Epigrams of Julian

1. On wine made from barley
Who art thou and whence, O Dionysus? By the true Bacchus I recognise thee not; I know only the son of Zeus. He smells of nectar, but you smell of goat. Truly it was in their lack of grapes that the Celts brewed thee from corn-ears. So we should call thee Demetrius, not Dionysus, wheat-born not fire-born, barley god not boisterous god.

2. On the Organ
A strange growth of reeds do I behold. Surely they sprang on a sudden from another brazen field, so wild are they. The winds that wave them are none of ours, but a blast leaps forth from a cavern of bull's hide and beneath the well-bored pipes travels to their roots. And a dignified person, with swift moving fingers of the hand, stands there and handles the keys that pass the -word to the pipes; then the keys leap lightly, and press forth the melody.

3. Riddle on a performer with a pole
There is a tree between the lords, whose root has life and talks, and the fruits likewise. And in a single hour it grows in strange fashion, and ripens its fruit, and gets its harvest at the roots.

4. On the Homeric hexameter which contains six feet of which three are dactyls
"The daughter of Icarius, prudent Penelope," appears with three fingers and walks on six feet.

5. To a Hippocentaur
A horse has been poured from a man's mould, a man springs up from a horse. The man has no feet, the swift moving horse has no head. The horse belches forth as a man, the man breaks wind as a horse.

6. By Julian the Apostate
Even as Fate the Sweeper wills to sweep thee on, be thou swept. But if thou rebel, thou wilt but harm thyself, and Fate still sweeps thee on.