Musaeus Grammaticus

And now she took in Love's sweet-bitter sting.

Musaeus Grammaticus (Ancient Greek: Μουσαῖος; fl. c. early 6th century AD) was a Geek poet and grammarian of late antiquity.

Quotes

Hero and Leander

• Εἰπέ, θεά, κρυφίων ἐπιμάρτυρα λύχνον ἐρώτων
  καὶ νύχιον πλωτῆρα θαλασσοπόρων ὑμεναίων
  καὶ γάμον ἀχλυόεντα, τὸν οὐκ ἴδεν ἄφθιτος Ἠώς,
  καὶ Σηστὸν καὶ Ἄβυδον, ὅπῃ γάμον ἔννυχον Ἡροῦς.
  • L. 1
    • Goddess, relate the witness-bearing light
      Of Loves, that would not bear a human sight;
      The Sea-man that transported marriages,
      Shipt in the night, his bosom plowing th' seas;
      The love-joys that in gloomy clouds did fly,
      The clear beams of th' immortal Morning's eye;
      Abydos and fair Sestus, where I hear
      The night-hid nuptials of fair Hero were.
      • Tr. George Chapman (1616)
    • Sing, Muse, the conscious torch, whose nightly flame,
      (The shining signal of a brighter dame,
      Thro' trackless waves the bold Leander led,
      To taste the dang'rous joys of Hero's bed:
      Sing the stol'n bliss in gloomy shades conceal'd,
      And never to the blushing morn reveal'd.
      • Tr. Laurence Eusden (1750)
    • Queen of the plaintive voice, the Torch resound
      Witness of secret Loves, the Lover sing
      On midnight billows borne to rapt'rous joys,
      Veil'd from Aurora's eye; the realms relate,
      By Ocean sever'd, join'd by Love.
      • Tr. Edward Burnaby Greene (1773)

• Κάλλος γὰρ περίπυστον ἀμωμήτοιο γυναικὸς
  ὀξύτερον μερόπεσσι πέλει πτερόεντος ὀιστοῦ·
  ὀφθαλμὸς δ᾿ ὁδός ἐστιν.
  • L. 92
    • The virtuous beauty of a spotless dame
      Sharper to men is than the swiftest shaft;
      His eye the way by which his heart is caught.
      • Tr. Chapman (1616)
    • Lovely the Virgin-frame, but lovelier far
      Her native innocence, whose dart is wing'd
      With force resistless, through the roving eye
      It strikes into the heart.
      • Tr. Greene (1773)

• Παρθενικῆς δὲ
  πειθομένης ποτὶ λέκτρον ὑπόσχεσίς ἐστι σιωπή.
  • L. 164
    • Of a persuaded virgin, to her bed
      Promise is most given when the least is said.
      • Tr. Chapman (1616)
    • A yielding maid by ev'ry sign was meant;
      For dumb denying is a sure consent.
      • Tr. Eusden (1750)

• Ἤδη καὶ γλυκύπικρον ἐδέξατο κέντρον Ἐρώτων.
  • L. 166
    • And now she took in Love's sweet-bitter sting.
      • Tr. Chapman (1616)

See also

• Christopher Marlowe

External links

• C. A. Trypanis, Thomas Gelzer and Cedric Whitman (eds.) Callimachus: Aetia, Iambi, Hecale and Other Fragments · Musaeus: Hero and Leander, LCL 421 (1973) — Greek text used above