The birds of Stymphalus
Vexed not so the Arcadians,
As those dead thrushes vexed me
With their dry bones,
...
No one, Charidemus,
Can constantly sleep with his own wife
And take heart-felt pleasure in it.
...
She that of old spun with Athene wise, NIcarete,
Hath burned her looms and webs in sacrifice, Cypris, to thee!
'Begone!' she cries, 'ye starveling works that wasted
Our flower in spring,'
...
Niconoe was once in her prime, I admit that,
But her prime was when Deucalion looked on the vast waters.
Of those times we have no knowledge,
But of her now we know that she should seek
...
The gloom of death is on the raven's wing,
The song of death is in the raven's cries:
But when Demophilus begins to sing,
...
A starry seer's oracular abodes
One sought, to know if he should sail for Rhodes,
When thus the sage, 'I rede thee, let thy ship
...
Nicarchus or Nicarch was a Greek poet and writer of the 1st century AD, best known for his epigrams, of which forty-two survive under his name in the Greek Anthology, and his satirical poetry. He was a contemporary of, and influence on, the better-known Latin writer Martial. A large proportion of his epigrams are directed against doctors. Some of his writings have been found at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt. A fragment of Nicarchus: The Raven The gloom of death is on the raven’s wing, The song of death is in the raven’s cries: But when Demophilus begins to sing, The raven dies.)
Dead Thrushes
The birds of Stymphalus
Vexed not so the Arcadians,
As those dead thrushes vexed me
With their dry bones,
Very harpies,
Ten of them,
A dry drachma's worth.
Out on you, wretched creatures,
True bats of the fields.