BOOK IX. EPIGRAMS 574–577
574.—Anonymous
I, too, thrice unhappy Anaxis, carted along the burden of this weary life that is no life. Yet I did not pull it for long, but spurning from me this distraught life I went to Hades.
575.—PHILIPPUS
Heaven shall sooner quench its stars and the sun make bright the face of night ; the sea shall sooner provide sweet water for mortals to draw, and the dead return to the land of the living, than oblivion of those ancient pages shall rob us of the glorious name of Homer.
576.—NICARCHUS
On a Statue of Athena holding an Apple. Aphrodite speaks
Trito-born maiden, why dost thou vex me now by grasping in thy hand my prize of which thou hast robbed me. Thou rememberest how formerly, amid the rocks of Ida, Paris pronounced me fairest, not thee. Thine are the spear and shield, but mine is the apple. For the apple that old war was surely enough.
577.—PTOLEMAEUS
I know that I am mortal, a creature of a day; but when I search into the multitudinous revolving spirals of the stars my feet no longer rest on the earth, but, standing by Zeus himself, I take my fill of ambrosia, the food of the gods.
