Anonymous
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Other Anonymous Fragments
1. Elegiac and Epic
“1He will so put fun next earnest that the playful may somehow keep hold of seriousness, and the serious be cheered by viewing the fun like seasick persons the near-lying shore. For laughter may be employed for many useful purposes and grave discourse made sweet,
” Plutarch Dinner-Table Problems [the master of the feast]Even as amid urchin-foot and spiny rest-harrow2 spring the blooms of the soft white gillyflower.3
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“Youth is made an ill by indiscretion:
” Scholiast on Euripides [‘youth is an ill to man’]Youth is ever headstrong, but if it harm the Right, then is it a thing far worse.
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“Well then, cannot we learn of our reason, and conclude that ‘Earth is full, and full the sea, of ill,’4 and that
” Plutarch Consolation to Apollonius:Such are the ills which fall to the lot of man;5 thick is he swathed about with dooms, and vain it is even for a barley-awn to try to enter.6
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“
” Cramer Inedita （Oxford）Forms such as νηΰς and γρηΰς with diaeresis are not declined in Ionic save that they have an accusative and a vocative, as in
The Thrian Nymphs who inspire the aged crowCURFRAG.adespota-002.4
“So true is it that sympathy between brothers gives health and prosperity both to family and to household, and makes friends and acquaintance like an harmonious chorus, for they neither do nor say nor think contrary to one another; whereas
” Plutarch Brotherly Love:In time of discord even the villain receiveth honour.7
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“If a poet thus expressed himself:
” Chrysippus Negatives:No longer care I for melodious hymns, no longer for the dance.8
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“As cities are friendly one with another, so are their inhabitants, and similarly
” Aristotle Eudemian Ethics:Men of Athens no longer recognise men of Megara.9
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“Lynceus of Samos, a pupil of Theophrastus, and brother of Duris the historian and despot of his country, writes in his Apophthegms that when somebody once remarked to the fluteplayer Dorion that the skate was a good fish, he replied ‘Yes, about as good as if you were to eat a boiled cloak’.. The rejoinder of the fluteplayer was really not at all bad, for there's an old saying:
” Athenaeus Doctors at DinnerThough the Gods have given a fluteplayer wits, his wits fly away when he blows his flutes.
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“Sometimes chance has made against the designs of good men, sometimes again it is like the proverb:
” Polybius Histories:Good though he be, he has met a better man.
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“
” Stobaeus Anthology [on courage]10 Be patient, albeit the Gods give thee a hard lot.
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“The form κρέσσων ‘stronger’ is found without the redundant iota [which we see in κρείσσων ], compare ... and:
” Herodian Words without Parallel:There's God after all, or someone stronger; we shall succeed.
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“—True enough is the saying current among men:
” Palatine Anthology: AnonymousThe Gods have not granted to all men to possess all things.
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“And this accounts for the excess and defect we see in vice contrasted with the mean we see in virtue:
” Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics:For the good are good in one way, and the bad bad in many.
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“According to the proverb:
” Suidas LexiconThus doing one most righteous deed among his unrighteous.11
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“
” Macarius Proverbs:The watchman should watch and the lover love.12
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“This too should be observed in the delivery of the elegiac pentameter; it often deceives the ear, as in the Greek line
For if we pronounce Hellespontus as one word, it escapes the ear, so that it is not felt as a verse at all.”and we to the Sea of Helle sailed away.13
CURFRAG.adespota-002.16Marius Victorinus Art of Grammar:
“... like
” Dionysius of Halicarnassus Composition [on the elegiac pentameter occurring in prose]maidens stepping light and high.14
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“
that is, easy to learn.15”'Tis but of little learning;
CURFRAG.adespota-002.18Herodian
“ τρασιά ‘crate,’ also ‘fig-drying place’...
” Etymologicum Gudianum:a cheating watcher of the fig-drying
CURFRAG.adespota-002.19
“Fortune, as if she were a poet, creates all kinds of characters, shipwrecked man, poor man, exile, man of note, obscure man. So it behoves the good man to act whatever part she assigns him. If you are shipwrecked, act the shipwrecked well; if your wealth has turned to poverty, act the poor man well;
” Teles in Stobaeus Anthology:Meet in little and meet in great.
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“On arriving at manhood you assisted your mother in her initiations, reading the service-book while she performed the ritual, and helping generally with the paraphernalia. At night it was your duty to mix the libation, to clothe the catechumens in fawn-skin, to wash their bodies, to scour them with the loam and the bran, and, when their lustration was duly performed, to set them on their legs, and give out the hymn:
and it was your pride that no one ever emitted that holy ululation so powerfully as yourself.16”Here I leave my sins behind, Here the better way I find;
CURFRAG.adespota-002.21Demosthenes On the Crown [Aeschines]
“ This saying is prescribed in the case of those who divine in themselves a change for the better. It seems that it was the custom at Athenian weddings for a child, whose parents were both living, to be crowned with thistles and acorns and to carry round （the bridal pair） a winnowing-fan full of loaves, saying, ‘Here I leave,’ etc.; signifying that they rejected the old wild way of life and had found that of civilisation.17
”Zenobius Proverbs:
“For the good man has it in his power to be bad, witness another poet, who says:
” Plato Protagoras:But a good man is sometimes bad and sometimes good.18
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“To Antiphates, who had enjoyed a reputation for beauty, and had used him disdainfully while it lasted and afterwards sought his favour because he had become great, he said, My boy,
” Plutarch Life of Themistocles:We have both come to our senses at long last.
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“You should realise these things, my lad, and understand that a lover's friendship is not given out of kindness but to get as it were a bellyful:
” Plato Phaedrus:As wolves a lamb so lovers love the fair.19
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“And therefore those are wrong who censure the poet's style in this way and satirise him as the elder Eucleides20 does, saying that the writing of poetry is easy enough if we allow a man to lengthen his short vowels at will, and actually writing elegiacs on this principle:
and:I saw Epicharis on the way to Marathon
CURFRAG.adespota-002.25”He would not have drunk the hellebore had he been in love.21
CURFRAG.adespota-002.26Aristotle Poetics:
“There are plenty of other riddles:
Now clear means ‘Delos,’ which means ‘clear’ and is surrounded by the sea, and mother means ‘Leto,’ who was daughter of Coeus , which is the Macedonian word for ‘number.’22”In clear was I born, my birthplace is in the midst of the brine, and my mother is the daughter of number.
CURFRAG.adespota-002.27Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner
“It differs from allegory in this, that allegory is obscure either in style or in meaning, and the riddle in both, for instance:
For less is ‘worse’ and worse is ‘cheiron,’ and suffered is ‘made,’ and it means that Cheiron the centaur brought up Achilles. And again:Less having suffered the son of Thetis;
CURFRAG.adespota-002.28meaning Aias （also = of earth ） son of Telamon （also = of belt ） died when he lost his arms （also = pots ）.”Died of earth of belt when he lost pots;
CURFRAG.adespota-002.29Tryphon On Tropes [the riddle]
“Northwinds that blow at night abate after two days; hence the proverb:
” Theophrastus Winds and Weather-Signs:Northwind o' nights Ne'er sees three lights.23
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“ ... after snow and frost the Southwind; hence the proverb:
” Theophrastus Winds and Weather-Signs:After rime Is the Southwind's time.
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“: For this reason what is referred to in the proverbial saying applies to particular places, for instance that about the Northwest and Southwest Winds, which is mostly used in connexion with Cnidus and Rhodes ...:
” Theophrastus Winds and Weather-Signs:The Southwest shifts 'tween cloud and clear, The Northwest nought but cloud doth bear.
CURFRAG.adespota-002.32
“: And speaking generally the nature of the season contributes to growth .., which is the reason of the saying:
” Theophrastus History of PlantsSeason, not soil, Rewards thy toil.24
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“Why do we say:
... which is why we say:If Southwind call up North, A storm will come forth.25
CURFRAG.adespota-002.34”If Northwind find mire, A storm will be nigher.26
CURFRAG.adespota-002.35Aristotle Problems:
“: Why when the Southwind is light does it bring fine weather, and when high, cloudy? ... or is it because it blows light at first ... and high at last? which is the meaning of the saying:
” Aristotle Problems:When South comes on Or when North's nigh done.
CURFRAG.adespota-002.36
“: Why do we say:
” Aristotle Problems:'Ware clouds from the sea In winter wild, 'Ware clouds from the shore In summer mild.27
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“That the early figs are fine ones is shown by the saying:
” Scholiast on Aristophanes Peace [‘early figs’]When figs are begun Or pumpkins nigh done.
CURFRAG.adespota-002.38
“Why do we say:
” Aristotle ProblemsEat mint nor sow't When war's afoot.
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“
” Suidas LexiconToss pot on high But let love go by.
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“
” John of DamascusModesty sitteth on the knowing eyelid, and effrontery on the unknowing; and wise is any that hath learnt this.
CURFRAG.adespota-002.41
“” Scholiast on Euripides“Call no man happy ere you have seen how his last day is ended.
”Never say that any mortal man is all-happy ere thou see how a fate without trouble hath come upon him at the last.
CURFRAG.adespota-002.42Euripides
“For imperfection of the created world implies imperfection in the creator, and the works of God are flawless and irreproachable, created with an art and knowledge entirely complete; compare:
” Philo The Incorruptibility of the World:Not even a woman is so wanting in good wits as to choose the worse when she may have the better.
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“Now it is owing to this duplicity that man becomes more unmanageable and savage than an animal. For we hear the poets complaining that:
” Themistius Orations:A snake and a lion in the hills a hunter may hear and see when he avoideth them, for their will and likewise their intent may be learnt; but a man hideth one thing in his heart and speaketh another; his words are smooth and gentle, but his works an enemy's.
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“The guests at the public meals in Sparta and Crete were chosen by the cities with all possible care. Well has someone said:
” Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner'Tis wrong that dear comrades should refrain long from the revel; for of such is the recollection most delightful.
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“The tragic poet Sophocles fell in love in his old age with the courtesan Theoris, and he prays to Aphrodite as follows:28
” Athenaeus Doctors at DinnerGive ear to my prayer, great Nursing-Mother, and grant that this woman may reject the love and bed of the young; let her rather rejoice in old men of hoary temples, whose strength may be blunted but their heart desireth.29
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“If the absence is long, it seems to make the friendship forgotten; hence the saying:
” Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics:There's many a friendship lost for lack of speaking.30
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ii Iambic
“31 θύραζε ‘begone’: .. According to some writers this saying arose from the great number of Carian slaves, because they feasted and made holiday at the Anthesteria. When the festival was over, their masters sent them out to their work saying ‘Begone, Carians, 'tis no more the Anthesteria.’ Other authorities give the proverb thus:
referring to the souls （of the departed） who haunt the city at that festival. The proverb is used of those who expect to get the same things always.33”Begone, ye Spirits,32 'tis no more the Anthesteria;
CURFRAG.adespota-002.48Suidas Lexicon
“Juba in his 4th Book writes thus: I therefore give the most commonly used examples of iambic lines: （Archil. 94. 1, Eur. Fr. p. 240 N and ）
” Rufinus The Metres of Terence:to Xanthe, that ancient crone so dear to many women
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“ βλῶσις : —seat; compare:
” Etymologicum Magnum:（his） seat is a chair, a well-matched possession.34
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“... when I saw a city in so prosperous case, in the words of the poet,
” Lucian The Scythian:blooming with all the good things that make a city flourish
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“
that is, Priapus on the Hellespont, a city which they say was founded by Priapus son of Dionysus and Percote.35”and of the Priapean city which fronts the Bosporus
CURFRAG.adespota-002.52Hesychius Glossary
“
” Cicero Letters to Atticus: You are far awayand many are the waves of the wide sea that the Southwind rolls between us.
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“If one of the poets were to express himself thus:
” Chrysippus On Negatives:I do not deem thee worthy of little, yet I have not much.36
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“In pageants and festivals not only ‘greybeard and crone,’37 nor yet poor man and layman, but
and house-slaves38 and serfs, are transported with joy and gladness.”the sturdy grinding-wench busy at the mill
CURFRAG.adespota-002.55Plutarch That a Life according to Epicurus is not Worth Living:
“I now provide you with things good both to hear and see, namely persons who carry themselves mildly and gently in their wrath; and I will first express my contempt for such as say ‘You have wronged a man; should man bear such a wrong?’39 and
and other such provocative speeches, whereby some transplant so unhappily the spirit of the women's quarters to the dining-hall.”Put your foot upon his neck, bring him to the ground;
CURFRAG.adespota-002.56Plutarch On Restraining Anger:
“The word βαύ in imitation of a dog's bark is oxytone:
Hence the verb βαύζω ‘to bark.’”Bow-wow you say, like a dog.40
CURFRAG.adespota-002.57John of Alexandria
“ γηρῶ ‘to grow old,’ second person γηρᾷς or γηρεῖς ; participle γηρείς, compare:41
” Etymologicum Magnum:growing old within the house
CURFRAG.adespota-002.58
“
because mules are the offspring of asses.”Fitz-Stinkards42 on the father's side
CURFRAG.adespota-002.59Hesychius Glossary
“
Aenyra is a place in Thrace called after Aenyrus.”the road to Aenyra
CURFRAG.adespota-002.60Hesychius Glossary
“
” Pliny Natural History:There were two very famous sculptors called Damophilus and Gorgasus, who were also painters, and who adorned the temple of Ceres43 near the Circus Maximum at Rome with both kinds of their art, inscribing their works with Greek verses to signify that on the right they were made by Damophilus, on the left by Gorgasus.44
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“Why do we say:
” PlutarchSow wheat in mire, 'Twill grow the higher; Sow barley in dust, 'Twill never know rust45
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“There was a Spartan dance called bibasis competed in not only by children but by the older girls. The dancers had to leap and touch the buttocks with the feet, the leaps being counted up; hence the inscription in honour of one of these girls:
” Pollux Onomasticon:... who once did a thousand at bibasis , the most ever done.
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“
” Galen [medicine and gymnastics]Gross bellies do not make fine wits. Old fools do not make young wiseacres.
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“To say that
seems partly false and partly true; for no one is happy against his will, whereas misery is voluntary.”No man fares ill for choice, nor well perforce,
CURFRAG.adespota-002.65Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics:
“
” Apostolius Proverbs:Untimely love is all as good as hate.
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“And thus to seek permanence in the fleeting, marks the man who has wrong views on life:
” Plutarch Consolation to Apollonius:When wheels turn, one half's up and t' other 's down.
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“
” Macarius Proverbs: “Wise was the ox, and he said, when he saw the saddle, that that piece of furniture did not belong to him.” “‘This is not’ etc. —Said of the apathetic.” Diogenian Proverbs:Well said the ox when he saw the saddle ‘This is not mine; I bid it a very good day.’46
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“The Athenians say:
” Priscian Elements of Grammar:Says horse to ass ‘Kick not against the goad.’
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“
used of those who try to play the part of a deceiver.”The wolf has come to call the goats from fold;
CURFRAG.adespota-002.70Greek Proverbs:
“The logical riddle is very ancient and most characteristic of its species:
and:What is it that we all teach without knowing how to do it?
CURFRAG.adespota-002.71... the answer to the latter is ‘Time,’ which is the same for all and is nowhere, because it has not its nature （or existence） in one place; and to the former ‘preservation of life,’ because everyone teaches it to his neighbour without knowing how to do it in his own case.”What is the same nowhere and everywhere?
CURFRAG.adespota-002.72Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner
“[on riddles]: And that about the barley-water:
” Athenaeus Doctors at DinnerKnead the peeled barley-corn and drink its juice.
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“
” Life of Aristotle:A lisping lecher, short and bald and fat, Whose whoring's cheap, the Stagirite is that.47
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