She really is a funny girl.

Because I just spent a good two hours digging up the provenance of this thing (since the epigrams are NEVER included in "works of Plato" type collections, not even in the sections about spurious or apocryphal works or the letters!) I might as well inflict my findings on others.


The dedication page of The Mask of Apollo by Mary Renault:

Tears were for Hekabê, friend, and for Ilion’s women,

Spun into the dark Web on the day of their birth,

But for you our hopes were great, and great the triumph,

Cancelled alike by the gods at the point of glory.

Now you lie in your own land, now all men honor you—

But I loved you, O Diôn!

PLATO

(Translation by Dudley Fitts)

This epigram of Plato’s is known to us from Lives of the Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laërtius, who cites On the Luxury of the Ancients (attributed to Aristippus; only the quotations in Laertius are preserved today) as his source.

Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, Book III: Plato – English – Greek – the quote from Aristippus begins at [29]. This quote also provides the epigrams that are the basis of the existence of Plato’s beloved Aster, who appears in The Last of the Wine.)

original Greek text:
δάκρυα μὲν Ἑκάβῃ τε καὶ Ἰλιάδεσσι γυναιξὶ
Μοῖραι ἐπέκλωσαν δὴ τότε γεινομέναις,
σοὶ δέ, Δίων, ῥέξαντι καλῶν ἐπινίκιον ἔργων
δαίμονες εὐροίας ἐλπίδας ἐξέχεαν.
κεῖσαι δ᾽ εὐρυχόρῳ ἐν πατρίδι τίμιος ἀστοῖς,
ὦ ἐμὸν ἐκμήνας θυμὸν ἔρωτι Δίων.

(another translation, which designates it “Epigram III,” presumably because it is the third in order of appearance in Laertius’ text.)

ETA: The reason that I'm doing this is because I've conceived of the extremely ambitious project of making an annotated version of The Mask of Apollo.  I now have more than a page worth of annotation and I haven't even gotten past this epigram on Dion.  SEND HELP.
(I think I'll be doing this one chapter at a time, if only to preserve my sanity.  Also, I should pick the collective brains of maryrenaultfics for each chapter.)