Greek Lyrics

Pure Pagan: 

Seven Centuries of Greek Poems and Fragments 

by Burton Raffel

To Zeus

Zeus, in whom all things begin,

Ruler of  everything,

Zeus, to begin my hymns

I bring You this

As a gift.

-   Terpander

These are Greek lyrics translated by one of my favorite poet-translators, Burton Raffel. The poets included in this anthology provide a glimpse into archaic Greek culture through their poetry. Among them are the very obscure to the somewhat less obscure, with a few familiar names like Plato.  There are poems and fragments of poems for everyone's taste. I enjoyed making connections with my own life and our twenty-first century culture. It was also interesting to see the influence that these ancient poets had on some of our greatest modern poets. Overall it is a beautiful selection of poetry.