Death & Dying
Book IX, 390
Translated by W. R. Paton (1916–18) · From The Greek Anthology (Loeb, vol. III, 1917)
A mother who had laid on the pyre her third child after losing the others too, reviling insatiate Death, on giving birth to a fourth sorrow would not wait, nourishing uncertain hope, but threw the child alive in the fire. “I will not rear it,” she said. “What profits it? My paps, ye toil for Hades. I shall gain mourning with less trouble.”
This translation is printed as prose in its source edition.
Cite this poem
MLA
Smyrna, Menecrates of. “Book IX, 390.” Translated by W. R. Paton. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/menecrates/1/.
Chicago
Smyrna, Menecrates of. “Book IX, 390.” Translated by W. R. Paton. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/menecrates/1/.
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