Εἶπέ τις, Ἡράκλειτε

Εἶπέ τις, Ἡράκλειτε incipit epigramma versibus sex a Callimacho medio saeculo III a.C.n. scripta de morte amici Heracliti Halicarnassensis. Carmen inter vitas philosophorum a Diogene Laertio confectas servatur: vita enim Heracliti philosophi perscripta, auctor alios Heraclitos quattuor enumerat, inter quos Callimachi amicum. Textus ita legitur:

εἶπέ τις Ἡράκλειτε τεὸν μόρον, ἐς δέ με δάκρυ
ἤγαγεν, ἐμνήσθην δ᾽ ὁσσάκις ἀμφότεροι
ἥλιον ἐν λέσχηι κατεδύσαμεν: ἀλ̀λὰ σὺ μέν που
ξεῖν᾽ 'Αλικαρνησεῦ τετράπαλαι σποδιή:
αἱ δὲ τεαὶ ζώουσιν ἀηδόνες, ἧισιν ὁ πάντων
ἁρπακτὴς Ἀίδης οὐκ ἐπὶ χεῖρα βαλεῖ.

Versio Latina Ambrosii, ab Henrico Gustavo Huebnero castigata, iuxta textum Graecum saeculo XIX divulgata est:

Heraclite, tuum quidam mihi funera dixit,

et subito lacrimis immaduere genae,

quum memini longos quoties consumpsimus ambo

soles, miscentes seria multa iocis.

Pulvis at es tenuis nunc hospes: sed tua Musa

vivit, Plutonis nec timet illa manus.

Versio Anglica

Versionem Anglicam versibus octo composuit inter annos fere 1845/1858 Gulielmus Cory, magister scholarum Etonensis. Ita legitur:

They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead,

They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed.

I wept as I remember'd how often you and I

Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky.

And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest,

A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest,

Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake;

For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take.

Hoc carmen in mythistoria Antonii Powell A Question of Upbringing (1951: p. 43) citatur. Discipulis Etonensibus cum magistro Le Bas de poësi neoclassica saeculi XIX colloquentibus, Andrea Lang iam citato sed et Anschario Wilde (qui eis annis condemnatus est), puer Charles Stringham verbis tribus "And then Heraclitus —" cursum disputationis redirigit:

The words had an instantaneous effect. Le Bas's face cleared at once, and he broke in with more reverberance even than before:

Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake;

For Death he taketh all away, but them he cannot take.

I think you are right, Stringham. Good. Very good. In fact, alpha plus. It has all the same note of nineteenth-century nostalgia for a classical past largely of their own imagining.

Bibliographia

• "Heracleitus (3)" in Gulielmus Smith (1844–1849). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology [📖]. Londinii: Taylor & Walton

Nexus externi

• Textus Graecus apud "Perseus"
• Textus Graecus cum version Latina; editio alia
• Textus versionis Anglicae Gulielmi Cory
• De origine versionis Anglicae

De hac re nexus intervici usque adhuc absunt. Adde, si reppereris.