Callimachus English Translations II

Callimachus English translations For Gail White To the Cup-Bearer by Callimachus translation by Michael R. Burch Decant the wine then toast "To Diokles!" Nor does the beautiful boy Achelous touch his hallowed ladlefuls. So beautiful the boy, Achelous, passing beautiful, and if any disagree, let me alone comprehend real beauty. Pitiless ship, having borne away my life’s sole light, I beseech you by Zeus, watchmaster of the harbor, Return her! —Callimachus, translation by Michael R. Burch They informed me of your death, Heraklieitos, and I wept with remorse remembering how often we two had watched the sun set on our discourse. But although Death took all, he forgot one thing: your Nightingales still sing, nor can his foul hand ever touch them. —Callimachus, translation by Michael R. Burch He stooped to strew flowers on his stepmother's tomb, thinking she'd been changed for the better by her doom. But he died when her monument landed on his head. Moral: Stepmothers are dangerous, alive or dead. —Callimachus, translation by Michael R. Burch Flee the sea’s testy company, mariner, when the Kids are setting! —Callimachus, translation by Michael R. Burch We buried Melanippus that morning; then at sunset his sister Basilo joined him; for she couldn’t bear to bury her brother and live; then their father Aristippus bewailed a twofold woe and all Cyrene wept to see a household of happy children left desolate. —Callimachus, translation by Michael R. Burch All the Cyclades are Elysian islands, but Delos shines like a poem in the sea; she cradled and suckled Apollo, the first to recognize him as a god. —Callimachus, translation by Michael R. Burch Halikarnassian, my dear friend, although you lie elsewhere now, reduced to mere ashes, still your songs—your nightingales—survive; nor will the underworld, although it destroys everything, ever touch them with its lethal hand. —Callimachus, translation by Michael R. Burch “Wealth without goodness is worthless increase, while goodness requires substance.”—Callimachus, translation by Michael R. Burch “A poet’s lies should at least be plausible.”—Callimachus, translation by Michael R. Burch wine, toast, boy, beautiful, ship, light, death, flowers, sea, kids “A big book is a huge bore.”—Callimachus, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch “Excessive knowledge is unwieldy, while a man with a loose tongue is like a child with a knife.” —Callimachus, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch