Mantinomia

Contents

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Plato

Epigrams

Disputed attribution

Translated by W. R. Paton; George Burges

About this text
Translation
W. R. Paton; George Burges
Digital source
Internet Archive / historical scans from university libraries, Assembled eighteen-poem edition; individual sources and locators recorded per poem
Print edition
Assembled edition: W. R. Paton, The Greek Anthology, London: William Heinemann / New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, volumes I (1927), II (1919), III (1925), V (1918); George Burges, The Works of Plato, volume VI, London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854, pages 191 and 235. Individual anthology numbers and page references accompany each poem.
Facsimile
Scanned edition

This assembled edition follows the eighteen-poem inventory of Edmonds’s Elegy and Iambus II. It uses sixteen translations by W. R. Paton and two by George Burges, checked against historical scans. Each poem identifies its translation, source and disputed attribution. This is not Edmonds’s translation or a collection of every poem ever attributed to Plato.

Mantinomia uses reviewed reading paragraphs and speaker labels where appropriate. Each poem remains a separate item with its own translation and attribution. Paton’s sixteen prose translations remain prose; the two Burges verse translations retain their printed line breaks. No poetic voice is identified with Plato by an added speaker label. The underlying source text and original passage references are preserved.

Eighteen poems in the inventory and order of Edmonds, Elegy and Iambus II, Plato, inscriptions 1–18; translations selected separately from Paton and Burges. This is an explicitly assembled edition, not a transcription of Edmonds’s translation or a claim to contain every poem ever attributed to Plato.

Epigram 1

Translation and attribution

Translated by W. R. Paton. Attributed to Plato in the source; authenticity disputed.

The Greek Anthology, volume II (1919), Greek Anthology VII.669, pp. 357.

Thou lookest on the stars, my Star. Would I were heaven, to look on thee with many eyes.

Epigram 2

Translation and attribution

Translated by W. R. Paton. Attributed to Plato in the source; authenticity disputed.

The Greek Anthology, volume II (1919), Greek Anthology VII.670, pp. 357.

Of old among the living thou didst shine the Star of morn; now shinest thou in death the Star of eve.

Epigram 3

Translation and attribution

Translated by W. R. Paton. Attributed to Plato in the source; the epitaph on Dion has been defended as possibly authentic, without settling authorship.

The Greek Anthology, volume II (1919), Greek Anthology VII.99, pp. 59, 61.

The decreed tears for and the Trojan women even at the hour of their birth; and after thou, Dio, hadst triumphed in the accomplishment of noble deeds, the gods spilt all thy far-reaching hopes. But thou liest in thy spacious city, honoured by thy countrymen, Dio, who didst madden my soul with love.

Epigram 4

Translation and attribution

Translated by W. R. Paton. Attributed to Plato in the source; authenticity disputed. The first-person voice does not establish biography.

The Greek Anthology, volume II (1919), Greek Anthology VII.100, pp. 61.

Now when I said nothing except just that Alexis is fair, he is looked at everywhere and by everyone when he appears. Why, my heart, dost thou point out bones to dogs and have to sorrow for it afterwards? Was it not thus that I lost Phaedrus?

Epigram 5

Translation and attribution

Translated by George Burges. Attributed to Plato by Diogenes Laertius; authenticity disputed. This is the erotic version about Archeanassa, not the differing epitaph printed under Asclepiades at Greek Anthology VII.217.

The Works of Plato, volume VI (1854), Diogenes Laertius III.31, pp. 191.

From Colophon Archeanassa came; She’s mine; and on her wrinkles sits Love’s power. Unhappy ye had run through what a flame! Who met her blooming in youth’s bursting flower.

Epigram 6

Translation and attribution

Translated by W. R. Paton. Attributed to Plato in the source; authenticity disputed. The poetic speaker is not securely identifiable as the historical philosopher.

The Greek Anthology, volume I (1927), Greek Anthology V.78, pp. 167.

My soul was on my lips as I was kissing Agathon. Poor soul! she came hoping to cross over to him.

Epigram 7

Translation and attribution

Translated by W. R. Paton. Attributed to Plato in the source; authenticity disputed.

The Greek Anthology, volume I (1927), Greek Anthology V.79, pp. 167.

I throw the apple at thee, and thou, if thou lovest me from thy heart, take it and give me of thy maidenhead; but if thy thoughts be what I pray they are not, take it still and reflect how short-lived is beauty.

Epigram 8

Translation and attribution

Translated by W. R. Paton. Printed under Plato in Paton; Edmonds records a competing attribution to Philodemus in the Planudean tradition. Platonic authorship is disputed.

The Greek Anthology, volume I (1927), Greek Anthology V.80, pp. 167.

I am an apple; one who loves thee throws me at thee. But consent, Xanthippe; both thou and I decay.

Epigram 9

Translation and attribution

Translated by W. R. Paton. Attributed to Plato in the source; authenticity disputed.

The Greek Anthology, volume II (1919), Greek Anthology VII.259, pp. 145.

We are Eretrians from Euboea and we lie near Susa, alas! how far from our own land.

Epigram 10

Translation and attribution

Translated by W. R. Paton. Paton heads this poem Statyllius Flaccus, by some attributed to Plato. Retained as a disputed member of the traditional Platonic collection.

The Greek Anthology, volume III (1925), Greek Anthology IX.44, pp. 25.

A man finding gold left his halter, but the man who had left the gold and did not find it, hanged himself with the halter he found.

Epigram 11

Translation and attribution

Translated by W. R. Paton. Attributed to Plato in the source; authenticity disputed. Lais is the poem’s speaking voice.

The Greek Anthology, volume I (1927), Greek Anthology VI.1, pp. 299.

I, Lais, whose haughty beauty made mock of Greece, I who once had a swarm of young lovers at my doors, dedicate my mirror to , since I wish not to look on myself as I am, and cannot look on myself as I once was.

Epigram 12

Translation and attribution

Translated by W. R. Paton. Paton attributes this epitaph on Pindar to Leonidas; Edmonds includes it under Plato and notes the attribution difference. Platonic authorship is disputed.

The Greek Anthology, volume II (1919), Greek Anthology VII.35, pp. 25.

Congenial to strangers and dear to his countrymen was this man, , the servant of the sweet-voiced .

Epigram 13

Translation and attribution

Translated by W. R. Paton. Attributed to Plato in the source; authenticity disputed. The voice represents displaced Eretrians.

The Greek Anthology, volume II (1919), Greek Anthology VII.256, pp. 143.

Leaving behind the sounding surge of the Aegean we lie on the midmost of the plains of Ecbatana. Farewell, Eretria, once our glorious country; farewell, Athens, the neighbour of Euboea; farewell, dear Sea.

Epigram 14

Translation and attribution

Translated by W. R. Paton. Attributed to Plato in the source; authenticity disputed. The tomb speaks within the poem.

The Greek Anthology, volume II (1919), Greek Anthology VII.265, pp. 147.

I am the tomb of a shipwrecked man, and that opposite is the tomb of a husbandman. So death lies in wait for us alike on sea and land.

Epigram 15

Translation and attribution

Translated by W. R. Paton. Attributed to Plato in the source; authenticity disputed.

The Greek Anthology, volume II (1919), Greek Anthology VII.269, pp. 149.

Mariners, may ye be safe on sea and land; but know that this tomb ye are passing is a shipwrecked man’s.

Epigram 16

Translation and attribution

Translated by W. R. Paton. Attributed to Plato in the source; authenticity disputed. Calling Sappho a tenth Muse is poetic praise.

The Greek Anthology, volume III (1925), Greek Anthology IX.506, pp. 281.

Some say the are nine, but how carelessly! Look at the tenth, from Lesbos.

Epigram 17

Translation and attribution

Translated by W. R. Paton. Anonymous in Paton. Edmonds includes it in the Platonic collection while noting the unknown author in the source heading. Platonic authorship is disputed.

The Greek Anthology, volume V (1918), Greek Anthology XVI.162, pp. 255.

, seeing in Cnidus, said, “Alas! alas! where did see me naked?”

Epigram 18

Translation and attribution

Translated by George Burges. Attributed to Plato in Olympiodorus’s biography; also included by Edmonds from Thomas Magister. The late testimony does not establish secure authorship.

The Works of Plato, volume VI (1854), Olympiodorus, Life of Plato, pp. 235.

The , when they wish’d to find A shrine, that should for ever live, Said, what they sought, alone the mind Of could give.