The gifts of the Muses are violet-threaded,
rare: follow their path, my daughters, pursue
the lyre’s clear-voiced, enthralling song.
Once I, too, was in tender bud. Now old age
is wrinkling my skin and my hair is turning
from black to grey; my heart is weighted,
knees buckle where I danced like a deer.
Yet what else can I do but complain?
To be human is to grow old. They say
Eös, the rosy-fingered dawn, whispered
of love to Tithonus, whirled him away
to the very edge of the world, beguiled
by his youth and beauty. Yet still he aged,
still he withered, despite his immortal wife.
*****
† This is a new version of No.31 (58LP). See ‘The New Fragments: Texts, Translations and Retranslations’.