IBYCUS


An Epilogue to Polycrates*

They sailed from Argos, and brought down

Dardanian Priam's happy town,

Far-famed. Its doom fulfilled

What mighty Zeus had willed.

For bright-haired Helen's beauty, long

Came war and tears, -- 'tis told in song, --

A curse on patient Troy

Sent Cypris, to destroy.

No trickster Paris suits my lay,

Nought of Cassandra shall I say,

The slender-ankled, nor

Of Priam's sons of yore,

Nought of the day which none may name

When Troy's tall towers passed in flame.

No deeds shall I repeat

Of those the well-built fleet

Of hollow warships brought to Troy,

Fine heroes banded to destroy:

Them Agamemnon led,

A prince of princes bred.

Them might the subtle muses tell,

The Heliconian sisters, well:

No mortal man may trace

Each vessel in its place,

How Menelaus set his sail

From Grecian Aulis to prevail

In Dardan pasture-land

With his bronze-shielded band,

Achaeans all! First in the fight

Achilles showed his fleet-foot might,

And Ajax, mighty one,

Strong son of Telamon . . .

And one there was surpassing fair,

Whom golden-girdled Hyllis bare.

But Greeks and Trojans less

Admired his loveliness,

When set by Troilus, side by side;

Like virgin gold thrice purified

Compared with common brass

His grace of body was.

Loveliness still belongs to these;

And with them you, Polycrates,

Shall have an endless name

With my song and my fame.

*Tyrant of Samos

Fragment 282a

For the Muse leads me onto new paths,

and I recant the words

that I once uttered in ignorance.


Fragment 282

And the cranes, messengers of Zeus,

will come upon the murderers—

those watchers of the sky,

crying out the tale of Ibycus.


Fragment 286G

Now again the leaves grow green,

and again the earth brings flowers,

and again the waves of desire

shake my heart—

for Love, the limb-loosener,

springs upon me with madness.


Fragment 286

In spring the Kydonian

apple trees, watered by flowing

streams there where the Maidens

have their unravished garden, and vine buds,

growing under the shadowy branches

of the vines, bloom and flourish.

For me, however, love

is at rest in no season

but like the Thracian north wind,

ablaze with lightning,

rushing from Aphrodite with scorching

fits of madness, dark and unrestrained,

it forcibly convulses from their very roots

my mind and heart.


Fragment 287

Once again Love darts me a melting

glance from under dark eyelids

and by magical charms of all sorts entangles me

in Aphrodite's endless nets.

I swear that at his approach, I tremble

like a prize-winning horse still under the yoke in old age

who against his will drafts the swift chariot to the contest.