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This is beautiful. I ended up at the Wikipedia entry for it - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seikilos_epitaph https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seikilos_epitaph - wh
by petercooper 11y ago
This is beautiful. I ended up at the Wikipedia entry for it - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seikilos_epitaph https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seikilos_epitaph - which has quite a lot of stuff about how the lyrics and music were interpreted from the original inscriptions.
The lyrics translated to English are poignant enough to deserve a reproduction here:
While you live, shine
have no grief at all
life exists only for a short while
and time demands its toll.
- StavrosK 11y ago"Telos" has multiple meanings, both "toll" and "end/death". Time demanding toll is probably the more likely explanation, but it may well be a pun. That said, I'm not very up to date on ancient Greek, so take this with a grain of salt.
- coldtea 11y agoRegarding the pun, don't forget that the dead did pay a "toll" in ancient Greek religion/mythology (to Charon, the ferryman of Hades).