Selected Poems E-book

                            429 B.C.
                             PLATON

                            by Platon



                    Translated and Annotated 
                       by Willis Barnstone



        Copyright(C) 1962, 1967, 1988 by Willis Barnstone
Electronically Enhanced Text (c) Copyright 1996, World Library(R)



                Platon (Plato)



                  Hesperos


     You were the Morning Star among the living.
     In death, O Evening Star, you light the dead.



                  Love Poem


     My child- Star- you gaze at the stars,
     and I wish I were the firmament
     that I might watch you with many eyes.



                 The Apple


     I am an apple, and one who loves you
     tossed me before you. O yield to him,
     dear Xanthippe! Both you and I decay.



        Lesson from the Academy


     I throw this apple before you.
     Take it- if you love me purely,
     and give up your virginity.

     Yet if you will not love me
     keep the apple- and think
     how long the beauty lasts.



              Sokrates to His Lover


     As I kissed Agathon my soul selled to my lips,
     where it hangs, pitiful, hoping to leap across.



          The Famous Courtesan Lais
       Dedicates a Mirror to Aphrodite


     I Lais who laughed scornfully at Hellas,
     who kept a swarm of young lovers at my door,
     I lay my mirror before the Paphian,
     for I will not see myself as I am now,
     and cannot see myself as once I was.



              On Loving Alexis


     I barely whispered that Alexis was handsome
     and now all the loose hounds goggle at him.
     My heart, why do you show the dogs a bone?
     Soon you'll suffer, as when you lost Phaidros.



           Sokrates to Archeanassa


     My girlfriend was Archeanassa from Kolophon
     and her wrinkles are scars of a sour love.
     Pain, horror. On her first voyage she loved
     a graceful young man, and passed through fire.



                  Modesty


     Aphrodite cried a Knidos when she saw Aphrodite:
       O Zeus! Where did Praxiteles see me naked?



                  On Time


     Time brings everything; and dragging years alter
       names and forms, nature and even destiny.



                Death at Sea


     Sailors be free of disaster on land and sea,
     for you are passing by a sailor in his grave.



                  Pindar


     A delight to strangers and loved by friends,
     Pindar labored for the sweet-voiced Muses.



                  Sappho


     Some say nine Muses- but count again.
     Behold the tenth: Sappho of Lesbos.



               In the Pine Grove


     Sit below the long needles of the resonant pine
     as its branches shudder in the western winds.
     A shepherd's piping by the loquacious river
     will lay heavy sleep on your spellbound eyelids.



                      Pan


     Be still, green cliff of the Dryads. Be still,
     springs bubbling among rocks, and confused noisy
     bleating of the ewes.
     For it is Pan playing on his honey-voiced pipe.
     His supple lips race over the clustered reeds,
     while all round him
     a ring of dancers spring up on joyful feet:
     Nymphs of the Water and Nymphs of the Oak
       Forest.



                  Aristophanes


     When looking for an inviolable sanctuary,
     the Graces found the soul of Aristophanes.



        On a Doomed Settlement in Media


     We lying here in the open plains of Ekbatana
     once heard the throbbing waves of the Aigaian.
     Farewell famous Eretria,
                              once our country.
     Farewell Athens,
                      our neighbor by Euboia.
     Farewell beloved sea!



               Captivity in Persia


     We are Eretrians of Euboia, but we lie in Susa,
       and how remote, now, is our motherland!



                    On a Thief


     You look upon a shipwrecked man. The sea killed
       me but was ashamed to strip me of my last
       garment.
     It took a man's inglorious hands to rob me naked,
       a grave sacrilege for such a shabby
     gown. Let the poor wretch wear it down in Hell
       where King Minos may see him in my rags.



                 Equality of Death


     I am a sailor's tomb. Beside me lies a farmer.
       Hell is the same, under the land and sea.



          Inscription for the Tomb Of Dion,
                 Tyrant Of Syracuse


     Tears were fated for Hekabe and Ilium's women
       from the day of their birth,
     but Dion, just when you triumphed with famous
       works,
     all your wandering hopes were cast down by the
       gods.
     Now dead in your spacious city, you are honored
       by patriots-
     But I was one who loved you, O Dion!


                   THE END