ARCHILOCHUS OF PAROS [8th-7th century]

 

Heart, my heart, so battered with misfortune far beyond your strength,
up, and face the men who hate us. Bare your chest to the assault
of the enemy, and fight them off. Stand fast among the beamlike spears.
Give no ground, and if you beat them, do not brage in open show,
nor, if they beat you, run home and lie down on your bed and cry.
Keep some measure in the joy you take in luck, and the degree
you give way to sorrow. All our life is up-and-down like this.

* * *

Nothing will surprise me any more, nor be too wonderful
for belief, now that the lord upon Olympus, father Zeus,
dimmed the daylight and made darkness come upon us in the noon
and the sunshine. So limp terror has descended upon mankind.
After this, men can believe in anything. They can expect
anything. Be not astonished any more, although you see
beasts of the dry land exchange with dolphins, and assume their place
in the watery pastures of the sea, and beasts who loved the hills
find the ocean's crashing waters sweeter than the bulk of land.


* * *

The fox knows many tricks, the hedgehog only one.
One good one.
 

* * *

One main thing I understand,
to come back at deadly evil at the man who does me wrong. [fr. 126]

* * *

Here I lie mournful with desire,
feeble in bitterness of the pain gods inflicted upon me
stuck through the bones with love.

* * *