c. 305 BC | Athens

Dust to Dust

Menander searches six feet under.

When you’re moved to find out who you are,
study the graves you encounter as you pass by.
Inside rest the bones and weightless dust
of men once kings and tyrants, wise men, and those
who took pride in their noble birth or wealth,
their fame, or their beautiful bodies.
Yet what good was any of that against time?
All mortals come to know Hades in the end.
Look toward these to know who you are.

© 2009 by Edmund Keeley. Used with permission of Georges Borchardt, Inc., on behalf of the author.

Greek dramatist Menander.
Contributor

Menander

From a fragment. Little is known of Menander’s life, although he is believed to have come from a wealthy Athenian family and studied under the philosopher Theophrastus, a pupil of Aristotle’s. His first of some one hundred plays, Anger, was produced in 321 bc; he won eight first-place prizes at the dramatic festivals beginning with The Dyscolus in 316 bc. Considered a leader of the New Comedy—the last wave in the history of the Greek stage—Menander influenced the Roman writers Plautus and Terence.