Agathias > Quotes

“Calligenes the farmer, having sowed his plot of land,
went to the home of Aristophanes the astrologer,
begged to know if his harvest would be propitious
and his crop of wheat really abundant.
Aristophanes laid out his counters on a board,
curled his fingers and said to Calligenes:
'If your piece of land recieves it's fill of rain
without producing thickets of blooming brushwood,
and no ice breaks the furrows, no hail
grazes on the tender tips of sprouting wheat,
or herd of hungry deer, and no other offense
from the air or the earth comes your way,
I prophesy that you'll have a great harvest
and that you'll reap your wheat abundantly.
Only watch out for locusts!”
― Agathias Scholasticus

“Are you too hurting, Filinna? You too sick,
wasting away with sleepless eyes? Or
is your sleep the sweetest possible, no thought
of me, no reckoning, no consideration?
The same thing will strike you some day, miserable girl,
and I'll watch the tears go tumbling down your cheeks.
The goddess of love, always malicious, has one virtue:
she really hates a pompous prude.”
― Agathias Scholasticus