Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology Part 30

XVIII SLOW AND SURE NICARCHUS

Charmus ran for the three miles in Arcadia with five others; surprising to say, he actually came in seventh. When there were only six, perhaps you will say, how seventh? A friend of his went along in his great-coat crying, "Keep it up, Charmus!" and so he arrives seventh; and if only he had had five more friends, Zolus, he would have come in twelfth.

XIX MARCUS THE RUNNER LUCILIUS

Marcus once saw midnight out in the armed men's race, so that the race-course was all locked up, as the police all thought that he was one of the stone men in armour who stand there in honour of victors.

Very well, it was opened next day, and then Marcus turned up, still short of the goal by the whole course.

XX HERMOGENES LUCILIUS

Little Hermogenes, when he lets anything fall on the ground, has to drag it down to him with a hook at the end of a pole.

XXI PHANTASMS OF THE LIVING LUCILIUS

Lean Gaius yesterday breathed his very last breath, and left nothing at all for burial, but having pa.s.sed down into Hades just as he was in life, flutters there the thinnest of the anatomies under earth; and his kinsfolk lifted an empty bier on their shoulders, inscribing above it, "This is Gaius' funeral."

XXII A LABOUR OF HERCULES LUCILIUS

Tiny Macron was found asleep one summer day by a mouse, who pulled him by his tiny foot into its hole; but in the hole he strangled the mouse with his naked hands and cried, "Father Zeus, thou hast a second Heracles."

XXIII EROTION LUCILIUS

Small Erotion while playing was carried aloft by a gnat, and cried, "What can I do, Father Zeus, if thou dost claim me?"

XXIV ARTEMIDORA LUCILIUS

Fanning thin Artemidora in her sleep, Demetrius blew her clean out of the house.

XXV THE ATOMIC THEORY LUCILIUS

Epicurus wrote that the whole universe consisted of atoms, thinking, Alcimus, that the atom was the least of things. But if Diophantus had lived then, he would have written, "consisted of Diophantus," who is much more minute than even the atoms, or would have written that all other things indeed consist of atoms, but the atoms themselves of him.

XXVI CHAEREMON LUCILIUS

Borne up by a slight breeze, Chaeremon floated through the clear air, far lighter than chaff, and probably would have gone spinning off through ether, but that he caught his feet in a spider's web, and dangled there on his back; there he hung five nights and days, and on the sixth came down by a strand of the web.

XXVII G.o.d AND THE DOCTOR NICARCHUS

Marcus the doctor called yesterday on the marble Zeus; though marble, and though Zeus, his funeral is to-day.

XXVIII THE PHYSICIAN AND THE ASTROLOGER NICARCHUS

Diophantus the asrologer said that Hermogenes the physician had only nine months to live; and he laughing replied, "what Cronus may do in nine months, do you consider; but I can make short work with you." He spoke, and reaching out, just touched him, and Diophantus, while forbidding another to hope, gasped out his own life.

XXIX A DEADLY DREAM LUCILIUS

Diophantus, having seen Hermogenes the physician in sleep, never awoke again, though he wore an amulet.

x.x.x SIMON THE OCULIST NICARCHUS

If you have an enemy, Dionysius, call not down upon him Isis nor Harpocrates, nor whatever G.o.d strikes men blind, but Simon; and you will know what G.o.d and what Simon can do.

x.x.xI SCIENTIFIC SURGERY NICARCHUS

Agclaus killed Acestorides while operating; for, "Poor man," he said, "he would have been lame for life."

x.x.xII THE WISE PROPHET LUCILIUS

All the astrologers as from one mouth prophesied to my father that his brother would reach a great old age; Hermocleides alone said he was fated to die early; and he said so, when we were mourning over his corpse in-doors.

x.x.xIII SOOTHSAYING NICARCHUS

Some one came inquiring of the prophet Olympicus whether he should sail to Rhodes, and how he should have a safe voyage; and the prophet replied, "First have a new s.h.i.+p, and set sail not in winter but in summer; for if you do this you will travel there and back safely, unless a pirate captures you at sea."

x.x.xIV THE ASTROLOGER'S FORECAST AGATHIAS

Calligenes the farmer, when he had cast his seed into the land, came to the house of Aristophenes the astrologer, and asked him to tell whether he would have a prosperous summer and abundant plenty of corn.

And he, taking the counters and ranging them closely on the board, and crooking his fingers, uttered his reply to Calligenes: "If the cornfield gets sufficient rain, and does not breed a crop of flowering weeds, and frost does not crack the furrows, nor hail flay the heads of the springing blades, and the p.r.i.c.ket does not devour the crop, and it sees no other injury of weather or soil, I prophesy you a capital summer, and you will cut the ears successfully: only fear the locusts."

x.x.xV A SCHOOL OF RHETORIC AUTHOR UNKNOWN

All hail, seven pupils of Aristides the rhetorician, four walls and three benches.

x.x.xVI CROSS PURPOSES NICARCHUS

A deaf man went to law with a deaf man, and the judge was a long way deafer than both. The one claimed that the other owed him five months'

rent; and he replied that he had ground his corn by night; then the judge, looking down on them, said, "Why quarrel? she is your mother; keep her between you."

x.x.xVII THE PATENT STOVE NICARCHUS