NICOSTRATUS.

[About 380 B. C.)

ONE of the sons of Aristophanes-known also by the name of Philetarus. See Clinton's F. E. xxxii., note p.

SPEUSIPPUS.

[About 347 B. C.]

A disciple of Plato, and his successor in the Academy.

EPITAPH ON PLATO.

PLATO's dead form this earthly shroud invests;
His soul among the godlike heroes rests.

ANTIPHANES.

[Born 407-Died 333 B. C.]

A NATIVE of Rhodes, and author of nearly three hundred comedies, of which the titles of one hundred and thirty have come down to us.

The Same paraphrased.

WHEN those, whom love and blood endear,
Lie cold upon the funeral bier,
How fruitless are our tears of woe,
How vain the grief that bids them flow!
Those friends lamented are not dead,
Though dark to us the road they tread;
All soon must follow to the shore,
Where they have only gone before.
Shine but to-morrow's sun, and we,
Compell'd by equal destiny,

Shall in one common home embrace,
Where they have first prepar'd our place.

DEATH.

YES, 'tis the greatest evil man can know,
The keenest sorrow in this world of woe,
The heaviest impost laid on human breath,
Which all must pay, or yield the forfeit-death.
For Death all wretches pray; but when the
prayer

Is heard, and he steps forth to ease their care,
Gods! how they tremble at his aspect rude,
And, loathing, turn! Such man's ingratitude!
And none so fondly cling to life, as he
Who hath outlived all life's felicity.

ON A FOUNTAIN,

NEAR WHICH A MURDER HAD BEEN COMMITTED.

EREWHILE my gentle streams were wont to pour
Along their banks a pure translucent tide;
But now the waves are shrunk and channel
dried,

CONTRIVANCE

FOR COOLING THE BANQUET-CHAMBER OF THE
KING OF CYPRUS.

A. You say you've passed much of your time
in Cyprus.

B.

B. All; for the war prevented my departure.
A. In what place chiefly, may I ask?
In Paphos;
Where I saw elegance in such perfection,
As almost mocks belief.
A.

Of what kind, pray you?

B. Take this for one-The monarch, when he sups,

Is fanned by living doves.

A.

You make me curious
How this is to be done; all other questions
I will put by to be resolved in this.

B. There is a juice drawn from the carpin

tree,

To which your dove instinctively is wedded
With a most loving appetite; with this
The king anoints his temples, and the odour
No sooner captivates the silly birds,
Than straight they flutter round him,-nay,
would fly

A bolder pitch, so strong a love-charm draws
them,

And perch, O horror! on his sacred crown,
If that such profanation were permitted
Of the by-standers, who with reverent care
Fright them away, till thus, retreating now
And now advancing, they keep such a coil
With their broad vans, and beat the lazy air
Into so quick a stir, that in the conflict
His royal lungs are comfortably cool'd,
And thus he sups as Paphian monarchs should.

OLD AGE

COMPARED WITH OLD WINE.

OLD age and old wine well may be compared;
Let either of them once exceed their date,
Be it ne'er so little, and the whole turns sour.

RELUCTANCE TO DIE.

An! good my master, you may sigh for Death,
And call amain upon him to release you;
But will you bid him 'Welcome' when he comes?
Not you. Old Charon has a stubborn task

And Naiads know their once-loved haunt no To tug you to his wherry, and dislodge you

more;

From your rich tables, when your hour is come.

ANAXANDRIDES.

[About 376 B. C.]

A NATIVE of Camirus in Rhodes, and author | which he had contended, to have vented his of sixty-five comedies, of which the titles of rage on every person and thing that fell in his twenty-eight only have come down to us. He is way, not excepting even his own unfortunate said to have been a man of ungovernable tem- dramas. Hence the early loss of the greater part per, and, whenever disappointed of the prize for of them.

OLD AGE.

YE gods! how easily the good man bears
His cumbrous honours of increasing years.
Age, Oh my father, is not, as they say,
A load of evils heap'd on mortal clay,
Unless impatient folly aids the curse

He whose soft soul, whose temper ever even,
Whose habits placid as a cloudless heaven,
Approve the partial blessings of the sky,
Smooths the rough road and walks untroubled
by;

Untimely wrinkles furrow not his brow,

And weak lamenting makes our sorrows worse. And graceful wave his locks of reverend snow.

EUBULUS.

[About 375 B. C.]

A NATIVE of Atarna in Lesbos, but of Athe- | bly wrote plays of both sorts. Out of one hunnian ancestry. He stood on the debatable ground dred and four comedies which he is said to have between the old and middle comedy, and proba- | written, the names of about fifty remain.

INTEMPERANCE.

THREE cups of wine a prudent man may take;
The first of these, for constitution's sake;
The second to the girl he loves the best
The third and last to lull him to his rest;
Then home to bed!-But if a fourth he pours,
That is the cup of folly and not ours;
Loud noisy talking on the fifth attends;
The sixth breeds feuds and falling-out of friends;
Seven beget blows and faces stained with gore;
Eight-and the watch-patrole breaks ope the door;

ALEXIS.

[About 356 B. C.]

A NATIVE of Thurium, and author of two hun- | nothing of him except that he was an epicure, a dred and forty-five comedies, of which the titles woman-hater, and the uncle and instructor of of one hundred and thirteen remain. We know