Archilochus

Summary

Archilochus of Paws, an elegiac and iambic poet, lived in the eighth and seventh centuries, and is said to have taken part in the colonization of Thasos in about 708. Little is known about his life, but a large number of poems and fragmentary quotations survive.

The common people (W 14)

If a man listened to the reproaches of the common people,

Aesimedes, he would never have very much fun.

The eagle and the fox

(W 174)

This is a fable people tell,

how a fox and an eagle joined

as partners.

(Atticus, quoted by Eusebius in Praeparatio Evangelica 15.4.4)

Do you see where that high rock is,

rough and menacing?

There I sit lightly, planning my fight with you…

[Our source continues in paraphrase as follows:]

Up to this high rock it is impossible for this clever wicked animal to climb, so that for the fox to come where the eagle's offspring are, they would have to meet a sad accident and fall to earth, losing their home, or else he would have to grow what it is not his nature to grow, and bend swift wings; then rising from the ground, he could fly up to the high rock. But as long as each stays in his appointed home, there will be no sharing between the creatures of the land and those of the sky.