Marcus Argentarius

Marcus Argentarius (fl. c. AD 60) was a Greek epigrammatist of the Roman period.

Quotes

Anth. Pal. v. 89.

• Οὐκ ἔσθ᾽ οὗτος ἔρως, εἴ τις καλὸν εἶδος ἔχουσαν
    βούλετ᾽ ἔχειν, φρονίμοις ὄμμασι πειθόμενος:
  ἀλλ᾽ ὅστις κακόμορφον ἰδών, τετορημένος ἰοῖς
    στέργει, μαινομένης ἐκ φρενὸς αἰθόμενος,
  οὗτος ἔρως, πῦρ τοῦτο: τὰ γὰρ καλὰ πάντας ὁμοίως
    τέρπει τοὺς κρίνειν εἶδος ἐπισταμένους.
  • That is not love if one, trusting his judicious eyes, wishes to possess a beauty. But he who seeing a homely face is pierced by the arrows and loves, set alight by fury of the heart—that is love, that is fire; for beauty delights equally all who are good judges of form.
    • W. R. Paton, Greek Anthology, i, 171.
  • CALL it not love when the delighted eye
    Is lured by charms into captivity;
    But when wild fires for weak attractions waste:
    To pine for beauty is not love but taste.
    • R. Garnett, Idylls and Epigrams (1869), p. 15.

Anth. Pal. v. 113.

• Ἠράσθης πλουτῶν, Σωσίκρατες: ἀλλὰ πένης ὢν
    οὐκέτ᾽ ἐρᾷς: λιμὸς φάρμακον οἷον ἔχει.
  ἡ δὲ πάρος σε καλεῦσα μύρον καὶ τερπνὸν Ἄδωνιν
    Μηνοφίλα, νῦν σου τοὔνομα πυνθάνεται,
  “τίς πόθεν εἶς ἀνδρῶν, πόθι τοι πτόλις”; ἦ μόλις ἔγνως
    τοῦτ᾽ ἔπος, ὡς οὐδεὶς οὐδὲν ἔχοντι φίλος.
  • You fell in love, Sosicrates, when rich; now you are poor, you are in love no longer. What an admirable cure is hunger! And Menophila, who used to call you her sweety and her darling Adonis, now asks your name. “What man are you, and whence, your city where?”* You have perforce learnt the meaning of the saying, “None is the friend of him who has nothing.”
    • W. R. Paton, Greek Anthology, i, 180-83.
  • RICH, thou hadst many lovers—poor, hast none,
      So surely want extinguishes the flame,
    And she who call'd thee once her pretty one,
      And her Adonis, now inquires thy name.
    Where wast thou born Sosicrates, and where
      In what strange country can thy parents live,
    Who seem'st, by thy complaints, not yet aware
      That want's a crime, no woman can forgive?
    • ("On Female Inconstancy") W. Hayley, Posthumous Writings of W. Cowper, ii (1802), 313.
  • RICH, thou hadst many lovers; poor, hast none;
      So surely want extinguishes the flame.
    And she, who call'd thee once her pretty one,
      And her Adonis, now inquires thy name—
    “Where wast thou born, Sosicrates? and where,
      In what strange country, can thy parents live?”
    Who seem'st, by thy complaints, not yet aware,
      That want's a crime no woman can forgive.
    • W. Cowper; quoted in G. Burges, The Greek Anthology, 1854, 72.

Notes

• (*) Odyssey i. 170.