41 Quotes Tagged: archilochos

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.

The gold booty of Gyges means nothing to me.
I don't envy that Lydian king, nor am I jealous
of what gods can do, nor of the tyrants' great
powers. All these are realms beyond my vision.

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

I am a servant of the kingly wargod Enyalios
and am also skilled in the lovely arts.

Like the Mykonians, Perikles,
you drink our unmixed wine
and pay for nothing.
You broke into this party, uninvited,
and act as if among old friends.
Your stomach has tricked the brains in your skull
and now you are shameless.

One big thing I understand:
I know how to spit back with black venom
against the man who wrongs me.

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.

Let the stone of Tantalos
no longer overhang this island.

You have taken in many blind eels.

I pray for one gift: that I might merely touch
Neoboule's hand.

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.

Say goodbye to the island Paros,
farewell to its figs and the seafaring life.

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

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.