The Tune
Above the lyrics (transcribed here in modern Greek font) is a line with letters and signs for the tune:
Translated into modern musical notation, the tune is something like this:
| Seikilos epitaph Tune performed on a computer |
The following is the Greek text (in the later polytonic script; the original is in majuscule), along a transliteration of the words (which are sung to the melody), and a (somewhat free) English translation:
- Ὅσον ζῇς, φαίνου,
- Hoson zês, phainou,
- While you live, shine,
- μηδὲν ὅλως σὺ λυποῦ·
- mêden holôs su lupou;
- have no grief at all;
- πρὸς ὀλίγον ἐστὶ τὸ ζῆν,
- pros oligon esti to zên,
- life exists only for a short while,
- τὸ τέλος ὁ xρόνος ἀπαιτεῖ.
- to telos ho chronos apaitei.
- and time demands its toll.
Read more about this topic: Seikilos Epitaph
Famous quotes containing the word tune:
“My Poynz, I cannot frame me tune to fayne,
To cloke the trothe for praisse withowt desart,
Of them that lyst all vice for to retayne.
I cannot honour them that settes their part
With Venus and Baccus all theire lyf long;
Nor holld my pece of them allthoo I smart.”
—Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503?–1542)
“[Children] need time to stare at a wall, daydream over a picture book, make mud pies, kick a ball around, whistle a tune or play the kazoo—to do the things today’s adults had time to do when they were growing up.”
—Leslie Dreyfous (20th century)