Humanitext Reader

Theocritus · Epigrams §9.1-9.4

Epitaph for Orthon of Syracuse Who Died Drunk in Winter

Passage 9 of 25 · Greek

Summary

Orthon of Syracuse warns a stranger never to wander drunk on a winter night, revealing that he himself suffered such a fate and now lies buried in a foreign land.

§9.1ξεῖνε, Συρακόσιός τοι ἀνὴρ τόδʼ ἐφίεται Ὄρθων· §9.2χειμερίας μεθύων μηδαμὰ νυκτὸς ἴοις.
Stranger, Orthon, a man of Syracuse, charges you with this: never to go on your way drunk in a wintry night.
§9.3καὶ γὰρ ἐγὼ τοιοῦτον ἔχω πότμον· ἀντὶ δὲ πολλᾶς §9.4πατρίδος ὀθνείαν κεῖμαι ἐφεσσάμενος.
For I too met with such a fate; and instead of my spacious homeland, I lie here clothed in foreign earth.

Notes

  1. §9.2χειμερίας ... νυκτός — Genitive of time within which: "during a wintry night."
  2. §9.2ἴοις — The second person singular present optative of εἶμι. Used with the negative μηδαμά to express a mild prohibition or warning ("may you never go").
  3. §9.3πολλᾶς — Doric dialectal form of πολλῆς. Here it modifies πατρίδος in the sense of "spacious" or "great" rather than "many."
  4. §9.4ὀθνείαν ... ἐφεσσάμενος — The participle ἐφεσσάμενος is the aorist middle participle of ἐφέννυμι ("to clothe oneself in"). Its direct object ὀθνείαν ("foreign") is a feminine accusative adjective with an implied noun like γῆν ("earth"), meaning "having clothed myself in foreign earth" (i.e., being buried in a foreign land).

Cite this passage

Theocritus, Epigrams §9.1-9.4. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0005.tlg002.humanitext-grc2:9.1-9.4

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