RIP: Too Young to be a Bride: Greek Anthology 7.604

Name:  Paul the Silentiary Date:     6th century CE Region: Constantinople [Istanbul, modern Turkey] Citation: Greek Anthology 7.604

There is a special spot of sadness in Greek and Roman literature for girls who died unmarried, as every woman was expected to marry and provide their husbands with legitimate offspring (with very few exceptions). Notice that more attention is placed on this young girl's wedding in this poem than her own death.

O young lady, your funeral is being prepared,

Not your wedding.

Instead of a bridal bouquet, you get a funeral wreath.

You will miss the hardships of life and the pain of childbirth;

Your survivors have a bitter veil of grief.

Macedonia, the Fates have buried you at twelve years old,

At the peak of beauty, but with old school customs.

 

λέκτρα σοι ἀντὶ γάμων ἐπιτύμβια, παρθένε κούρη,

ἐστόρεσαν παλάμαις πενθαλέαις γενέται.

καὶ σὺ μὲν ἀμπλακίας βιότου καὶ μόχθον Ἐλευθοῦς

ἔκφυγες: οἱ δὲ γόων πικρὸν ἔχουσι νέφος.

δωδεκέτιν γὰρ μοῖρα, Μακηδονίη, σε καλύπτει,

κάλλεσιν ὁπλοτέρην, ἤθεσι γηραλέην.

 

Lectum tibi pro nuptiis sepulcralem, o virgo puella,

straverunt palmis luctuosis parentes.

Et tu quidem errores vitae et laborem Ilithyiae

effugisti: illi autem luctuum amaram habent nubem.

Duodecennem enim fatum, o Macedonia, te sepelit,

veneribus iuvenem, moribus grandaevam.

Translated into Latin by Hugo Grottius

 

Paul the Silentiary [Paulus Silentiarius; 6th century CE, modern Turkey] was a bureaucrat in the court of the Roman Emperor Justinian I [527 – 565 CE] in Constantinople [modern Istanbul, Turkey]. Dozens of his poems are preserved in the Greek Anthology.