His Poetry

• I know the tunes,
  of every bird,
  
  but I, Alkman, found my words and song
  in the tongue
  of the strident partridge.
  
  Now chasms and mountain summits are asleep,
  and sierra slopes and ravines;
  creeping things nourished by the dark earth,
  hillside beasts and generations of bees,
  monsters in the depths of the purple brine,
  and also tribes of flying birds.
  
  
• Often at night along the mountain tops,
  when gods are reveling by torch light,
  you came carrying a great jar
  (like the one shepherds use) but of heavy gold.
  You filled the jar with milk
  drawn from a lioness, and made a great cheese
  unbroken and gleaming white.
  
  
• The dappled worm is the murderer
  within the eyes of blooming vines.
  
  
• Dew, a child of moon and air,
  causes the deergrass to grow.
  
  
• THE WHOLE CHOIR
  There is a vengeance from the gods,
  but happy is the man who weaves
  the fabric of his days with peace,
  and without tears.
  
  AGIDO'S HALF-CHOIR
  But I sing
  of Agido's light. I see her
  like the sun who shines on us
  by order of Agido
  
  HAGESICHORA'S HALF-CHOIR
  Our splendid
  leader will not have us praise
  or abuse her, for her brilliance
  is as if among a herd of cattle
  one had set a champion racehorse,
  sinewy, strong, with thunder-ringing hooves,
  a creature from a dream with wings.
  Do you see? The horse is Venetian,
  and the mane of our cousin
  Hagesichora is a blossom
  of purest gold,
  and below is her silver face.
  Can I tell you this more clearly?
  There you have Hagesichora.
  In beauty she may be second to Agido
  but she will run like a
  Skythian horse against a Lydian racer.
  For as we carry Orthria's plow
  so the Pleiades of dawn will rise
  and strive against us
  like the burning star of Sirios
  through the ambrosial night.
  
  AGIDO'S HALF-CHOIR
  All our wealth of purple dye
  or the dappled snake of full gold
  about our wrist or our Lydian
  wimple that is the sweet glory
  of all these tender-eyed girls,
  no, nothing will keep them off.
  Not Nanno's soft braids,
  nor Areta's godlike beauty,
  neither Thylakis nor Kleesisera.
  
  HAGESICHORA'S HALF-CHOIR
  You need not go to Ainesimbrota
  and say: let Astaphis be mine,
  have Philylla look my way,
  and Damareta and darling Ianthemis.
  For Hagesichora is our saviour.
  Is Hagesichora of the lovely
  ankles not right here with us?
  
  AGIDO'S HALF-CHOIR
  Yes, she waits by our Agido
  and commends our ceremonies.
  O gods, receive our prayers,
  for you determine everything
  accomplished. My choir leader,
  I tell you I a girl shrieked
  in vain like an owl
  from the roof tops.
  
  HAGESICHORA'S HALF-CHOIR
  But my great wish
  is to please the Lady of the Dawn
  who has healed our sore wounds.
  Only Hagesichora could give
  her girls the peace they desired.
  
  THE WHOLE CHOIR
  A great chariot simply follows
  the course of its trace-horse;
  in a vessel all must swiftly
  heed the shouting of the helmsman,
  so our combined choir may not
  sing more sweetly than the Sirens--
  for they are gods-- but how we sang,
  we ten girls with even one away!
  And her song is like a swan
  by the Xanthos river, and she
  with the splendor of her blond hair.
  
  
• The girls fell to their knees, helpless--
  like small birds under a hovering hawk.
  
  
• The Rhipe mountain flowering with forests
  is the breast of black-flowing night.
  
  
• Kastor and noble Polydeukes, you trainers
  of swift stallions, are extraordinary horsemen.
  
  
• I pray to you, Hera,
  and bring you as my offering
  a delicate garland of marigold
  and galingale.
  
  
• He is no boorish farmer or
  a clumsy pigkeeper or even
  a sheep-chaser. He was not born
  in Thessaly or Erysiche
  but in Sardis on the high hills.
  
  
• Aphrodite commands and love rains
  upon my body and melts my heart
  for Megalostrata to whom the sweet
  Muse gave the gift of poetry. O
  happy girl of the goldenrod hair!
  
  
• Get him that enormous caldron on the tripod
  so he can bloat his stomach with every food.
  It is cool but soon will boil with good soup
  which gobbler Alkman likes sparkling hot,
  especially in the cold season of the solstice.
  The glutton Alkman abstains from fancy dishes
  but like the demos eats a plain massive meal.
  
  
• Seven couches and as many tables
  spread with poppy cakes and linseed and
  sesame, and among the wooden flagons
  were honey cakes for the young.
  
  
• Three seasons were created: summer
  and winter and a third in autumn,
  and even a fourth--the spring--
  when the fields are heavy with crops
  and a glutton still goes hungry.
  
  
• I know the wine from the Five Hills,
  wine from Oinos or Denthiades
  or Karystos or wine of Ongola
  or Stathmi--unboiled, unfired wines
  of fine aroma.
  
  
• She wears a gold chain
  made of slender petals
  of purple kalcha flowers.
  
  
• Narrow is our way of life
  and necessity is pitiless.
  
  
• The guilty man sat
  among pleasant things under a hanging rock,
  and from his chair he looked
  and then the vision faded.
  
  
• You are from the beautiful island Kypros
  and from the sea-surrounded city Paphos.
  
  
• It is not Aphrodite but riotous Eros who is
  playing like a child,
  scuttling down across the tips of meadow ferns.
  Please do not crush them.
  
  
• I am your servant, Artemis.
  You draw your long bow at night,
  clothed in the skins of wild beasts.
  Now hear our beautiful singing.
  
  
• O girls of honey-sweet voices, my limbs are weak.
  They will not bear me. I wish, ah, I were
  a carefree kingfisher flying over the flowering foam
  with the halcyons--sea-blue holy birds of spring.
  
  
• Experience and Suffering
  are the mother of wisdom.
  
  
• Muse of the round sky, daughter of Zeus,
  I sing my poems loud and clear to you.
  
  
• Bright-shining.
  
  
• The calm sea falls dumbly
  on the shore
  among a tangle of seaweed.