Скачать или смотреть Ted Reads: Heraclitus

The ancient Greek poet, Callimachus, wrote a poem mourning the loss of his friend and fellow poet, Heraclitus. In this poem, he is saddened to hear the news, but offers some consolation that Heraclitus' poetry - called his Nightingales - survive, and will live on.

The translation of this poem written by William Johnson Cory, for a Victorian audience, is more melodramatic than the original.


They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead,
They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed.
I wept, as I remembered, how often you and I
Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky.

And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest,
A handful of grey ashes, long long ago at rest,
Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake;
For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take.