Demodocus of Leros

Demodocus of Leros (Ancient Greek: Δημόδoκος, Demodokos; fl. 6th century BC) was an ancient Greek poet from the small island of Leros in the Aegean Sea. He composed in elegiacs and iambs and appears to have specialized in gnomic poetry like his likely contemporary Phocylides. Little of his poetry survives, preserved in brief quotations by other authors.

Quotes

A viper once bit a Cappadocian, but it died itself.

The Miletians are not fools, but they do just the kind of things that fools do.

• Καὶ τόδε Δημοδόκου· Χῖοι κακοί· οὐχ ὁ μέν, ὃς δ᾽ οὔ·
  πάντες, πλὴν Προκλέους· καὶ Προκλέης δὲ Χίος.
  • The Chians are bad, not one bad and another not, but all bad — except Procles, and Procles is a Chian.
  • Palatine Anthology, bk. 11, no. 235. Edited and translated by W. R. Paton, The Greek Anthology, vol. 4 (London: William Heinemann, 1918) pp. 182–183. Paton's note: "There is another couplet identical with this except that the Lerians are substituted for the Chians and that the saying is attributed to Phocylides." The paraphrase – whether by Porson or Bentley – is well known:
    • The Germans in Greek are sadly to seek,
      Except only Hermann, and Hermann's a German.

• Καππαδόκην ποτ᾽ ἔχιδνα κακὴ δάκεν· ἀλλὰ καὶ αὐτὴ
  κάτθανε, γευσαμένη αἵματος ἰοβόλου.
  • An evil viper once bit a Cappadocian, but it died itself, having tasted the venomous blood.
  • Palatine Anthology, bk. 11, no. 237. Edited and translated by W. R. Paton, The Greek Anthology, vol. 4 (1918) pp. 182–183
    • A viper stung a Cappadocian's hide;
      And, poison'd by his blood, that instant died.
      • Translated by J. H. Merivale, Collections from the Greek Anthology; and from the Pastoral, Elegiac, and Dramatic Poets of Greece (London: John Murray, 1813) p. 457
    • A deadly viper, which, perchance,
        a Cappadocian bit,
      Tasting that blood, than poison worse,
        died instantly of it.
      • Translated by Major Robert Guthrie MacGregor, Greek Anthology, with Notes Critical and Explanatory (London: Nissen & Parker, 1864) p. 124

•    Μιλήσιοι ἀξύνετοι μὲν
  οὔκ εἰσιν, δρῶσιν δ᾿ οἷά περ ἀξύνετοι.
  • The people of Miletus are not fools, but they do just the kind of things that fools do.
  • Fragment, quoted by Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, bk. 7, ch. 8, 1151a5. Fragment edited by Douglas E. Gerber, Tyrtaeus, Solon, Theognis, Mimnermus, Greek Elegiac Poetry: From the Seventh to the Fifth Centuries BC, LCL 258 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999) p. 404. Translated from Bekker's text of Aristotle by D. P. Chase, The Nichomachean Ethics of Aristotle (Oxford: William Graham, 1847) p. 261

External links

• Encyclopedic article on Demodocus of Leros on Wikipedia