Homer’s Epigrams

Homer

Homer. Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns and Homerica. Evelyn-White, Hugh G. (Hugh Gerard), editor. London: William Heinmann; New York: The Macmillan Co., 1914.

  1. Potters, if you will give me a reward, I will sing for you.
  2. Come, then, Athena, with hand upraised[*](i.e. in protection.) over the kiln.
  3. Let the pots and all the dishes turn out well
  4. and be well fired: let them fetch good prices
  5. and be sold in plenty in the market, and plenty in the streets.
  6. Grant that the potters may get great gain and grant me so to sing to them.
  7. But if you turn shameless and make false promises,
  8. then I call together the destroyers of kilns,
  9. Shatter and Smash and Charr and Crash
  10. and Crudebake who can work this craft much mischief.
  11. Come all of you and sack the kiln-yard and the buildings: let the
  12. whole kiln be shaken up to the potter’s loud lament.
  13. As a horse’s jaw grinds, so let the kiln grind
  14. to powder all the pots inside.
  15. And you, too, daughter of the Sun, Circe the witch,
  16. come and cast cruel spells; hurt both these men and their handiwork.
  17. Let Chiron also come and bring many Centaurs—
  18. all that escaped the hands of Heracles and all that were destroyed:
  19. let them make sad havoc of the pots and overthrow the kiln,
  20. and let the potters see the mischief and be grieved;