or private individuals." Coleridge, p. 317. Mr. Justice Talfourd rightly observes that the authenticity of these Fragments depends upon that of the pseud-Herodotean life of Homer, from which they are taken. (See Lit. of Greece, p. 38, in the Encycl. Metropol.) If so, their authenticity is as doubtful as their poetical value. I shall enter but little into the hopeless obscurity and corruption of some of them, as there is little to repay the trouble.
- ↑ From whom the city took its name.
- ↑ See Barnes.
- ↑ This line may be well dispensed with, and is wanting in some copies.
