Preface to the

Palladas could well make someone, with his epigram (which we omit for the sake of brevity), abandon arrogance, just as the peacock lets its beautiful mirror-tail fall when it looks at its black legs. So too is the other epigram fine, of which the Latin version is: Terram ascendi nudus, nudus sub terram ibo, & quid frustrà laboro, nudum cum videam finem &c. I ascended the earth naked, naked I shall go under the earth, and why do I labor in vain, when I see a naked end, etc. Likewise another, which Luscinius translated thus:

I shed tears when born, and now dying

I lament, seeing all times consumed in grief.

O mortal race, poorly steadfast, sad, wretched,

Whether the earth holds you or the fierce Fate carries you away.

And in yet another epigram, he compares the life of man in a different way, to plays and spectacles:

This life is a scene and a game: either learn to play,

casting aside cares, or suffer your own losses.

Beautiful proverbs from the ancients have been brought forward here, such as: Homo bulla est Man is a soap bubble, and: Vita non est vita, sed calamitas. Life is not life, but a calamity. Plautus, Persius, and Horatius compare the life of man to a fable or a tale. The last among these poets cries out in Book 4, Ode 7: Pulvis & umbra sumus. We are dust and shadow. Virgilius laments as follows: