Fragment 120
120Over the fisherman Pelagon his father Meniscus set weel and oar, memorial of a luckless life.
Τῷ γριπεῖ Πελάγωνι πατὴρ ἐπέθηκε Μενίσκος
κύρτον καὶ κώπαν, μνάμα κακοζοΐας.
On a Fisherman.
This oar and net and fisher’s wickered snare
Meniscus placed above his buried son—
Memorials of the lot in life he bare,
The hard and needy life of Pelagon.
— Sir Charles A. Elton.
Here, to the fisher Pelagon, his sire Meniscus laid
A wicker-net and oar, to show his weary life and trade.
— Lord Neaves.
Above a fisher’s tomb
Were set his withy-basket and his oar,
The tokens of his doom,
Of how in life his labour had been sore:
A father put them up above his son,
Meniscus over luckless Pelagon.
— Michael Field, 1889.
Bergk sees no reason to accept the voice of tradition in attributing this epigram to Sappho.
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