Living
Maxims of Theognis: If you choose to drench
Translated by Rev. J. Banks (Bohn, 1856) · From Hesiod, Callimachus and Theognis (Bohn, 1856)
If you choose to drench me, undefiled water shall flow ever clear from the top of my head: and you shall find me in all deeds like-as refined gold, ruddy to look-on, when rubbed by touch-stone; the colour of which from above the dark rust doth not touch, nor mould, but it has its brilliancy always pure.
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: If you choose to drench.” Translated by Rev. J. Banks. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/theognis/188/.
Chicago
Megara, Theognis of. “Maxims of Theognis: If you choose to drench.” Translated by Rev. J. Banks. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/theognis/188/.
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