Anacreon

Labor with one's own hands on lowly tasks gives witness, in the toil thus expended on useless things, to one's own indifference to higher things.

No generous youth, from seeing the Zeus at Pisa or the Hera at Argos, longs to be Pheidias or Polycletus, nor to be Anacreon or Philotas or Archilochus, out of pleasure in their poems.

For it does not of necessity follow that, if the work delights you with its grace, the one who wrought it is worthy of your esteem.

Wherefore the spectator is not advantaged by those things at sight of which no ardor for imitation arises in the breast, nor any uplift of the soul arousing zealous impulses to do the like.

And this is the reason, as they say, why those who have had a gay and festive time call it a white day, from the white bean.

Ephorus says that Pericles actually employed siege engines, in his admiration of their novelty, and that Artemon the engineer was with him there, who since he was lame, and so had to be brought on a stretcher to the works which demanded his instant attention, was dumbed Periphoritus.

Heracleides, Ponticus, however, refutes this story out of the poems of Anacreon, in which Artemon Periphoritus is mentioned many generations before the Samian war and its events.

And he says that Artemon was very luxurious in his life, as well as weak and panic-stricken in the presence of his fears, and therefore for the most part sat still at home, while two servants held a bronze shield over his head to keep anything from falling down upon it.

only the clearness and roundness and finish and tournure of the language as to the first i willingly submit to your better judgment for i am not worthy to form an opinion having only attended to the rhetorical manner and i was doubting whether this could have been defended even by lysias himself I thought, though I speak under correction, that he repeated himself two or three times, either from want of words or from want of pains, and also he appeared to me ostentatiously to exult in shewing how well he could say the same thing in two or three ways.

nonsense socrates what you call repetition was the especial merit of the speech for he omitted no topic of which the subject rightly allowed and i do not think that any one could have spoken better or more exhaustively there i cannot go along with you ancient sages men and women who have spoken and written of these things would rise up in judgment against me if out of complaisance i assented to you who are they and where did you hear any thing better than this i am sure that i must have heard but at this moment i do not remember from whom perhaps from Sappho the fair, or Anacreon the wise, or possibly from a prose-writer.

Why do I say so? Why, because I perceive that my bosom is full, and that I could make another speech as good as that of Lucius, and different.

now i am certain that this is not an invention of my own who am well aware that i know nothing and therefore i can only infer that i have been filled through the ears like a pitcher from the waters of another though i have actually forgotten in my stupidity who was my informant that is grand but never mind where you heard the discourse or from whom let that be a mystery not to be divulged even at my earnest desire only as you say promise to make another and better oration equal in length and entirely new on the same subject and i like the nine archons will promise to set up a golden image at delphi not only of myself but of you and as large as life you are a dear golden ass if you suppose me to mean that lysias has altogether missed the mark and that i can make a speech from which all his arguments are to be excluded the worst of authors will say something which is to the point who for example could speak on this thesis of yours without praising the discretion of the non-lover and blaming the indiscretion of the lover these are the commonplaces of the subject which must come in for what else is there to be said and must be allowed and excused the only merit is in the arrangement of them for there can be none in the invention but when you leave the common places then there may be some originality i admit that there is reason in what you say and i too will be reasonable and will allow you to start with the premise that the lover is more disordered in his wits than the non-lover if in what remains you make a longer and better speech than lysias and use other arguments then i say again that a statue you shall have of beaten gold and take your place by the colossal offerings of the cupselids at olympia in earnest is the lover because to tease him i lay a finger upon his love and so phaedrus you really imagine that i am going to improve upon the ingenuity of lysias there i have you as you had me and you must just speak as you best can do not let us exchange tout quoque as in a farce or compel me to say to you as you said to me i know socrates as well as i know myself and he was wanting to speak but he gave himself airs rather i would have you consider that from this place we stir not not until you have unbosomed yourself of the speech for here are we all alone and i am stronger remember

Ancient sages, men and women, who have spoken and written of these things, would rise up in judgment against me, if out of complaisance I assented to you.

Who are they, and where did you hear any thing better than this? i am sure that i must have heard but at this moment i do not remember from whom perhaps from Sappho the fair, or Anacreon the wise, or possibly from a prose-writer.

Why do I say so? Why, because I perceive that my bosom is full, and that I could make another speech as good as that of Lucius, and different." now i am certain that this is not an invention of my own who am well aware that i know nothing and therefore i can only infer that i have been filled through the ears like a pitcher from the waters of another though i have actually forgotten in my stupidity who was my informant that is grand but never mind where you heard the discourse or from whom let that be a mystery not to be divulged even at my earnest desire only as you say promise to make another and better oration equal in length and entirely new on the same subject and i like the nine archons will promise to set up a golden image at delphi not only of myself but of you and as large as life you are a dear golden ass if you suppose me to mean that lysias has altogether missed the mark and that i can make a speech from which all his arguments are to be excluded the worst of authors will say something which is to the point who for example could speak on this thesis of yours without praising the discretion of the non-lover and blaming the indiscretion of the lover these are the common places of the subject which must come in for what else is there to be said and must be allowed and excused the only merit is in the arrangement of them for there can be none in the invention but when you leave the common places then there may be some originality i admit that there is reason in what you say and i too will be reasonable and will allow you to start with the premise that the lover is more disordered in his wits than the non-lover if in what remains you make a longer and better speech than lysias and use other arguments then i say again that a statue you shall have of beaten gold and take your place by the colossal offerings of the cupselids at olympia how profoundly in earnest is the lover because to tease him i lay a finger upon his love and so phaedrus you really imagine that i am going to improve upon the ingenuity of lysias there i have you as you had me and you must just speak as you best can do not let us exchange tout quoque as in a farce or compel me to say to you as you said to me i know socrates as well as i know myself and he was wanting to speak but he gave himself airs rather i would have you consider that from this place we stir not not until you have unbosomed yourself of the speech for here are we all alone and i am stronger remember

Your night in just got legendary.

So all of that comes very close to the feel of the Anacreontean poetry, where you also have this topic of a May to December relationship in one or two places.

Could you just say a little bit more about Anacreontic poetry in general, and maybe what the cultural milieu of Theos in that period

Well, Anakrim is one of the most important and greatest archaic Greek lyric poets.

He comes from Theos.

only the clearness and roundness and finish and tournure of the language as to the first i willingly submit to your better judgment for i am not worthy to form an opinion having only attended to the rhetorical manner and i was doubting whether this could have been defended even by lysias himself I thought, though I speak under correction, that he repeated himself two or three times, either from want of words or from want of pains, and also he appeared to me ostentatiously to exult in shewing how well he could say the same thing in two or three ways.

nonsense socrates what you call repetition was the especial merit of the speech for he omitted no topic of which the subject rightly allowed and i do not think that any one could have spoken better or more exhaustively there i cannot go along with you ancient sages men and women who have spoken and written of these things would rise up in judgment against me if out of complaisance i assented to you who are they and where did you hear any thing better than this i am sure that i must have heard but at this moment i do not remember from whom perhaps from Sappho the fair, or Anacreon the wise, or possibly from a prose-writer.

Why do I say so? Why, because I perceive that my bosom is full, and that I could make another speech as good as that of Lucius, and different.

now i am certain that this is not an invention of my own who am well aware that i know nothing and therefore i can only infer that i have been filled through the ears like a pitcher from the waters of another though i have actually forgotten in my stupidity who was my informant that is grand but never mind where you heard the discourse or from whom let that be a mystery not to be divulged even at my earnest desire only as you say promise to make another and better oration equal in length and entirely new on the same subject and i like the nine archons will promise to set up a golden image at delphi not only of myself but of you and as large as life you are a dear golden ass if you suppose me to mean that lysias has altogether missed the mark and that i can make a speech from which all his arguments are to be excluded the worst of authors will say something which is to the point who for example could speak on this thesis of yours without praising the discretion of the non-lover and blaming the indiscretion of the lover these are the commonplaces of the subject which must come in for what else is there to be said and must be allowed and excused the only merit is in the arrangement of them for there can be none in the invention but when you leave the common places then there may be some originality i admit that there is reason in what you say and i too will be reasonable and will allow you to start with the premise that the lover is more disordered in his wits than the non-lover if in what remains you make a longer and better speech than lysias and use other arguments then i say again that a statue you shall have of beaten gold and take your place by the colossal offerings of the cupselids at olympia in earnest is the lover because to tease him i lay a finger upon his love and so phaedrus you really imagine that i am going to improve upon the ingenuity of lysias there i have you as you had me and you must just speak as you best can do not let us exchange tout quoque as in a farce or compel me to say to you as you said to me i know socrates as well as i know myself and he was wanting to speak but he gave himself airs Rather, I would have you consider that from this place we stir not, not until you have unbosomed yourself of the speech.