#skolion

[lionofchaeronea]

A Drinking Song for a Tyrannicide

Anonymous, Carmina Convivalia 894 PMG (=Athenaeus Deipnosophistae 15.695b) Dearest Harmodius, indeed you are not dead! They say you’re in the Isles of the Blest, The very place where Achilles swift-of-foot Lives with excellent Diomedes, Tydeus’ son. φίλταθ᾽ Ἁρμόδι᾽, οὒ τί που τέθνηκας· νήσοις δ᾽ ἐν μακάρων σέ φασιν εἶναι, ἵνα περ ποδώκης Ἀχιλεύς, Τυδεΐδην παρ’ ἐσθλὸν Διομήδεα.

The tyrannicides Harmodius and Aristogeiton. Marble copy from Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli after a lost bronze original by Critius and Nesiotes (475 BCE). Now in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples. Photo credit: Ismoon/Wikimedia Commons.

[assesofparnassus]

Drinking Song

The gods love booze and music—      so say the ancient myths. That’s why a gallon of whiskey      diminishes by fifths.

--Andrew Sofer

[assesofparnassus]

Persicos odi adparatus

I hate Persian carpet-intricacies, dear boy, and shop-bought garlands factory-fingered on linden in-bark: leave the last roses where in sun-shot places they linger late.

To the simplicity of myrtle labour to add nothing with diligent care: not you pouring the wine plain myrtle shames, nor me under the intricate-trellised vine-shadows drinking.

--Thomas Fielding (Horace Odes I.XXXVIII)

[acertainidontknowwhat]

ὑγιαίνειν μὲν ἄριστον ἀνδρὶ θνητῶ, δεύτερον δὲ καλὸν φυὰν γενέσθαι, τὸ τρίτον δὲ πλουτεῖν ἀδόλως, καὶ τὸ τέταρτον ἡβᾶν μετὰ τῶν φίλων.

"The best thing for a mortal man is to be healthy; second best is to become beautiful; third is to grow rich without treachery; and the fourth, to be young with his friends." - A skolion recorded in the Deipnosophists by Athenaeus