Mimnermus Fragment Two

We, like the leaves which the blossoming season of Spring reproduces

       when they suddenly grow up in the rays of the sun,

similar to those blooms, in the minuscule time of our youth we

       revel, discerning by gods neither what's harmful for us

nor what is good. Black Fates by our sides stand waiting around and

       one of them's holding out old age, the inevitable

thing, and the other one death. And the fruit of our earliest years is

       as short-lived as the sun's spreading out over the Earth.

Truly indeed, when the end of this age has elapsed and been passed by,

       straightaway dying is much better than staying alive.

Plenty of horrible things will arise in the spirit and soon the

       home will be ruined and sad poverty's toils await.

One man terribly misses his children, and longing for them goes

       cheerlessly under the Earth down into Hades's realm.

One man's sick with a spirit-consuming disease, and there's not one

       man to whom Zeus didn't give myriad terrible things.

You are older than you used to be

Stop thinking all those thoughts about life and death;

You'll never find out why you were sent to die

  here all alone. It's pointless; just calm

    down and be blissfully dumb and carefree.

That's better. Breathe in slowly, as if it were

your very last breath. How would you feel about

  that? How would you exhale if you were

    blowing the flame of reality out?

Horatii Carmen 1.4

Winter is melting, its bitterness yielding to pleasing, breezy Springtime;

      slow winches drag dry vessels onto water.

And in the stables no longer rejoices a herd, nor ploughman by fire.

      Fields aren’t gleaming white with morning hoarfrost.

Now Cytherea is leading the choruses: Venus under bright moons

      and Nymphs, accompanied by seemly Graces,

thump Earth hard with rhythmical feet, as determined Vulcan goes back

      to work in bright hot forges of the Cyclops.

Now it is fitting to garland your shimmering head with verdant myrtle

      or flowers, which Earth, as it thaws, produces.

Now in the shadowy groves it is fitting to sacrifice to Faunus

      an ewe, if called for, or a kid, if favored.

Colorless Death kicks over the tables of beggars and the towers

      of kings alike. O blessed Sestius, how

 Life's brief span disallows us embarking on limitless endeavors!

      Now night's upon you pressing, now the fabled

Manes, and Pluto's diaphanous House, where as soon as you have entered,

      you neither will cast lots to see who drinks first

nor be able to marvel at slender Lycidas, who incites now

      all youths, and whom soon virgins will be hot for.