Alcman > Quotes

“Now chasms and mountain summits are asleep,
and sierra slopes and ravines;
creeping things nourished by the dark earth,
hillside beasts and generations of bees,
monsters in the depths of the purple brine,
all lie asleep,
and also tribes [...] of flying birds.”
― Alkman

“The guilty man sat
among pleasant things under a hanging rock,
and from his chair he looked
and then the vision faded.”
― Alkman

“I know the tunes
of every bird,

But I, Alkman, found my words and song
in the tongue
of the strident partridge.”
― Alkman

“Experience and suffering
are the mother of wisdom.”
― Alkman

“Get him that enormous caldron on the tripod
so he can bloat his stomach with every food.
It is cool but soon will boil with good soup
which gobbler Alkman likes sparkling hot,
especially in the cold season of the solstice.
The glutton Alkman abstains from fancy dishes
but like the demos eats a plain massive meal.”
― Alkman

“It is not Aphrodite but riotous Eros who is
playing like a child,
scuttling down across the tips of meadow ferns.
Please, do not crush them.”
― Alkman

“Three seasons were created: summer
and winter and a third in autumn,
and even a fourth—the spring—
when the fields are heavy with crops
and a glutton still goes hungry.”
― Alkman

“The calm sea falls dumbly
on the shore
among a tangle of seaweed.”
― Alkman

“Women of honey-sweet voices, my limbs are weak.
They will not bear me. I wish, ah, I wish I were
a carefree kingfisher flying over flowering foam
with the halcyons—sea-blue holy birds of spring.”
― Alkman