Heraclitus (mp3)
by Charles Villiers Stanford
Choir - MP3 Download

Choir - Level 3 - Digital Download

SKU: A0.1266592

By dwsChorale. By Charles Villiers Stanford. Arranged by David Warin Solomons. 19th Century. Full Performance. Duration 82. David Warin Solomons #859267. Published by David Warin Solomons (A0.1266592).

Heraclitus by Charles Villiers Stanford

Performed by David Warin Solomons as the one-man choir dwsChorale.

Callimachus of Cyrene (c. 310 BC – c. 240 BC) was a Greek poet, critic and bibliographer, of Libyan birth. 
He is considered the most influential figure of the Alexandrian school. 
He wrote this poem in memory of his friend Heraclitus. 


Εἰπέ τις, Ἡράκλειτε, τεὸν μόρον ἐς δέ με δάκρυ
    ἤγαγεν ἐμνήσθην δ᾿ ὁσσάκις ἀμφότεροι
ἠέλιον λέσχῃ κατεδύσαμεν. ἀλλὰ σὺ μέν που,
    ξεῖν᾿ Ἁλικαρνησεῦ, τετράπαλαι σποδιή,
αἱ δὲ τεαὶ ζώουσιν ἀηδόνες, ᾗσιν ὁ πάντων
    ἁρπακτὴς Ἀίδης οὐκ ἐπὶ χεῖρα βαλεῖ.

2 millennia later, William Johnson Cory, 1823-92 wrote this version of the poem:

They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead;
They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed;
I wept, as I remembered, how often you and I
Had tired the sun with talking, and sent him down the sky.

And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest,
A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest,
Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake;
For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take.

... and this was set to music by Charles Villiers Stanford.