Living
Maxims of Theognis: May Jove grant me both
Translated by Rev. J. Banks (Bohn, 1856) · From Hesiod, Callimachus and Theognis (Bohn, 1856)
May Jove grant me both requital of my friends, who love me, and that I may be more powerful than my foes. And so should I have the character of being a god among men, if the fate of death should overtake me, when I had recompensed them. But, O Jove, accomplish me, thou Olympian god, a seasonable prayer, grant me to experience in return for ills some good also. But oh might I die, unless I find some cessation from evil cares, and if thou givest but sorrows in return for sorrows. For thus is my lot; and there does not appear to me a means of vengeance on the men who perforce have plundered and possess my property; but like a dog I have crossed a mountain-torrent, having shaken off everything in the rain-swollen stream. Whose black blood may it be mine to drink: and oh might the good Genius aid me, who would accomplish these things to my mind.
This translation is printed as prose in its source edition.
Codex Note
Literal prose translation by the Rev. J. Banks (Bohn, 1856), printed as prose: the plain-sense companion to Frere’s verse version. Banks’s hyphenated compounds are his own.
Cite this poem
MLA
Megara, Theognis of. “Maxims of Theognis: May Jove grant me both.” Translated by Rev. J. Banks. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/theognis/166/.
Chicago
Megara, Theognis of. “Maxims of Theognis: May Jove grant me both.” Translated by Rev. J. Banks. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/theognis/166/.
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