Alcaeus

Uncover that which you
have kept covered till now.

Come to me, come hither,
unless, of course, you do
not derive benefit
from your fragrant youth.

Do this before you grow old
inside your loose robe,
a dried up version
of your former self.

At the moment, your limbs
still carry you everywhere;
a boat ready to sail,
your passion the sail.

Persuasions will not work.
This is the time of life
when old age causes me
to forget all that I once knew,
all that is delightful and tender.

This is a hymn to you,
Dionysus, god of wine,
from a slight citizen
who knows no longer
what he’s fated for.

Men are born – a man is wise
and has shrewd wits
but against the will of Zeus –
no, not even hairs may move
without divine will.

Long life brings distress
that must be carried deep
if it is to be forgotten.

Pronounced a state criminal,
the shame of my dear parents,
exiled from the home of my youth
with chilling care, my hardships

have managed to implant a spirit
of recklessness within me,
one that impels me to point out
injustice and wrongdoing.

So, while many strive to have a toil free life,
I spend my time criticising tyrants,
and so the spirit of subversion
was quickly established within me.

Now all I can do is calmly wait
for cold death to seize me.

Such a family
would not have been

endurable.
Once insolence

and greatness
in wicked men

would not have been
tolerable.

Very often we are
thrown down

and then we are
set on our feet.

Fortune
or some such thing

has been mixed
somehow.

May they give garlands
of woven flowers
to your horse
to the birds from the lake
to this city
to vine-clad stones

taken from peaks
where sweet-scented
grey-green cold water
and green reeds
are always rustling
in springtime

from peaks where
the far-seen assembly
makes its way down
the rocky hillside
on which goats graze
and roses grow

Once so lovely and desirable
you slacken from your nimble
course as your resolve decays.

I now handle gourds more tender
from which good wine is poured
and what I lost is what I now gain

for I do not have you.
You gave many favours to me
and also to those coming after.

What one gives to a prostitute
might as well be thrown
into the waves of the grey sea.

I now need to persuade anyone
that does not know this: if a man
keeps company with prostitutes

these things will happen to him:
after the business, inevitably he
will suffer disgrace and misery,

accursed misery, misery’s extreme.
Also he deceives his soul, which
weeps many tears.

But she will, of course,
only have tears for another man,
whoever he may be.

I, poor wretch, live my life as a rustic,
despite longing to hear the assembly
being summoned by Agesilaidas
and the council.

I have been driven from the property
possessed by my father and my father’s father,
both who have grown old among
these mutually destructive citizens.

I am now an exile at the back of beyond
and, like Onomacles,
I have settled here,
alone in the wolf thickets,

far away from the war,
for to get rid of strife against one’s home
is not at all detrimental
to the precepts of the blessed gods.

Treading on the black earth
and keeping my feet out of trouble,
avoiding any meetings themselves,
I dwell where Lesbian women

with trailing robes go to and fro
being judged for beauty; and all around
echoes the marvellous sound
of the sacred yearly shout of women:

“When will the Olympian gods free me
from my many troubles?”

Once prosperous,
but now wretched,
I wander the world.

I am very lonely,
far from my friends
and always alone;

but since my exile
in this wretched land,
I have lived by my wits.

Immortal gods, please
end this exile.

The blood of women has been shed,
disgracing those who performed unjust deeds,
and we must put a rope on their necks
and kill them by stoning.

Truly, it would have been far better
for the Achaeans
if they had killed the man
who did the violence to the gods,

then as they sailed past Aegea
they would have found the sea calmer:
but in the temple the daughter of Priam
was embracing the statue of Athena,

that generous giver of treasures,
she was clasping its chin,
while the enemy attacked the city.
They killed Deiphobus too,

and lamentations went up from the wall
and the shouts of children filled the plain
and Ajax came in dangerous madness
to the temple of holy Pallas,

who of all the blessed gods
is the most terrible to sacrilegious mortals,
and seizing the maiden with both hands
as she stood by the holy statue,

the Locrian ravished her,
showing no fear for the daughter of Zeus,
giver of victory in war, grim-eyed;
but she, eyes blazing terribly beneath her brows,

livid with anger, darted over the wine-dark sea
and suddenly stirred up hidden stormwinds…