LVI THE NAMELESS TOMB
Mitchell S. (Mitchell Starrett) Buck translation
MNASIDIKA took me by the hand and led me outside the gates of the city to a little uncultivated field where there was a marble stèle. And she said: “This was the lover of my mother.”
Then I felt a great shiver and still holding her hand, I leaned on her shoulder in order to read the four lines between the broken cup and the serpent:
“It is not death which has carried me away, but the Nymphs of the fountains. I rest here under the light earth with the severed hair of Xantho. Let her alone weep for me. I tell not my name.”
For a long time we remained standing, and we did not pour a libation. For how could we call an unknown soul from the throngs of Hades?