A Proud Mama Bear! Greek Anthology 7.742

A Proud Mama Bear

Name:  Antipater of Sidon Date:    2nd – 1st century BCE Region:     Sidon [modern Lebanon] Citation:     Greek Anthology 7.743

I, Hermocratea, have given birth to twenty-nine children, and none of them have died!

Apollo has not struck down my sons;

Artemis has not snatched away my weeping daughters!

Instead, Artemis has blessed each of my times in childbirth,

And Apollo has raised my children into manhood illness-free.

In this way I am better than Niobe, [1] both in [the amount of] my children and in a more modest tongue. 

---

[1] According to mythology, Niobe bragged that she was better than Leto [the mother of Apollo and Artemis] because she birthed seven times as many children. Enraged, Apollo murdered all of her sons, and Artemis murdered all of her daughters.

εἴκοσιν Ἑρμοκράτεια καὶ ἐννέα τέκνα τεκοῦσα οὔθ’ ἑνὸς οὔτε μιᾶς αὐγασάμην θάνατον. οὐ γὰρ ἀπωίστευσεν ἐμοὺς υἱῆας Ἀπόλλων, οὐ βαρυπενθήτους Ἄρτεμις εἷλε κόρας: ἔμπαλι δ᾽ ἁ μὲν ἔλυσεν ἐμῶν ὠδῖνα μολοῦσα, Φοῖβος δ᾽ εἰς ἥβαν ἄρσενας ἀγάγετο ἀβλαβέας νούσοισιν. ἴδ᾽ ὡς νίκημι δικαίως παισὶν καὶ γλώσσῃ σώφρονι Τανταλίδα.

Viginti Hermocratea et novem liberos enixa neque unum neque unam vidi mortuam. Non enim sagittis-configit meos filios Apollo, non graviter-lugendas Diana rapuit puellas: sed contra haec quidem solvit mearum partus adveniena Phoebus autem ad pubertatem mares duxit illaesos morbis. En quomodo vinco nec-immerito liberis et lingua modesta Tantalidem. Translated into Latin by Hugo Grotius

Antipater of Sidon [2nd – 1st century BCE, modern Lebanon] was a Greek poet who lived under Roman rule during the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE. Dozens of his poems were preserved in the Greek Anthology