scraps of Alcman

1.

Aphrodite never but Eros at his filthy games

like children stamping flowers and the pristine grass

2.

there is the play of iron and the playing of the lyre

3.

you lout you were never

boor nor swineherd

nor of Thessaly born nor

Erysichaia and no shepherd

but of great Sardis

4.

I cannot hear the sound of girls enticing

and rise would I were a seabird

above the flora of the ocean waves

on the breeze and happy blue as ocean holy

tr. after Lattimore