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"text": "His collection of new epigrams presented in Constantinople to Theodorus, son of Cosmas, the decurion. The proems were spoken after the frequent recitations given at that time \n\nI suppose, Sirs, that you are so glutted with this banquet of various literary dishes that the food you eat continues to rise. Indeed ye sit crammed with dainties, for many have served up to you a mixed feast of precious and varied discourse and persuade you to look with contempt on ordinary fare. What shall I do now? Shall I allow what I had prepared to lie uneaten and spoil, or shall I expose it in the middle of the market for sale to retail dealers at any price it will fetch? Who in that case will want any part of my wares or who would give twopence for my writings, unless his ears were stopped up? But I have a hope that you may partake of my work kindly and not indifferently; for it is a habit with you to estimate the fare of a feast by the host's desire to please alone. \nBesides, I am going to serve you a meal to which many new flavourings contribute. For since it is not possible for you to enjoy food worthy of you by my own exertions alone, I have persuaded many to share the trouble and expense and join with me in feasting you more sumptuously. Indeed the rich gave me abundantly of their affluence, and accepting this I take quite sincere pride in their dainties. And one of them pointing at me may say aptly to another, \"I recently kneaded fresh poetical dough, and what he serves is of my kneading.\" Thus one but not the wisest of those skilled cooks may say, thanks to whom I alone am thought to be the lord of such a rich feast. For I myself have had the courage to make a slender contribution from my own resources so as not to seem an entire stranger to my guests. I introduce a small portion of each poet, just to taste; but if anyone wishes to have all the rest and take his fill of it, he must seek it in the market. \nTo add ornament to my work I will begin my preface with the Emperor's praise, for thus all will continue under good auspices. As I sing of very great matters, may it be mine to find words equally exalted. \n\n(In Praise of Justinian) \n\nLet no barbarian, freeing himself from the yoke-strap that passes under his neck, dare to fix his gaze on our King, the mighty warrior; nor let any weak Persian woman raise her veil and look straight at him, but, kneeling on the ground and bending the proud arch of her neck, let her come uncalled and submit to Roman justice. And thou, handmaid of the west, by farthest Cadiz and the Spanish Strait and Ocean Thule, breathe freely, and counting the heads of the successive tyrants that are buried in thy dust, embrace thy beloved Rome with trustful arms. By the ridge of the Caucasus and on the Colchian shore, where once the hard back of the iron soil was broken by the resounding hoofs of the brazen bulls, let the Phasian bride, weaving a measure in company with the Hamadryads, wheel in the dance she loves, and casting away her dread of the race of giants, sing the labours of our many-sceptred prince.\nLet not the prow of Thessalian Argo any longer boast that the Colchian land, in awe of the exploits of the Pagasean hero, ceased to be fertilized by the seed of giants and bear a harvest of warriors. This is either the invention of fable, or was brought about by unholy art, when the crafty maiden, maddened by love, set the force of her magic in motion. But without fraud or the dark hell-broth the Bactrian giant fell before our shafts. No land is now inaccessible to me, but in the waters of the Caspian and far as the Persian Gulf the vanquished seas are beaten by Italian oars. \nGo now, thou Roman traveller, unescorted over the whole continent and leap in triumph. Traversing the recesses of Scythia and the inhospitable glen of Susa, descend on the plains of India, and on thy road, if thou art athirst, draw water from enslaved Hydaspes. Yea, and walk fearless too over the dark lands of the west, and seek the pillars of Heracles; rest unalarmed on the sands of Spain where, above the threshold of the lovely sea, the twain horns of the continents meet and silence men's hope of progress by land. Traversing the extremity of Libya, the land of the Nasamones, reach also the Syrtis, where the sea, driven back by southerly gales towards the adverse slope of the north, affords passage for men on foot over the soft sands from which it has ebbed, on a beach that ships sail over. The regions of no foreign land shall receive you, but you will be amid the possessions of our wise King, whichever way you progress, since he has encompassed the world in his dominion. In vain now would the Tanais in its course through Scythia to the sea of Azof attempt to limit the continents of Europe and Asia. \nSo now that the whole earth is full of beloved peace, now that the hopes of disturbers at home and abroad have been shattered by our Emperor, come, blest Theodorus, and let us institute a contest of poetic skill and start the music of the singer's dance. I performed this task for you; for you I prepared this work, collecting in one volume the sweet merchandise of the bee that visits many blossoms; gathering such a bunch of varied flowers from the elegy, I planted a wreath of poetic eloquence to offer you, as one offering beech-leaves to Jove or ships to the Earth-shaker, or a breast-plate to Ares or a quiver to Apollo, or a lyre to Hermes or grapes to Dionysus. For I know that the dedication to Theodorus will instil eternal glory into this work of my study. \nI will first select for you, competing with men of old time, all that the parents of new song wrote as an offering to the old gods. For it was meet to adhere to the wise model of the ancient writers. \nAfter those again comes a more ambitious collection of all our pens wrote either in places or on well-wrought statues or on the other widely distributed performances of laborious Art. \nThe third starting-point of the young book is occupied, as far as it was allowed us, by what God granted us to write on tombs in verse but adhering to the truth.\nNext what we wrote on the devious paths of life and the deceitful balance of inconstant Fortune, behold at the fourth base-line of the book. \nYea, and perhaps you may be pleased by the charm of a fifth contest, where waxing abusive we wrote scurrilous rhyme, and Cytherea may steal a sixth book of verse, turning our path aside to elegiac converse and sweet love. Finally in a seventh honey-comb you will find the joys of Bacchus and tipsy dances and wine and cups and rich banquets. ",
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