ANTIPATER of Sidon

Here by the threshing-floor,

O ant, you careworn toiler,

I built for you a grave-mound of thirsty clod,

so that in death too you may delight in the corn-bearing furrow of Demeter,

as you lie in the the chamber of earth that the plough upturned.

On Anacreon

Let the four-clustered ivy, Anacreon,

flourish around you, and the tender flowers of the purple meadows,

and let fountains of white milk bubble up,

and sweet-smelling wine gush from the earth,

so that your ashes and bones may have joy,

if indeed any delight touches the dead.

On the poet Orpheus, son of Oeagrus and Calliope

No more, Orpheus

shall you lead the charmed oaks and rocks

and the shepherdless herds of wild beasts.

No more shall you lull to sleep the howling winds

and the hail, and the drifting snow, and the roaring sea.

For you are dead;

and the daughters of Mnemosyne bewailed you much

and before all your mother Calliope.

Why sigh we for our dead sons,

when not even the gods have power

to protect their children from death ?