ABSTRACT
This poem is drafted in ink in Nbk 17 without a title, with the second and third lines written around It was a raining evening, an unrelated fragmentary jotting in pencil. The first three and half lines are a translation of the declamatory epigram attributed to Plato in the Greek Anthology ix 44 which occurs in Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers iii 33 (and is reproduced in the ‘Bipont’ edition, Platonis Philosophi (1781) i, p. xxi): χρυσòν άνὴρ εύρὼν ἔλιπεν βρόχον αὐτὰρ o̒ χρυσòν ὃν λίπεν ο υ̒χ ευ̒ρὼν η̒̑ψεν ὃν εὑ̑ρε βρόχον. (‘A certain person found some gold, Carried it off and, in its stead, Left a strong halter, neatly rolled. The owner found his treasure fled, And, daunted by his fortune's wreck, Fitted the halter to his neck.’)
