Ancient Greek & Roman
Callimachus
Callimachus of Cyrene was a Greek poet and scholar who worked at the Library of Alexandria under the early Ptolemies. He wrote on a vast range of subjects, and his catalogue of the library’s holdings, the Pinakes, was a founding work of bibliography.
Of his poetry six hymns and a body of epigrams survive complete. This selection gives the six Hymns, to Zeus, Apollo, Artemis, Delos, Pallas and Demeter, in A. W. Mair’s prose translation for the Loeb Classical Library (1921).
Poems (219)
- Hymn I: To Zeus
- Hymn II: To Apollo
- Hymn III: To Artemis
- Hymn IV: To Delos
- Hymn V: On the Bath of Pallas
- Hymn VI: To Demeter
- Book V, 6
- Book V, 23
- Book V, 146
- Book VI, 121
- Book VI, 146
- Book VI, 147
- Book VI, 148
- Book VI, 149
- Book VI, 150
- Book VI, 301
- Book VI, 310
- Book VI, 311
- Book VI, 347
- Book VI, 351
- Book VII, 80: On Heraclitus of Halicarnassus, the Elegiac Poet
- Book VII, 89: On Pittacus (not Sepulchral)
- Book VII, 271
- Book VII, 272
- Book VII, 277
- Book VII, 317
- Book VII, 318
- Book VII, 344b
- Book VII, 415
- Book VII, 447
- Book VII, 451
- Book VII, 453
- Book VII, 454
- Book VII, 458
- Book VII, 459
- Book VII, 460
- Book VII, 471
- Book VII, 517
- Book VII, 518
- Book VII, 519
- Book VII, 520
- Book VII, 521
- Book VII, 522
- Book VII, 523
- Book VII, 524
- Book VII, 525
- Book VII, 725
- Book VII, 728
- Book IX, 336
- Book IX, 507: On the Phaenomena of Aratus
- Book IX, 565
- Book IX, 566
- Book XI, 362
- Book XII, 43
- Book XII, 51
- Book XII, 71
- Book XII, 73
- Book XII, 102
- Book XII, 118
- Book XII, 134
- Book XII, 139
- Book XII, 148
- Book XII, 149
- Book XII, 150
- Book XII, 230
- Book XIII, 7
- Book XIII, 9
- Book XIII, 10
- Book XIII, 24
- Book XIII, 25
- Love's Sympathy (Mackail)
- Time's Revenge (Mackail)
- To the Twin Brethren (Mackail)
- To the God of Canopus (Mackail)
- On the Same (Mackail)
- On a Boy of Twelve (Mackail)
- On a Girl (Mackail)
- On Charidas of Cyrene (Mackail)
- On Saon of Acanthus (Mackail)
- In the Classroom (Mackail)
- Cleombrotus of Ambracia (Mackail)
- The Dead Scholar (Mackail)
- Alexandrianism (Mackail)
- Motherhood (Mackail)
- Past Peril (Mackail)
- Contra Mundum (Mackail)
- Empty Hands (Mackail)
- An Empty Tomb (Mackail)
- Cast Up by the Sea
- Hymn to Jupiter
- Hymn to Apollo
- Hymn to Diana
- Hymn to Delos
- Hymn to the Bath of Pallas
- Hymn to Ceres
- Epigram 1: A youth in haste to Mitylene came
- Epigram 2: I hear, O friend, the fatal news
- Epigram 3: I, Timon, hated human race
- Epigram 4: Say, Timon, sunk in night, abhorr’st thou now
- Epigram 5: A sacred shell, Zephyritis divine
- Epigram 6: A Samian gave me birth, the sacred bard
- Epigram 7: A pious youth approaching where
- Epigram 8: No wreaths of ivy Theextetus crown
- Epigram 9: The fewest words are still exprest
- Epigram 10: Beneath this tomb, in sacred sleep
- Epigram 11: Say, dost thou seek Timarchus now
- Epigram 12: Here Theris lies in endless rest
- Epigram 13: When you, my friend, to Cyzicus repair
- Epigram 14: Stranger. Where’s Charidas buried? I speak without fear.
- Epigram 15: Who knows if any power will give
- Epigram 16: By all the gods, I ne’er had known
- Epigram 17: The Samian virgins us’d often to play
- Epigram 18: Had never vessel cross’d the main
- Epigram 19: Now on the land could Lycus die
- Epigram 20: Nicoteles lies buried here
- Epigram 21: This morning we beheld with streaming eyes
- Epigram 22: Whoe’er with hallow’d feet approaches near
- Epigram 23: O’er Cretan hills a virgin chane’d to stray
- Epigram 24: Cleombrotus, high on a rock
- Epigram 25: Small is my size, and I must grace
- Epigram 26: Fond Callignotus sigh’d and swore
- Epigram 27: Short was my life, and Micylus my name
- Epigram 28: This book is sure exactly wrote
- Epigram 29: I hate the bard who strolls along
- Epigram 30: Pour the wine, and drink it up
- Epigram 31: Cleonicus, unhappy man
- Epigram 32: The huntsman o’er the hills pursues
- Epigram 33: That I am poor is known to me
- Epigram 34: Plac’d here by Phileratis’ hand
- Epigram 35: A stranger cut me from a tree
- Epigram 36: Approach this tomb with silent feet
- Epigram 37: Twice Erasixen fill’d his cup
- Epigram 38: Menætas, tir’d with war’s alarms
- Epigram 39: Silena, changeful as the sea
- Epigram 40: Acrisius of Pelasgian race
- Epigram 41: Whoever shall to this tomb draw nigh
- Epigram 42: I breathe in sighs; for half my soul
- Epigram 43: If sober, and inclin’d to sport
- Epigram 44: Behold our host by love depriv’d of rest
- Epigram 45: Embrace me not; though streams in silence fall
- Epigram 46: When Archestrata’s charms I first survey’d
- Epigram 47: July the twentieth lately past
- Epigram 48: Thus Giant Polyphemus sweetly sung
- Epigram 49: Loud shouts from th’ Acamantian choir proclaim
- Epigram 50: Escap’d the horrors of a watery grave
- Epigram 51: As youthful Sinus gave me to the Nine
- Epigram 52: Stranger, wouldst thou my story know?
- Epigram 53: Thus Micus chose to reimburse
- Epigram 54: Four are the Graces now; and all may see
- Epigram 55: Theocritus looks black, ’tis true
- Epigram 56: Lucina, grant thy aid again
- Epigram 57: What for Demodice was ow’d
- Epigram 58: An ever-living lamp I shine
- Epigram 59: Evænetus declar’d that he
- Epigram 60: Fair Æschylis, from Thale sprung
- Epigram I (Mair)
- Epigram II (Mair)
- Epigram III (Mair)
- Epigram IV (Mair)
- Epigram V (Mair)
- Epigram VI (Mair)
- Epigram VII (Mair)
- Epigram VIII (Mair)
- Epigram IX (Mair)
- Epigram X (Mair)
- Epigram XI (Mair)
- Epigram XII (Mair)
- Epigram XIII (Mair)
- Epigram XIV (Mair)
- Epigram XV (Mair)
- Epigram XVI (Mair)
- Epigram XVII (Mair)
- Epigram XVIII (Mair)
- Epigram XIX (Mair)
- Epigram XX (Mair)
- Epigram XXI (Mair)
- Epigram XXII (Mair)
- Epigram XXIII (Mair)
- Epigram XXIV (Mair)
- Epigram XXV (Mair)
- Epigram XXVI (Mair)
- Epigram XXVII (Mair)
- Epigram XXVIII (Mair)
- Epigram XXIX (Mair)
- Epigram XXX (Mair)
- Epigram XXXI (Mair)
- Epigram XXXII (Mair)
- Epigram XXXIII (Mair)
- Epigram XXXIV (Mair)
- Epigram XXXV (Mair)
- Epigram XXXVI (Mair)
- Epigram XXXVII (Mair)
- Epigram XXXVIII (Mair)
- Epigram XXXIX (Mair)
- Epigram XL (Mair)
- Epigram XLI (Mair)
- Epigram XLII (Mair)
- Epigram XLIII (Mair)
- Epigram XLIV (Mair)
- Epigram XLV (Mair)
- Epigram XLVI (Mair)
- Epigram XLVII (Mair)
- Epigram XLVIII (Mair)
- Epigram XLIX (Mair)
- Epigram L (Mair)
- Epigram LI (Mair)
- Epigram LII (Mair)
- Epigram LIII (Mair)
- Epigram LIV (Mair)
- Epigram LV (Mair)
- Epigram LVI (Mair)
- Epigram LVII (Mair)
- Epigram LVIII (Mair)
- Epigram LIX (Mair)
- Epigram LX (Mair)
- Epigram LXI (Mair)
- Epigram LXII (Mair)
- Epigram LXIII (Mair)
- Epigram LXIV (Mair)