Two Poems from the Ancient Greek

 translated by Brett Rutherford

UPON A STATUE OF ANAKREON 

     after Theocritus, Epigram 16

Study this statue carefully, O Stranger,
and when you return home, report of it,
“I saw, at Teos, Anakreon, or
such a likeness of Anakreon, as
though he still lived and breathed, pre-eminent
if ever a man was, among the bards.”

 Add also the thing that no one would know
unless they kenned his words and combed each line
for object and intent: Anakreon
burned for the love of young men of beauty.

 Then, having reported this, be silent.
Now you have told the truth of the whole man.

** ** ** 

FRIENDSHIP 

      after Bion, Idyll 8

Some call it friendship, and some call it more.
Blessed are they who love with fair return.

So blest was Theseus with one great friend,
Pirithous whom he mourned to leave behind
in Hell; so blest was Furied Orestes
when beautiful Pylades held him close
through the night terrors of fear and flight,
who for his high-born friend begged crumbs of bread
among ever-more barbarous strangers;
so blest was Achilles until the day
Patroclus for love assumed his armor
and in Achilles’ place went down to ground.

Deep such love is, and deeper still the grief.