“Έλληνές εσμεν άνδρες έσπoδωμένοι
νεκρών έχοντες ελπίδας τεθαμμένας:
άνεστράφη γάρ πάντα νύν τα πράγματα.
We Hellenes are men reduced to ashes,
Holding on to our buried hopes in the dead,
For our world has been turned upside down.
Άρα μή θανόντες το δοκείν ζώμεν μόνον,
“Έλληνες άνδρες, συμφορά πεπτωκότες,
όνειρον εικάζοντες είναι τόν βίον;
ή ζώμεν ημείς του βίου τεθνηκότος; (ΑΡ το.82)
Surely we are dead and only seem to live,
we Hellenes, having fallen into misfortune,
pretending that a dream is in fact a way of life.
Or are we alive while our way of life is dead?
(This and the three following are written on the subject of a Temple of Fortune converted into a Tavern.)
180
FORTUNE, who pliest thy trade through all our life,
whose nature is like untempered wine,
thou who art ever mixing and pouring from vessel to vessel,
now hast thou too become a tavern-keeper instead of a goddess,
a calling suitable to thy character
Things are turned topsy-turvy as I see,
and we now see Fortune in misfortune.
BY THE SAME And thou, Lady Fortune, how has evil fortune befallen thee?
How hast thou, who givest us good fortune, become unfortunate?
Learn thou, too, to support thy own changes of tide,
learn to suffer the unhappy falls which thou sendest to others.
He makes a joke about how the Olympians have now become Christian. At least they won’t be harmed now, and their statues not melted down -
Χριστιανοί γεγαώτες Όλύμπια δώματ’ έχοντες
ενθάδε ναιετάουσιν απήμονες: ουδέ γάρ αυτούς
χώνη φόλλιν άγουσα φερέσβιον εν πυρί θήσει. (AP 9.528)
The owners of Olympian palaces, having become Christian, dwell here unharmed;
for the pot that produces the life-giving follis +++(coin)+++ will not put them in the fire.