librarians

"To admit an absence of causality for the unbrotherly state leads not to peace and brotherhood but merely to playing at peace, to a comedy of reconciliation which creates a pseudo-peace, a false peace which is worse than open hostility because the latter poses a question whereas the former prolongs enmity by concealing it."

"Only when all men come to participate in knowledge will pure science, which perceives nature as a whole in which the sentient is sacrificed to the insensate, cease to be indifferent to this distorted attitude of the conscious being to the unconscious force."

"[T]he rural problem is (1) loss of kinship between men who, through ignorance, forget their relatedness, and (2) the hostility of nature to humans, which is felt most acutely if not exclusively in villages, where people confront the blind force directly; whereas townsfolk, being remote from nature, may think that man lives at one with nature."

"A truly moral being does not need compulsion and repeated orders to perceive what his duty is – he assigns to himself his task and prescribes what must be done for those from whom he has become separated, because separation (whether voluntary or not) cannot be irreversible. Indeed, it would be criminal to repudiate those from whom one descends and to forget about their welfare. For the learned to behave thus would be to reject their own welfare, to remain prodigal sons for ever and be permanent hirelings and servants of urban caprice. This would lead them to disregard completely the needs of rural communities, that is, real needs, because the needs of such communities, unspoilt by city influences, are limited to those essentials that ensure survival in the face of hunger and illness, which not only destroy life but also displace kinship relations and replace love by enmity and hostility."

"The learned, who have fragmented science into a multiplicity of branches, imagine that the calamities that strike and oppress us are within the competence of specialised disciplines to control, whereas in fact they constitute a single problem common to all of us, namely the lack of kinship relations between a blind force and rational beings. This blind force makes no demand on us other than to endow it with what it lacks: rational direction, or regulation. Yet no regulation is possible owing to our disunity, and our disunity persists because there is no common task to unite men. Regulation, the control of the blind force of nature, can and must become the great task common to us all."

"How unnatural it is to ask, ‘Why does that which exist, exist?' and yet how completely natural it is to ask, ‘Why do the living die?"

"[The] transformation of the blind course of nature into one that is rational [...] is bound to appear to the learned as a disruption of order, although this order of theirs brings only disorder among men, striking them down with famine, plague, and death."

"The simplest explanation of the presence of a Centum language in Central Asia would be to regard it as the last survivor of an original Asiatic Aryan stock. To identify a wandering of Aryans across Turkestan from Europe in a relatively late historical period is frankly difficult."

"The archaeologist who was most influential in this century on the ques­tion of Aryan origins was V. Gordon Childe, author o f The Aryans: a Study of Indo-European Origins, published in 1926. Childe was influenced by linguistic data in his effort to establish a homeland of the ancient people whose Indo-Euro­ pean languages formed a philological bond between his British countrymen and their colonial subjects in India. He was influenced, too, by the “Four Empires” concept which lent a mystical quality to the shift of civilisation from the Near East to northwestern Europe. Gustav Klemm's idea of creative and passive races appealed to Childe, the people of the Orient being characterised as stagnant and degenerate while Europeans were held to be superior in the qualities o f energy, inventiveness and independence. In his biography of Childe Bruce Trigger (1980) observes that national character rather than history and geography were held by Childe to be the causes o f these ethnic differences, prehistoric peoples being asc­ribed the same qualities as their living descendants. Thus racial identity could be discovered from a philological approach, and these data could be employed by the archaeologists to identify the races o f the people whose sites were excavated. Even while admitting that the early developments of agriculture, metallurgy and the sciences came from the speakers of the Semitic languages o f the N ear East, Childe held that when these inventions were adopted by Indo-European popula­tions they were brought to their highest development and into the realm of true civilisation. The Indo-European speakers achieved this not because o f superior intelligence or culture, but because o f the higher qualities of their language which was the hallmark of a more competent mentality."

"To whatever physical race or races they [the Aryans] belonged, they must have possessed a certain spiritual unity reflected in and conditioned by their community of speech. To their linguistic heirs, they bequeathed, if not skull types and bodily characteristics, at least something of this more subtle and more precious spiritual identity... [T]he Aryans must have been gifted with exceptional mental endowments, if not in enjoyment of a high material culture."

"Aryan people first emerge from the gloom of prehistory on the northern borders of the Fertile Crescent of the Ancient East... So it is clear enough that the dynasts installed on the Upper Euphra­ tes by 1400 B.C. were Aryans, closely akin to those we meet in the Indus Valley and later in Media and Persia... (the first Aryans were racially Nordics and) the Nordic's superiority in physique fitted them to be vehicles of a superior language. (Childe 1926: 16,19,212)"

"By the end of the fourth millennium B.C. the material culture of Abydos, Ur, or Mohenjo-daro would stand comparison with that of Periclean Athens or of any medieval town. . . . Judging by the domestic architecture, the seal-cutting, and the grace of the pottery, the Indus civilization was ahead of the Babylonian at the beginning of the third millennium (ca. 3000 B.C.). But that was a late phase of the Indian culture; it may have enjoyed no less lead in earlier times. Were then the innovations and discoveries that characterize proto-Sumerian civilization not native developments on Babylonian soil, but the results of Indian inspiration? If so, had the Sumerians themselves come from the Indus, or at least from regions in its immediate sphere of influence?”"

"Not only are they (the theories of racial anthropology] worthless; they are mischievous. They have induced their votaries to postulate all sorts of migrations, for which there are as yet not a particle of evidence. To but­ tress the Nordic s claim to be the ruling race p a r excellence, attempts have been made, and are still being made, to prove that the earliest dynasties of China, Sumer, and Egypt were established by invaders from Europe and even today the vision of certain prehistorians is absolutely distorted by this preconception. Such misdirected enthusiasm also injures science in another way. The apotheosis of the Nordics has been linked to the policies of imperialism and world domination: the word "Aryan” has become the watchword of dangerous factions and especially of the more brutal and blatant forms of anti-Semitism. Indeed the neglect and discredit into which the study of Indo-European philology has fallen in England are very largely attributable to a legitimate reaction against the extravagancies of Houston Stewart Chamberlain and his ilk, and the gravest objection to the word Aryan is its association with pogroms.(287)"

"How precisely did the Aryans achieve all this? It was not through the superiority of their material culture. We have rejected the idea that a particular genius resided in the conformation of Nordic skulls. We do so with all the more confidence that, by the time the Aryan genius found its true expression in Greece and Rome, the pure Nordic strain had been for the most part absorbed in the Mediterranean substratum: the lasting gift bequeathed by the Aryans to the conquered peoples was neither a higher material culture nor a superior physique, but that which we mentioned in the first chapter—a more excellent language and the mentality it generated. . . . At the same time the fact that the first Aryans were Nordics was not without importance. The physical qualities of that stock did enable them by the bare fact of superior strength to conquer even more advanced peoples and so to impose their language on areas from which their bodily type has almost completely vanished. This is the truth underlying the panegyrics of the Germanists: the Nordics’ superiority in physique fitted them to be vehicles of a superior language. (pp. 211–212)"

"[l]anguage, albeit an abstraction, is yet a more subtle and pervasive criterion of individuality than the culture-group formed by comparing flints and potsherds or the “races” of the skull-measurer. . . . they [the Aryans] must have possessed a certain spiritual unity reflected in and conditioned by their community of speech. To their linguistic heirs they bequeathed, if not skull types and bodily characteristics, at least something of this more subtle and precious, spiritual identity. . . . The Indo-European languages and their presumed parent-speech have been throughout exceptionally delicate and flexible instruments of thought. They were almost unique, for instance, in possessing a substantive verb and at least a rudimentary machinery for building subordinate clauses that might express conceptual relations in a chain of ratiocination. It follows then that the Aryans must have been gifted with exceptional mental endowments, if not in enjoyment of a high material culture. (p. 4)"

"No multiplication of weapons of war and battle‐scenes attests futile conflicts between city‐ states as in Babylonia nor yet the force whereby a single king, as in Egypt, achieved by conquest internal peace and warded off jealous nomads by constant preparedness … The visitor inevitably gets an impression of a democratic bourgeois economy, as in Crete, in contrast to the obviously centralized theocracies and monarchies hitherto described. (Childe, quoted in Wheeler, 1955: 191)"

"These [Mitanni] numerals and divine and personal names are the oldest actual specimens of any Aryan speech which we possess. The forms deserve special attention. They are already quite distinctly Satem forms ; in fact, they are very nearly pure Indic. Certainly they are much more nearly akin to Sanskrit than to any of the Iranian dialects that later constituted the western wing of the Indo-Iranian family. Thus among the deities Nasatya is the Sanskrit form as opposed to the Zend Naonhaitya and all the four gods are prominent in the oldest Veda, while in the Iranian Avesta they have been degraded to secondary rank (Mithra), converted into demons (Indra) or renamed (Varuna =Ahura Mazda). The numerals are distinctively Indic not Iranian ; aika is identical with the Sanskrit eka while ' one ’ in Zend is aeva. So the s is preserved in Satta where it becomes h in Iranian (hapta) and the exact form is found, not indeed in Sanskrit, but in the Prakrits which were supposed to be post-Vedic. Even the personal names look Indic rather than Iranian. Thus Biridaswa has been plausibly compared with the Sanskrit Brhadasva (owning a great horse). If this be right the second element, asva, horse, is in contrast to the Iranian form aspa seen in Old Persian and Zend. ... Finally we know that there existed among the Mitanni at this time a class of warriors styled maryanni which has suggested comparison with the Sanskrit marya young men, heroes."

"(The Hittite language) cannot be accepted without qualification as Aryan. ... The deviations in the inflection are puzzlingly numerous. ... Again the number of Indo-European words and stems identified in the vocabulary is but small. Finally, the syntax remains essentially un- Aryan... Now if these documents dated from the 14th century AD, few would hesitate to declare that they were written in an Indo-European language and explain the discrepancies as due to the familiar phenomena of decay, assimilation of forms, and foreign borrowing. But the texts... are many centuries older than the oldest written memorials of Sanskrit or Greek. Yet their language diverges from the hypothetical original Aryan tongue far more than Greek or Sanskrit differs from the parent speech or from one another. It is a fact impossible to believe that a truly Indo-European language would look so odd in the 14th century before our era."

"But as a whole they [Kassites] were not Aryans. Though they adopted the Babylonian language and culture, the local scribes have recorded the Kassite names for god, star, heaven, wind, man, foot, etc. ; not one of these is in the least Indo-European. Moreover, the majority of the personal names of the period ... suggest rather a kinship between the Kassites and the Asianic folk to the north-west. Yet in the names of their kings occur elements recalling Indo-Iranian deities — SuriaS (Sun-god cf . Sans. Surya) IndaS (cf. Sans. Indra)y MaruttaS (cf. Sans. Mantiah, storm-gods) and -bugaS (cf. Iran, baga, god). Moreover, these Kassites introduced the use of the horse for drawing chariots into the Ancient East and its later Babylonian name sitsu seems to be derived from the Indo- Iranian form ^asm (Sans. aim). It is then highly probable that the Kassite invasion was due to the pressure of Aryan tribes on the highlands of Iran, and that its leaders were actually Aryan princes."

"[Eratosthenes] ... is a mathematician among geographers, and yet a geographer among mathematicians; and consequently on both sides he offers his opponents occasions for contradiction."

"Eratosthenes declares that it is no longer necessary to inquire as to the cause of the overflow of the Nile, since we know definitely that men have come to the sources of the Nile and have observed the rains there."

"In comparison with the great size of the earth the protrusion of mountains is not sufficient to deprive it of its spherical shape or to invalidate measurements based on its spherical shape. For Eratosthenes shows that the perpendicular distance from the highest mountain tops to the lowest regions is ten stades [c.5,000-5,500 feet]. This he shows with the help of dioptras which measure magnitudes at a distance."

"Eratosthenes... knew that the Sun was straight overhead in... Syene at noon on the , but that it was 7.2 degrees south of straight overhead in , located 794 kilometers farther north. He concluded... 794 kilometers corresponded to 7.2 degrees out of the 360 degrees... around Earth's circumference, so that the circumference must be 794 km x 360°/7.2°≈39,700 km... remarkably close to the modern value of 40,000 km. Amusingly Christopher Columbus totally bungled this... confusing Arabic miles with Italian miles..."

"Eratosthenes of Cyrene, employing mathematical theories and geometrical methods, discovered from the course of the sun the shadows cast by an equinoctial gnomon, and the inclination of the heaven that the circumference of the earth is two hundred and fifty-two thousand stadia, that is, thirty-one million five hundred thousand paces."

"Αἱ δ᾽, ὥστ᾽ ἠμαθόεντος ἐπισχεδὸν αἰγιαλοῖο παρθενικαί, δίχα κόλπον ἐπ᾽ ἰξύας εἱλίξασαι σφαίρῃ ἀθύρουσιν περιηγέι· αἱ μὲν ἔπειτα ἄλλη ὑπ᾽ ἐξ ἄλλης δέχεται καὶ ἐς ἠέρα πέμπει ὕψι μεταχρονίην· ἡ δ᾽ οὔποτε πίλναται οὔδει· ὧς αἱ νῆα θέουσαν ἀμοιβαδὶς ἄλλοθεν ἄλλη πέμπε διηερίην ἐπὶ κύμασιν, αἰὲν ἄπωθεν πετράων."

"Apollonius Rhodius was a great grammarian, as well as a poet."

"Apollonius Rhodius [shrouded] in long-drawn sweetness the inanity of his soul."

"Ἐπείτοιγε καὶ ἄπτωτος ὁ Ἀπολλώνιος ἐν τοῖς Ἀργοναύταις ποιητὴς ... ἆῤ οὖν Ὅμηρος ἂν μᾶλλον ἢ Ἀπολλώνιος ἐθέλοις γενέσθαι;"

"If the sublime be the characteristic of Homer, the romantic is that of Apollonius; and in nature and tenderness he needs not shun a comparison even with Homer. No poet has ever excelled the Rhodian in the refined display of female character; in the gay amenities, the modest reserves, the delicate artifices, the conflicting uncertainties, and the poignant sensibilities of female love. Dido is but a feeble copy of the interesting and impassioned Medea."

"If Homer sometimes nods, Apollonius may be said to be only occasionally awake, though his long fits of somnolency are relieved by fanciful and even attractive dreams."

"Αἵδε δ᾽ ἀοιδαὶ εἰς ἔτος ἐξ ἔτεος γλυκερώτεραι εἶεν ἀείδειν ἀνθρώποις."

"Δείματι δ᾽ ἐξέγροντο λεχωίδες, ἀμφὶ δὲ παισὶν νηπιάχοις, οἵ τέ σφιν ὑπ᾽ ἀγκαλίδεσσιν ἴαυον, ῥοίζῳ παλλομένοις χεῖρας βάλον ἀσχαλόωσαι."

"Ὡς δ᾽ ὁπόταν δελφῖνες ὑπὲξ ἁλὸς εὐδιόωντες σπερχομένην ἀγεληδὸν ἑλίσσωνται περὶ νῆα, ἄλλοτε μἑν προπάροιθεν ὁρώμενοι, ἄλλοτ᾽ ὄπισθεν, ἄλλοτε παρβολάδην, ναύτῃσι δὲ χάρμα τέτυκται· ὧς αἱ ὑπεκπροθέουσαι ἐπήτριμοι εἱλίσσοντο Ἀργῴῃ περὶ νηί, Θέτις δ᾽ ἴθυνε κέλευθον.."

"Ἔνθα σφιν κοῦραι Νηρηίδες ἄλλοθεν ἄλλαι ἤντεον· ἡ δ᾽ ὄπιθεν πτέρυγος θίγε πηδαλίοιο δῖα Θέτις, Πλαγκτῇσιν ἐνὶ σπιλάδεσσιν ἐρύσσαι."

"Αἶψα δὲ κούρη ἔμπαλιν ὄμματ᾽ ἔνεικε, καλυψαμένη ὀθόνῃσιν, μὴ φόνον ἀθρήσειε κασιγνήτοιο τυπέντος."

"Σχέτλι᾽ Ἔρως, μέγα πῆμα, μέγα στύγος ἀνθρώποισιν, ἐκ σέθεν οὐλόμεναί τ᾽ ἔριδες στοναχαί τε γόοι τε, ἄλγεά τ᾽ ἄλλ᾽ ἐπὶ τοῖσιν ἀπείρονα τετρήχασιν. δυσμενέων ἐπὶ παισὶ κορύσσεο, δαῖμον, ἀερθείς, οἷος Μηδείῃ στυγερὴν φρεσὶν ἔμβαλες ἄτην."

"θάμβησαν δὲ νέοι μέγα κῶας ἰδόντες λαμπόμενον στεροπῇ ἴκελον Διός. ὦρτο δ᾽ ἕκαστος ψαῦσαι ἐελδόμενος δέχθαι τ᾽ ἐνὶ χερσὶν ἑῇσιν."

"Ὡς δὲ σεληναίην διχομήνιδα παρθένος αἴγλην ὑψόθεν ἐξανέχουσαν ὑπωροφίου θαλάμοιο λεπταλέῳ ἑανῷ ὑποΐσχεται· ἐν δέ οἱ ἦτορ χαίρει δερκομένης καλὸν σέλας· ὧς τότ᾽ Ἰήσων γηθόσυνος μέγα κῶας ἑαῖς ἐναείρατο χερσίν· καί οἱ ἐπὶ ξανθῇσι παρηίσιν ἠδὲ μετώπῳ μαρμαρυγῇ ληνέων φλογὶ εἴκελον ἷζεν ἔρευθος."

"Ἦ γὰρ ἔοικας ἐκ μορφῆς ἀγανῇσιν ἐπητείῃσι κεκάσθαι."

"Οὐδ᾽ ἄρα Μηδείης θυμὸς τράπετ᾽ ἄλλα νοῆσαι, μελπομένης περ ὅμως· πᾶσαι δέ οἱ, ἥντιν᾽ ἀθύροι μολπήν, οὐκ ἐπὶ δηρὸν ἐφήνδανεν ἑψιάασθαι. ἀλλὰ μεταλλήγεσκεν ἀμήχανος, οὐδέ ποτ᾽ ὄσσε ἀμφιπόλων μεθ᾽ ὅμιλον ἔχ᾽ ἀτρέμας· ἐς δὲ κελεύθους τηλόσε παπταίνεσκε, παρακλίνουσα παρειάς. ἦ θαμὰ δὴ στηθέων ἐάγη κέαρ, ὁππότε δοῦπον ἢ ποδὸς ἢ ἀνέμοιο παραθρέξαντα δοάσσαι. αὐτὰρ ὅγ᾽ οὐ μετὰ δηρὸν ἐελδομένῃ ἐφαάνθη ὑψόσ᾽ ἀναθρώσκων ἅ τε Σείριος Ὠκεανοῖο, ὃς δή τοι καλὸς μὲν ἀρίζηλός τ᾽ ἐσιδέσθαι ἀντέλλει, μήλοισι δ᾽ ἐν ἄσπετον ἧκεν ὀιζύν· ἄρα τῇ καλὸς μὲν ἐπήλυθεν εἰσοράασθαι Αἰσονίδης, κάματον δὲ δυσίμερον ὦρσε φαανθείς. δ᾽ ἄρα οἱ κραδίη στηθέων πέσεν, ὄμματα δ᾽ αὔτως ἤχλυσαν· θερμὸν δὲ παρηίδας εἷλεν ἔρευθος. γούνατα δ᾽ οὔτ᾽ ὀπίσω οὔτε προπάροιθεν ἀεῖραι ἔσθενεν, ἀλλ᾽ ὑπένερθε πάγη πόδας. αἱ δ᾽ ἄρα τείως ἀμφίπολοι μάλα πᾶσαι ἀπὸ σφείων ἐλίασθεν. τὼ δ᾽ ἄνεῳ καὶ ἄναυδοι ἐφέστασαν ἀλλήλοισιν, ἢ δρυσίν, ἢ μακρῇσιν ἐειδόμενοι ἐλάτῃσιν, τε παρᾶσσον ἕκηλοι ἐν οὔρεσιν ἐρρίζωνται, νηνεμίῃ· μετὰ δ᾽ αὖτις ὑπὸ ῥιπῆς ἀνέμοιο κινύμεναι ὁμάδησαν ἀπείριτον· ὧς ἄρα τώγε μέλλον ἅλις φθέγξασθαι ὑπὸ πνοιῇσιν Ἔρωτος."

"Πυκνὰ δ᾽ ἀνὰ κληῖδας ἑῶυ λύεσκε θυράων, αἴγλην σκεπτομένη· τῇ δ᾽ ἀσπάσιον βάλε φέγγος Ἠριγενής, κίνυντο δ᾽ ἀνὰ πτολίεθρον ἕκαστοι."

"Ἦ, καὶ φωριαμὸν μετεκίαθεν, ᾗ ἔνι πολλὰ φάρμακά οἱ, τὰ μὲν ἐσθλά, τὰ δὲ ῥαιστήρι᾽, ἔκειτο. ἐνθεμένη δ᾽ ἐπὶ γούνατ᾽ ὀδύρετο. δεῦε δὲ κόλπους ἄλληκτον δακρύοισι, τὰ δ᾽ ἔρρεεν ἀσταγὲς αὔτως, αἴν᾽ ὀλοφυρομένης τὸν ἑὸν μόρον. ἵετο δ᾽ ἥγε φάρμακα λέξασθαι θυμοφθόρα, τόφρα πάσαιτο. ἤδη καὶ δεσμοὺς ἀνελύετο φωριαμοῖο, ἐξελέειν μεμαυῖα, δυσάμμορος. ἀλλά οἱ ἄφνω δεῖμ᾽ ὀλοὸν στυγεροῖο κατὰ φρένας ἦλθ᾽ Ἀίδαο. ἔσχετο δ᾽ ἀμφασίῃ δηρὸν χρόνον, ἀμφὶ δὲ πᾶσαι βιότοιο μεληδόνες ἰνδάλλοντο. μνήσατο μὲν τερπνῶν, ὅσ᾽ ἐνὶ ζωοῖσι πέλονται, μνήσαθ᾽ ὁμηλικίης περιγηθέος, οἷά τε κούρη· καί τέ οἱ ἠέλιος γλυκίων γένετ᾽ εἰσοράασθαι, ἢ πάρος, εἰ ἐτεόν γε νόῳ ἐπεμαίεθ᾽ ἕκαστα. καὶ τὴν μέν ῥα πάλιν σφετέρων ἀποκάτθετο γούνων, Ἥρης ἐννεσίῃσι μετάτροπος."

"Δύσμορος· οὐ μὲν ἔολπα καταφθιμένοιό περ ἔμπης λωφήσειν ἀχέων· τότε δ᾽ ἂν κακὸν ἄμμι πέλοιτο, κεῖνος ὅτε ζωῆς ἀπαμείρεται. ἐρρέτω αἰδώς, ἐρρέτω ἀγλαΐη· ὁ δ᾽ ἐμῇ ἰότητι σαωθεὶς ἀσκηθής, ἵνα οἱ θυμῷ φίλον, ἔνθα νέοιτο. αὐτὰρ ἐγὼν αὐτῆμαρ, ὅτ᾽ ἐξανύσειεν ἄεθλον, τεθναίην, ἢ λαιμὸν ἀναρτήσασα μελάθρῳ, ἢ καὶ πασσαμένη ῥαιστήρια φάρμακα θυμοῦ. ἀλλὰ καὶ ὧς φθιμένῃ μοι ἐπιλλίξουσιν ὀπίσσω κερτομίας· τηλοῦ δὲ πόλις περὶ πᾶσα βοήσει πότμον ἐμόν· καί κέν με διὰ στόματος φορέουσαι Κολχίδες ἄλλυδις ἄλλαι ἀεικέα μωμήσονται· ἥτις κηδομένη τόσον ἀνέρος ἀλλοδαποῖο κάτθανεν, ἥτις δῶμα καὶ οὓς ᾔσχυνε τοκῆας, μαργοσύνῃ εἴξασα. τί δ᾽ οὐκ ἐμὸν ἔσσεται αἶσχος; ᾤ μοι ἐμῆς ἄτης. ἦ τ᾽ ἂν πολὺ κέρδιον εἴη αὐτῇ ἐν νυκτὶ λιπεῖν βίον ἐν θαλάμοισιν πότμῳ ἀνωίστῳ, κάκ᾽ ἐλέγχεα πάντα φυγοῦσαν, πρὶν τάδε λωβήεντα καὶ οὐκ ὀνομαστὰ τελέσσαι."

"Ἠελίου ὥς τίς τε δόμοις ἐνιπάλλεται αἴγλη ὕδατος ἐξανιοῦσα, τὸ δὴ νέον ἠὲ λέβητι ἠέ που ἐν γαυλῷ κέχυται· ἡ δ᾽ ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα ὠκείῃ στροφάλιγγι τινάσσεται ἀίσσουσα."

"Νὺξ μὲν ἔπειτ᾽ ἐπὶ γαῖαν ἄγεν κνέφας· οἱ δ᾽ ἐνὶ πόντῳ ναῦται εἰς Ἑλίκην τε καὶ ἀστέρας Ὠρίωνος ἔδρακον ἐκ νηῶν· ὕπνοιο δὲ καί τις ὁδίτης ἤδη καὶ πυλαωρὸς ἐέλδετο· καί τινα παίδων μητέρα τεθνεώτων ἀδινὸν περὶ κῶμ᾽ ἐκάλυπτεν· οὐδὲ κυνῶν ὑλακὴ ἔτ᾽ ἀνὰ πτόλιν, οὐ θρόος ἦεν σιγὴ δὲ μελαινομένην ἔχεν ὄρφνην. ἀλλὰ μάλ᾽ οὐ Μήδειαν ἐπὶ γλυκερὸς λάβεν ὕπνος. πολλὰ γὰρ Αἰσονίδαο πόθῳ μελεδήματ᾽ ἔγειρεν δειδυῖαν ταύρων κρατερὸν μένος, οἷσιν ἔμελλεν φθίσθαι ἀεικελίῃ μοίρῃ κατὰ νειὸν Ἄρηος. Πυκνὰ δέ οἱ κραδίη στηθέων ἔντοσθεν ἔθυιεν."

"[Aphrodite] set out, and after searching up and down Olympus for her boy, found him far away in the fruit-laden orchard of Zeus. With him was Ganymede, whose beauty had so captivated Zeus that he took him up to heaven to live with the immortals. The two lads, who had much in common, were playing with golden knuckle-bones. Eros, the greedy boy, was standing there with a whole handful of them clutched to his breast and a happy flush mantling his cheeks. Near by sat Ganymede, hunched up, silent and disconsolate, with only two left. He threw these for what they were worth in quick succession and was furious when Eros laughed. Of course he lost them both immediately – they joined the rest. So he went off in despair with empty hands and did not notice the goddess's approach. Aphrodite came up to her boy, took his chin in her hand, and said: 'Why this triumphant smile, you rascal?'"

"Καὶ δ᾽ ἄλλως ἔτι καὶ πρὶν ἐμοὶ μέγα φίλατ᾽ Ἰήσων ἐξότ᾽ ἐπὶ προχοῇσιν ἅλις πλήθοντος Ἀναύρου ἀνδρῶν εὐνομίης πειρωμένῃ ἀντεβόλησεν θήρης ἐξανιών· νιφετῷ δ᾽ ἐπαλύνετο πάντα οὔρεα καὶ σκοπιαὶ περιμήκεες, οἱ δὲ κατ᾽ αὐτῶν χείμαρροι καναχηδὰ κυλινδόμενοι φορέοντο. γρηὶ δέ μ᾽ εἰσαμένην ὀλοφύρατο, καί μ᾽ ἀναείρας αὐτὸς ἑοῖς ὤμοισι διὲκ προαλὲς φέρεν ὕδωρ. τῶ νύ μοι ἄλληκτον περιτίεται."

"Εἰ δ᾽ ἄγε νῦν, Ἐρατώ, παρά θ᾽ ἵστασο, καί μοι ἔνισπε, ἔνθεν ὅπως ἐς Ἰωλκὸν ἀνήγαγε κῶας Ἰήσων Μηδείης ὑπ᾽ ἔρωτι."

"Ἱρὸν δ᾽ αὖτ᾽ ἐπὶ τοῖσιν ὄρος καὶ γαῖαν ἄμειβον, ᾗ ἔνι Μοσσύνοικοι ἀν᾽ οὔρεα ναιετάουσιν μόσσυνας, καὶ δ᾽ αὐτοὶ ἐπώνυμοι ἔνθεν ἔασιν. ἀλλοίη δὲ δίκη καὶ θέσμια τοῖσι τέτυκται. ὅσσα μὲν ἀμφαδίην ῥέζειν θέμις, ἢ ἐνὶ δήμῳ, ἢ ἀγορῇ, τάδε πάντα δόμοις ἔνι μηχανόωνται· ὅσσα δ᾽ ἐνὶ μεγάροις πεπονήμεθα, κεῖνα θύραζε ἀψεγέως μέσσῃσιν ἐνὶ ῥέζουσιν ἀγυιαῖς. οὐδ᾽ εὐνῆς αἰδὼς ἐπιδήμιος, ἀλλά, σύες ὣς φορβάδες, οὐδ᾽ ἠβαιὸν ἀτυζόμενοι παρεόντας, μίσγονται χαμάδις ξυνῇ φιλότητι γυναικῶν. αὐτὰρ ἐν ὑψίστῳ βασιλεὺς μόσσυνι θαάσσων ἰθείας πολέεσσι δίκας λαοῖσι δικάζει, σχέτλιος. ἢν γάρ πού τί θεμιστεύων ἀλίτηται, μιν κεῖν᾽ ἦμαρ ἐνικλείσαντες ἔχουσιν."

"ἔνθ᾽ ἐπεὶ ἄρ κε τέκωνται ὑπ᾽ ἀνδράσι τέκνα γυναῖκες, αὐτοὶ μὲν στενάχουσιν ἐνὶ λεχέεσσι πεσόντες, κράατα δησάμενοι· ταὶ δ᾽ εὖ κομέουσιν ἐδωδῇ ἀνέρας, ἠδὲ λοετρὰ λεχώια τοῖσι πένονται."