Poems by Theognis of Megara

Learning and wealth the wise and wealthy find
Inadequate to satisfy the mind--
A craving eagern...

The worldly-minded and the worldly wise,
In ignorance and arrogance, despise
All talents and ...

My brain grows dizzy, whirled and overthrown
With wine: my senses are no more my own.
The ceil...

Now that in mid career, checking his force,
The bright sun pauses in his pride and force,
Le...

I envy not these sumptuous obsequies,
The stately car, the purple canopies;
Much better plea...

While only I quaffed yonder secret spring,
'Twas clear and sweet to my imagining.
'Tis turbid ...

Pride and oppressive rule destroy'd the state
Of the Magnesians--Such was Smyrna's fate;
Smyrn...

For noble minds, the worst of miseries,
Worse than old age, or wearisome disease,
Is Povert...

You soar aloft, and over land and wave
Are borne triumphant on the wings I gave,
The swift an...

To rear a child is easy, but to teach
Morals and manners is beyond our reach;
To make the foo...

The daily marriages we make,
Where price is everything: for money's sake
Men marry; women are ...

Rash, angry words, and spoken out of season,
When passion has usurp'd the throne of reason,
...

The gods send Insolence, to lead astray
The man whom Fortune and the Fates betray,
Predestine...

Learn, Kurnus, learn to bear an easy mind;
Accommodate your humour to mankind
And human natu...

For human nature Hope remains alone
Of all the deities; the rest are flown.
Faith is departed; ...