eul_aid: fzk
DOI 10.5281/zenodo.20335421
Aulodia
Αὐλῳδία

The Aulodia of P.Oxy. 15.1795

1 work

The Aulodia on P.Oxy. 15.1795 is a piped lyric whose refrain is αὔλει μοι. Do not seek to do injustice, and if you are wronged do not quarrel; flee murders and fights. You have seen spring, winter, summer — that is the whole of it; the sun sets and night keeps the appointed things. Do not toil to ask whence the sun or the water, but where you will buy myrrh and garlands.

The singer wants self-flowing springs of honey, milk, wine, and myrrh, a boy and a girl by a fountain; a Lydian aulos, Lydian lyre-play, a Phrygian reed, and bull-hide drums. When I die, put an aulos over my head and a lyre at my feet. Xerxes was the king who said he shared all with Zeus and split the Lemnian water with two rudders; Midas was blessed and Cinyras thrice blessed — but who went to Hades with more than an obol?

Young printed it in Theognis (Leipzig, 1971), pp. 119–121. The Greek is that carpe-diem aulos song.

Also published as PDF.