Greek lyric poet active in approximately the sixth century BC. The work attributed to him consists of gnomic poetry quite typical of the time, featuring ethical maxims and practical advice about life.
We look for rams and stallions of fine stock, and one believes that good will come from good; yet a man minds not to wed the lewd daughter of an evil sire. Marvel not then, that the stock of our folk is tarnished; for the good now mingles with the base...
I gave you wings to fly looming high and easy over unboarded sea and the entire earth. At every meal and banquet you will be present on the lips of guests. Graceful young men will sing of you in limpid lovely notes to the clean piping of the flutes. When you go under the dark vaults of earth to the mournful chambers of sad Hell, even when you lie dead you will not lose your glory. Your name will be recalled among men always, Kyrnos. You will wheel high over the mainland and Greek islands and cross the unharvested sea pulsing with fish, not by horse but carried to those who love you in the gifts of Muses capped in violet flowers. You will be like a song to the living as long as there is sun, earth. Yet you ignore me and trick me as if I were a child.
Best of all things is never to be born, never to know the light of sharp sun. But being born, then best to pass quickly as one can through the gates of Hell, and there lie under the massive shield of earth.
Not to have been born at all, Never to have seen the light of the sun: This is the best thing for mortals. Or, if begotten, to have fallen from the womb Straight into the grave, And to be smothered, unknowing, In the dirt of Hades.
I heard the voice of that bird, son of Polypas, whose piercing outcry and whose arrival announces to men the season when fields are plowed, and the voice of her broke the heart that darkens within me, since other men posess my flourishing acres now, and not for me are the mules dragging the plow through the grainland, since I have given my heart to the restless seafarer's life.
I see people arguing with each other, preparing different traps for each other, lying and betraying each other. I cannot see without tears that the foundations of Good and Evil are forgotten, or in some cases completely unknown.
