C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

A Banquet Song

Translation of John Addington Symonds

THE RAIN of Zeus descends, and from high heaven

A storm is driven:

And on the running water-brooks the cold

Lays icy hold;

Then up: beat down the winter; make the fire

Blaze high and higher;

Mix wine as sweet as honey of the bee

Abundantly;

Then drink with comfortable wool around

Your temples bound.

We must not yield our hearts to woe, or wear

With wasting care;

For grief will profit us no whit, my friend,

Nor nothing mend;

But this is our best medicine, with wine fraught

To cast out thought.