“A tilting sea and thundering winds tossed the carved chest and filled Danaë with terror; she cried and placed her arm lovingly around Perseus saying: 'My child, I suffer and yet your heart is calm; you sleep profoundly in the blue dark of night and shine in our gloomy bronze-ribbed boat. Don't think of the heaving saltwave that seeps in through airholes and drenches your hair, nor of the clamoring gale; but lying in our seaviolet blanket keep your lovely body close to mine. If you knew the horror of our plight, your gentle ears would hear my words. But sleep, my son, and let the ocean sleep and our great troubles end. I ask you, father Zeus, rescue us from our fate; and should my words seem too severe, I beg you please remember where we are, and forgive my prayer.” Willis BarnstonePerseusSimonidesDanaë Author:Simonides
“One thousand years, ten thousand years are but a tiny dot, the smallest segment of a point, an invisible hair.” Willis BarnstoneSimonides Author:Simonides
“With mindless bravura Ares washed his long sleek arrowheads in the crimson waters within their chests, and dust now lies not on the living flesh of javeliners, but on the vivid remnants of lifeless bodies.” Willis BarnstoneSimonides Author:Simonides
“All these victors from the Tyrrhenian wars we're on their way to Apollo at Delph with their first plunder when they found, their grave on one night, in one ship, in one deep sea.” Willis BarnstoneSimonides Author:Simonides
“All these victors from the Tyrrhenian wars were on their way to Apollo at Delphi with their first plunder when they found, their grave on one night, in one ship, in one deep sea.” Willis BarnstoneSimonides Author:Simonides
“If you are a simple mortal, do not speak of tomorrow or how long this man may be among the happy, for change comes suddenly like the shifting flight of a dragonfly.” Willis BarnstoneSimonides Author:Simonides
“Without the gods a man or city can do nothing. Only God knows everything, and man suffers for what he does. There is no evil man may not expect, and soon God wipes away the few things he may have done.” Willis BarnstoneSimonides Author:Simonides
“I who lie here, Brotachos of Gortyn, was born in Krete, and I did not come here for death but weighty business.” Willis BarnstoneSimonides Author:Simonides
“When her fate rested on the razor's edge, we gave away our lives to save all Greece.” Willis BarnstoneEpitaphSimonides Author:Simonides
“This is the tomb of the famous Megistias, slain by the Persians near the Spercheios River, a seer who even when aware that death was near would not desert his Spartan kings.” Willis BarnstoneSimonides Author:Simonides
“Through their extraordinary courage, the wide farmlands of Tegea have not shot fire and smoke into the sky. For they made their choice to leave their children in a country green and sweet with freedom, and died for this in the wild ranks of battle.” Willis BarnstoneSimonides Author:Simonides