Archilochus of Paros Quotes

If you irritate the wound, Perikles, no man
in our city will enjoy the festivities.
These men were washed under by the thudding seawaves,
and the hearts in our chest are swollen with pain.
Yet against this incurable misery, the gods
give us the harsh medicine of endurance.
Sorrows come and go, friend, and now they strike us
and we look with horror on the bleeding sores,
yet tomorrow others will mourn the dead. I tell you,
hold back your feminine tears and endure.

My javelin is good white bread and Ismarian wine.
When I find rest on my javelin I drink wine.

I live here miserable and broken with desire,
pierced through to the bones by the bitterness
of this god-given painful love.

O comrade, this passion makes my limbs limp
and tramples over me.

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

Nothing in the world can surprise me now. Nothing
is impossible or too wonderful, for Zeus, father
of the Olympians, has turned midday into black night
by shielding light from the blossoming sun,
and now dark terror hangs over mankind.
Anything may happen, so do not be amazed if beasts
on dry land seek pasture with dolphins in
the ocean, and those beasts who loved sunny hills
love crashing seawaves more than the warm mainland.

Let us hide the dreadful
gifts of lord Poseidon.

You have taken in many blind eels.

When dead no man finds respect or glory from men
of his town. Rather, we hope while alive for some
favor from the living. The dead are always scorned.

She is a common woman for rent,
but what sensuality and fat ankles.
O fat whore for hire!

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

Now, I have no desire for poetry or joy,
yet I will make nothing better by crying,
nor worse by seeking good foods and pleasure.

Listen to me cuss.

I don't like a general
who towers over the troops,
lordly with elegant locks
and trim mustachios.
Give me a stumpy soldier
glaringly bowlegged,
yet rockfirm on his feet,
and in his heart a giant.

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.

O my soul, my soul — you are mutilated helplessly
by this blade of sorrow. Yet rise and bare your chest,
face those who would attack you, be strong, give no ground.
If you defeat them, do not brag like a loudmouth,
If they beat you, don't run home and lie down to cry.
Keep some measure in your joy — or in your sadness during
crisis — that you may understand man's up-and-down life.