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Alkman: A Hymn to Artemis of the Strict Observance

For a Chorus of Spartan Girls Dressed as DovesTo Sing at Dawn on the Feast of the Plow

Translation copyright 1995 Guy Davenport; all rights reserved.

Republished from 7 Greeks (New Directions, 1995) with permission

Version I

1.

[ ]

[ ]

[ ]

[ ]

[ ]

[ ]

[ ]

[ ] Polydeukes.

I cannot find Lykaithos among the dead

Enarsphoros and with him the fast runner Thebros

[ ] the violent[ ] the helmeted

And Euteikhes and the lord of lands Areios

[ ] mightiest of men half gods.

2.

[ ] the hunter

[ ] the great and Eurytos

[ ] blind tumult

[ ] most brave

[ ] we shall [not] go across[ ] Destiny and Providence

[ ] the oldest of all the gods

[ ] force goes barefoot

A wild heart must not crowd divinity

Nor rush upon Aphrodite hot to marry

[ ] Wanassa, nor any

[ ] Porkos' daughter

[ ] Graces from the house of Zeus

[ ] eyes all love in their looking

3.

[ ] Fate

[ ] to friends

[ ] gave gifts

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[ ]

[ ] destroyed youth

[ ]

[ ]

[ ] left, the one by an arrow

[ ] marble millstone

[ ] to Hades

[ ] they

[ ] are unforgotten

Who suffered the evil their own hands made.

4.

And there is the vengeance of the gods.

He is a happy man who can weave his days,

No trouble upon the loom.

And I, I sing of Agido,

Of her light. She is like the sun

To which she makes our prayers,The witness of its radiance.

Yet I can neither praise her nor blame her

Till I have sung of another,

Sung of our choirmaster,

Who stands among us as in a pasture

One splendid stallion

Paws the meadow, a champion racer,

A horse that runs in dreams.

5.

Imagine her if you can. Her hair,

As gold as a Venetian mane,

Flowers around her silver eyes.

What can I say to make you see?

She is Hagesikhora and

Agido, almost, almost as beautiful,

Is a Kolaxaian filly running behind her

In the races at Ibeno.

A Pleiades of doves they are

Contending at dawn before the altar of Artemis

For the honor of offering the sacred plowWhich we have brought to the goddess.

They are the white star Sirius rising

In the honey and spice of a summer night.

6.

Neither abundance of purple

Can defend us with its glory,

Nor golden snakes engraved with eyes and scales,

Nor bonnets from Lydia and brooches,

Nor our sweet violet eyes.Nor can Nanno's hair, Areta's goddess face,

Thylakis nor Klesithera,

Nor Ainesimbrota to whom we cry

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