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1.88-1.89 drinking songs
1.88: Carmina Popularia, fragment 873 PMG
This anonymous skolion, according to Plutarch, celebrates the legendary love of a Chalcidian soldier and a boy who saw him die in battle during the Lelantine War (in the 8th century BCE).
You boys who have a share of the Graces and noble fathers,
Do not begrudge the company of good men during your hour of youth.
For together with courage Eros, the limb-loosener,88
Flourishes in the cities of the Chalcidians.
1.89: Carmina Popularia, fragment 893 PMG
This anonymous skolion celebrates a famous pair of lovers in Athenian history, the tyrannicides Harmodius and Aristogeiton (on whom see 2.2 and Fig. 18). The song exists in several versions; it was probably current soon after the Cleisthenic reforms of 507 BCE.
In a myrtle branch I'll carry my sword,89
Like Harmodius and Aristogeiton
When they killed the tyrant
And made Athens a land of equal laws.90 |
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