Archilochus of Paros Quotes

Ancient Greek lyric poet

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Archilochus [Ἀρχίλοχος] (c. 680 BC – c. 645 BC), also rendered as Archilochos or Arkhilokhus, was a Greek lyric poet and mercenary from the island of Paros in the Archaic period.

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Native Name: Ἀρχίλοχος

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Well, what if some barbaric Thracian glories
in the perfect shield I left under a bush?
I was sorry to leave it — but I saved my skin.
Does it matter? O hell, I'll buy a better one.

His penis is swollen
like a donkey from Priene
taking his fill of barley.

Zeus, the father of the Olympic Gods, turned mid-day into night, hiding the light of the dazzling Sun; and sore fear came upon men.

All, O all the calamities of all the Hellenes
are set loose on this battleground in Thasos.

Glaukos, soldier of fortune, will be your friend
until he begins to fight.

My lord Apollo, single out the guilty ones,
and in your customary way, destroy them all.

Let the stone of Tantalos
no longer overhang this island.

There’s one big thing I know, to pay back injury done to me with terrible injuries.

No man, Aisimides, who bows to the mud-slinging
mob has ever been capable of profound pleasures.

Let brawling waves beat his ship
against the shore, and have the mop-haired Thracians
take him naked at Salmydessos,
and he will suffer a thousand calamities
as he chews the bread of slaves.
His body will stiffen in freezing surf
as he wrestles with slimy seaweed,
and his teeth will rattle like a helpless dog,
flopped on his belly in the surge,
puking out the brine. Let me watch him grovel
in mud — for the wrong he did me:
as a traitor he trampled on our good faith,
he who was once my comrade.

Father Lykambes, what is this new silliness?
Are your natural brains wholly rotted?
The neighbors laugh openly at your absurd life
and you persist in chattering like a cricket.

A life of doing nothing is good for old men,
especially if they are simple in their ways,
or stupid, or inane in their endless blabber
as old men tend to be.

Her sprig of myrtle clothed her beautiful rose
That her hands were happily playing with,
And her hair fell
As darkness on her back and shoulders.
Someone
Right in the middle of the myrtle.

"Old women should not seek to be perfumed" (Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, first ebook edition, 2014)

Her breasts and her dark hair were perfume
and even an old man would desire her.