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. - Archilochus of Paros

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.

: Fragment 67, as translated by R. Lattimore

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.