Heraclitus
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.
Commentary
A poem that has ‘classic’ written all over it - the language, the images capture the feel of the original perfectly. There isn’t a whole lot I can say about it - the poem and the original should both speak for themselves.
Notes
Heraclitus: Greek philosopher (ca. 540-ca. 400 BC), pre-Socratic founder
of an Ionian school, whose principal tenet was change in all things. Cory translates an epigram of Callimachus, which in A. W. Mair’s translation of the Greek is as follows: “One told me, Heracleitus, of thy death and brought me to tears, and I remembered how often we two in talking put the sun to rest. Thou, methinks, Halicarnasian friend, art ashes long and long ago; but thy nightingales live still, whereon Hades, snatcher of all things, shall not lay his hand”
Carian: of Caria, part of southwest Asia Minor.
– From http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/cory1.html
And from Unauthorized Versions
Heraclitus’s poems appear to have been known as ‘nightingales’, and Lempriere explains that he was ‘remarkable for the elegance of his style’.
Biographical Note
Educator (his tenure as Assistant Master of Eton College lasted from 1845 to 1872) and author of A Guide to Modern British History (New York: Holt, 1880-82), William Johnson became William Johnson Cory after his retirement. A brief biography appears in the third edition of Ionica, his translation of classical poems, as edited by Arthur C. Benson
– http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/authors/cory.html#notes
Parodies:
Two, this time, both titled ‘They Told Me, Heraclitus’. The first is a couplet that neatly deflates the poem’s slightly dramatic atmosphere:
They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead. But I just wondered who you were, and what it was you said.
– Guy Hanlon
The second is perhaps not as good overall, but it contains one of the nicest opening couplets I’ve seen in a parody…
They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead. I never knew your proper name was Heraclitus, Fred. You made out you were working-class, you talked with adenoids, And so it was a shock to learn you were a name at Lloyd’s
And now I’m full of doubts about the others at the squat. Are they a load of Yuppies, or Thatcherites, or what? Is Special Branch among us, camoflauged with crabs and fleas? Is Kev a poncing Xenophon? Darren Thucydides?
– Brian Fore
squat: a house occupied by squatters. poncing: effeminate
I’ve never been able to look at a Fred in quite the same way since <g>.
— Martin
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From the Wondering Minstrels mailing list, 1999–2008.
Christopher Martin · 1 May 2000
I think - indeed I’m sure - that the dead poet Heraclitus of the verse is not Heraclitus the philosopher. (Can’t get to the library to check this right now.) There were really rather few names to go round among too many Greeks, and they tended to overlap rather. I would guess that the date of the poem is probably well-known or well-guessable at, probably around 200 B.C. which makes it two or three hundred years after the philosopher’s death, and it’s probably also known, or well-guessed-at that it was written in Alexandria - which hadn’t even been founded until about 325 - more than a hundred and fifty years after the philosopher’s death. Even the dialect is probably wrong. Also the philosopher was from Ephesus (now Selcuk, close to Izmir on the Western coast of Turkey), not from Halicarnassus in Caria, where the dead poet was from.
Also the poem or poems of Heraclitus the philosopher, which we have fragments of, are not the sort to get called “nightingales”. If you’re interested, I’ll look all this up when I can. The Heraclitus epitaph is presumably in the Greek anthology, and probably has a name attached to it. Some of the “nightingales” of Heraclitus the dead poet may be there as well. That said, I was very glad to see this in the Wondering Minstrels, and the parodies were exquisite. Good luck to the whole project.
I notice that we’re neighbours, more or less. There must be something in the Houston air that encourages good taste in poetry. I’d guess that the Rice library is stronger in Ancient Greek poetry than ours is, so you might be able to check the reference more quickly than I can.
Christopher Martin
Edward Little · 30 September 2002
Yes. The Heraclitus of this poem is Heraclitus of Halicarnassus, and Cory’s excellent poem seems to be a translation of Callimachus’ epitaph for him. The editor of the Loeb Classical Library edition and translation of Diogenes Laertius’ Lives of Eminent Philosophers, uses Cory’s translation, with proper ascription, etc. See Diogenes Laertius, vol. 2, pages 424-25. Also info in Der Kleine Pauly, vol. 2, p. 11048
Nick Fitzsimons · 7 May 2003
Another parody, from Evelyn Waugh’s satire on Californian funerary customs, “The Loved One”:
They told me, Francis Hinsley, they told me you were hung With red protruding eye-balls and black protruding tongue; I wept as I remembered how often you and I
Had laughed about Los Angeles and now ‘tis here you’ll lie; Here pickled in formaldehyde and painted like a whore, Shrimp-pink incorruptible, not lost nor gone before.
Nick Fitzsimons.
Chris Lillie · 11 March 2004
Christopher Martin
I read your notes on Heraclitus, questioning whether it really was the philosopher to whom the poem is addressed.
Did you unearth anything more to shed light on his identity?
Chris Lillie
Careers Adviser
Loughborough University/2
Giagni Tina · 18 May 2005
I have had a fragment of this poem running around in my head since I was 16—– I’m 51 now. I could not remember the whole poem or the author. Today I decided to look it up and I now remember how much I liked it. Something about it touched me deeply. I am glad to have the whole poem again. thanks
smokehill · 6 September 2005
I believe Ephesus, near Izmir, is still known as Ephesus, not “Selcuk,” unless they’ve changed it since I lived there in the 70s.
Actually, in Turkish it’s called “Efes,” and is so marked on highway signs, frequently confusing tourists.
Even though the Turks hate the Greeks, for good reason, they largely have kept the more-or-less original names for ancient Greek settlements like Ephesus or places with well-known Greek names like Ilium (Troy) even though the slight differences are confusing to non-Greek speakers. I once sat in Ilya all day waiting for a broken axle to be welded on my NATO staff car, and even though I knew I was in Ilya it wasn’t until I was leaving that it hit me: Ilya …..Ilium ….Iliad …..Holy Crap, I’ve been sitting in Troy all day doing nothing. We passed Schliemann’s digs and the museum on the way out of town, too late to stop. And never did get back.
Gid L. White
Master Sergeant, US Army (Ret)
Kendall Young · 26 May 2006
I memorized this poem when I was in the 7th grade in 1961. Only, as I recall, the phrase was “Still art thy joyful voices,” not “Still are thy pleasant voices,”.
Keithgraham100 · 10 June 2006
I’m sure that many years ago I read a parody of this by Kingsley Amis which also included the line about black protruding eyeballs and black protruding tongue. Did he pinch it from Evelyn Waugh or what?