A young man offered a waxen Love; and I, who was standing near, said: " How much will you take for your work of art? "
And he answered in Doric: " Take it for what you like to give, for it will make you mad with desire. I am not a wax-moulder, but I should not like to live with all-powerful Love. "
" Give him to me, then, " said I, " give me, for a drachma, this lovely bedfellow. "
Love! burn me at once with desire — if not I will melt you in the fire.

What shall I do to you, shrill-twittering swallow? Shall I take you and clip your fair wings? Shall I pluck out your tongue, as Tereus did?
Ah! why with your morning songs do you steal Bathyllus from my exquisite dreams?

I know the deeds of Gyges, the King of Sardis; do not tell me of the envy and jealousy of the great.
Tell me to make my hair silky with perfume, tell me to circle my head with roses. Sing to me of today — who knows what tomorrow will be?
Be gay then, drink and love, make offering to Lyaeus — lest death should come and say: " Thou shalt not be drunken. "

The women say: " You are old, Anacreon; take your mirror and look in it — you have no hair, the front of your head is bald. "
And I do not know whether I have hair or not, but this I do know: that an old man may well take all delicate pleasures with girls for he draws near to the ultimate Fate.

Gathering flowers for a crown I found young Love among the roses, seized him by the wings and plunged him into wine and drank him down!
Now with his wings he caresses my heart.

Fair craftsman, make for me a wine-cup for the Spring — mould the silver for me with Spring bearing the first delicate roses and make for me a delicious draught.
Mould on it nothing foreign, no dismal tale, but rather the son of Zeus, our Bacchus Euios!
Beat out the mystic Cyprian of the stream; make clear the unarmed Loves, the laughing Graces;
And below a lovely-leafed blooming vine with fair grape-clusters add beautiful boys if Phaebus will not play there.

Come, dearest of painters, listen to the singing Muse.
Paint the cities for us, paint in them the many-breathing flutes of Iacchus, the gay, the laughing, the playful Iacchus.
And if the wax be firm enough paint on it the deeds of lovers.

I, the koronis ( i. e., “finis”), the faithful guardian of the written pages announce the final boundary stone and I say that Meleager has completed in one work the songs which he gathered from all the poets and from those flowers he wove for Diocles this garland of the Muses which shall endure for ever.
And I, curved round like a snake's back, am placed at the end of this pleasant work.

By the women I am told
'Lasse Anacreon thou grow'st old,
Take thy glasse and look else, there
Thou wilt see thy temples bare;
Whether I be bald or no
That I know not, this I know,
Pleasures, as lesse time to try
Old men have, they more should ply.

Though swift wings are fastened to your back and you hurl the Scythian barbs of your arrows, I will escape you, Eros, by hiding under the earth.
But of what use is that? Invincible Hades himself did not escape your power!