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with joy', 'to rejoice'. However, I did not succeed in finding any
example for this use. — Vs. 2: ���� ������: 'for a short time', cf.
Plut., Cons. Apoll. 116 a; Ael. VH 12, 63; Jos. AJ 4, 128; BJ 4,
642; Luc. Deor. 18, 1; no example in LSJ, Passow or other great
dictionaries. — As for the last line understandings differ, Crusius
understood ����� as ����� 'customs' and translated the line “die
Zeit fordert ihren Zoll". 2 Later interpreters tacitly rejected this, and
recently Th. Mathiesen translated the line as follows: “Time demands
its [sc. life's] end". 3 This is a possible understanding, nevertheless
it is enough to open LSJ or any other great dictionary s. v.
����� in order to see that both ����� and �� ����� can mean 'at
last', 'am Ende'. 4 Consequently I think the last two lines ought to
be translated as follows: Life is short [life lasts for a short time] and
finally time demands it (the whole life, not only its end).
The metre of the little poem is iambic dimeter, but not without
variety. In the first line long syllables — and with one exception by
nature long ones — are dominant, only one is short, proportion 1:4.
Hereafter the proportion changes: 2 nd line: 4:3, 3 rd one: 5:3 and in
the last line there are seven short syllables and only the last two are
long, true, the last one is a trisemos. Time elapses always more
rapidly, life draws to its end always quicker and finally it merges
with a great repose.
The contents seem to be, as mentioned above, rather banal, though
the number of those sepulchral inscriptions which express the same
life-principle is, as compared with the enormous quantity of such
epigrams, remarkably few. 5 Of greater interest is the last line of the
poem.
The idea that life is demanded back can be found in several
sources of various cultural background. Cicero arguing with those
who lament for premature death says:
Off with those almost old-womanish follies that death before
time is pitiful. Before what time? Before that of nature? But nature
has given us life like the use of money, no day [of refund] having
been fixed. Why to lament, if nature demands it when it wants it. 6
Seneca reasons several times similarly. I quote only one passage
where he explains that our goods belong only temporally to us,
2 Philologus 50, 1891, 165 and he insisted on this understanding later too:
Philologus 52, 1894, 161.
3 Th. J. Mathiesen, Apollo's Lyre. Lincoln 1999, 150.
4 More frequently only �����, but �� ����� Pl. Lg. 740 e; 766 b; 1 Ep. Pet. 3, 8.
5 E. g. AP 7, 32; 33; 452; W. Peek, Griechische Versinschriften. Berlin 1955.
1219; 1956.
6 Tusc. 1, 93. Cf. Epict. fr. 23: � ����� ���� ����� �� ���� ����������
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