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