you were entrusted with mortals, do the work of a reaper; reap the white hairs like a white ear of life's grain. Why do you cut down the untimely before their time? But if you reap indiscriminately, as you wish, then having just now cut me up by the roots, take me and gather me with my daughter for the tomb, and let the heap of your man-slaying harvest be mother and child together, an immortal ear of grain.” Thus the mother, moved in a motherly way, cried aloud, she groaned from the depths, sending forth streams of blood-stained tears and wetting the couch and her dearest one, washing her with natural baths in the end. But the brother of the deceased, Romanos, the glory of the senate, the fame of the council, a man in all things, both in nature and in heart, young in body, but an elder in mind, from there in turn wept even more, roaring from the depths like a lion and making a great sound with his groans, as if speaking to the deceased as if she were breathing: “O all things to me, mistress, glory and power, common support of our family, and common grace, buttress of my life, pillar of my existence, O courage, hope, pillar of my house, O all these things and more desired, you have been extinguished, the lamp of my confidence, you have been extinguished, the adornment of the world, the hand of the poor has just now slipped away, the common harbor of those tossed by storms has been destroyed by the assault of death. All my delights are gone, all the former fortunes of my life have suffered a most unfortunate turn. In vain do I live, left alone without you. Let someone give either a poison or a sharp sword, so that I might breathe my last with my desired one; I long for Hades instead of this life, that darkness is better than the light-bringer; for like the night it has the moon of my life, and though she does not shine before the rest of the dead, at least I will lie with her most beloved shade, another shade, a mute image perhaps. O unfortunate great-grandfather, grandfather and father, who saw many triple waves of affairs and were buffeted as by the surge of life. O all you unfortunate ones, but I more so, deprived of the light of my eyes and heart, and rather of life and of the soul-inspiring spirit, and living unhappily, a soulless dead man breathing; If someone had brought about the cutting of a main limb, I would have borne the disaster with moderate suffering; and if someone had deprived me of all my substance, I would have felt no pain; for all things are dust; and if he had driven me to a foreign land from my fatherland, and if he had brought against me every other violence, covering me in the deep and shutting me in darkness, I would have gladly chosen it before your death; but yet, earth, do not cover my sister, until you receive me, a self-summoned corpse. For those siblings whom one womb brought forth in travail, let one tomb also hide in a common end.” Weaving these laments, he and pouring down an unstoppable stream of tears represented the flood of the sea, and the belt that bound her around, holding it in his hands as a shadow of her flesh, he washed with his tears like rain, looking at it frequently and placing it on his heart and moving even her insensible form to lamentation, to immeasurable streams of tears.

They thus lamented in turn and fittingly echoed each other with their groans; but the master, the bright light-bringer of the earth, bearing the wave of the disaster in his soul, and turning the sudden loss over in his mind, his thoughts being whirled by his suffering, how she was snatched from the midst of the palace, she whom he held inside his own heart, how she flew away, how she departed suddenly, she whom he held like a fledgling in his arms, he strove, bearing a noble spirit, to endure the disaster most excellently, alone, but being overcome by the tyrannical passion he groaned softly from the midst of his soul, and seeing her lying prostrate on her back, breathless, voiceless, not moving at all, he begins, alas, with most mournful words: “Today the light of my eyes is extinguished, the seeing eye within my heart, alas, is blinded and darkness covers me; bitter arrows of despondency pierce me. O what a tragedy you have seen, O sun; O what a lamp of twilight has been extinguished. Where are for me the many fulfillments of my thoughts, the care, the concern for my labors, for whom I endured many cares? for whom I underwent storms of afflictions? Where have they all gone now? Where are they now hidden? Alas for the terrible things of ever-turning fortune, alas for the fleeting things of the

βροτοὺς ἐπετράπης, ἔργον θεριστοῦ πρᾶττε· τὰς λευκὰς τρίχας ὡς λευκὸν ἐκθέριζε τοῦ βίου στάχυν. τί καὶ πρὸ καιροῦ τοὺς ἀώρους ἐκτέμνεις; εἰ δ' ἐκθερίζεις ἀλληνάλλως, ὡς θέλεις, κἂν ἄρτι με πρόρριζον ἐκκόψας λάβε καὶ συγκόμιζε τῇ θυγατρὶ πρὸς τάφον καὶ σωρὸς ἔστω σου βροτοκτόνου θέρους μήτηρ ὁμοῦ καὶ τέκνον, ἄμβροτος στάχυς.» Μήτηρ μὲν οὕτω μητρικῶς κινουμένη ἀνωλόλυζεν, ἐστέναζεν ἐκ βάθους, πέμπουσα κρουνοὺς αἱμοφύρτων δακρύων καὶ τὴν κλίνην βρέχουσα καὶ τὴν φιλτάτην τοῖς φυσικοῖς λούουσα λουτροῖς ἐν τέλει. ὁ σύγγονος δὲ Ῥωμανὸς τῆς κειμένης, γερουσίας ἡ δόξα, συγκλήτου κλέος, ἀνὴρ τὰ πάντα καὶ φύσει καὶ καρδίᾳ, νέος τὸ σῶμα, τὰς φρένας δὲ πρεσβύτης, ἐκεῖθεν αὖθις ἀντεδάκρυε πλέον, βρυχώμενος μὲν ἐκ βάθους ὥσπερ λέων καὶ τοῖς στεναγμοῖς ἦχον ἐμποιῶν μέγαν, ὡς δ' ἐμπνεούσῃ προσλαλῶν τῇ κειμένῃ· «ὦ πάντα μοι, δέσποινα, δόξα καὶ κράτος, κοινὸν γένους στήριγμα, κοινὴ καὶ χάρις, ζωῆς ἐμῆς ἔρεισμα, τοῦ βίου στύλε, ὦ θάρσος, ἐλπίς, τῶν ἐμῶν οἴκων κίον, ὦ πάντα ταῦτα καὶ πλέον ποθουμένη, ἔσβης ὁ λαμπτὴρ τῆς ἐμῆς παρρησίας, ἔσβης τὸ καλλώπισμα τῆς οἰκουμένης, ἡ τῶν πενήτων ἄρτι χεὶρ ἀπερρύης, ὁ κοινὸς ὅρμος τῶν ζάλαις στροβουμένων τῇ τῆς τελευτῆς προσβολῇ διεφθάρης. ἅπαντα φροῦδα τῶν ἐμῶν τρυφημάτων, ἅπαντα τὰ πρὶν εὐτυχῆ μοι τοῦ βίου περιστροφὴν πέπονθε δυστυχεστάτην. μάτην ἐγὼ ζῶ σοῦ λελειμμένος μόνος. ἢ φάρμακόν τις ἢ ξίφος τομὸν δότω, ὡς ἂν συνεκπνεύσαιμι τῇ ποθουμένῃ· ποθῶ τὸν ᾅδην ἀντὶ τούτου τοῦ βίου, ἐκεῖνο κρεῖττον τὸ σκότος τοῦ φωσφόρου· ἔχει γὰρ ὡς νὺξ τὴν σελήνην τοῦ βίου, κἂν οὐ προλάμπῃ τῶν προλοίπων νερτέρων, σὺν τῇ σκιᾷ γε κείσομαι τῇ φιλτάτῃ σκιά τις ἄλλη, κωφὸν εἴδωλον τάχα. ὦ δυστυχεῖς πρόπαππε, πάππε καὶ πάτερ, πολλὰς ἰδόντες πραγμάτων τρικυμίας καὶ συστραφέντες ὡς κλύδωνι τῷ βίῳ. ὦ δυστυχεῖς ἅπαντες, ἀλλ' ἐγὼ πλέον, φωτὸς στερηθεὶς ὀμμάτων καὶ καρδίας, ζωῆς δὲ μᾶλλον καὶ ψυχῆς ψυχεμπνόου, καὶ δυστυχῶς ζῶν, νεκρὸς ἄψυχος πνέων· εἴ τις τομὴν ἤνεγκε κυρίου μέλους, τὴν συμφορὰν ἤνεγκα μετρίῳ πάθει· κἂν οὐσίας πάσης τις ἐξένωσέ με, πρὸς οὐδὲν ἂν ἤλγησα· πάντα γὰρ κόνις· κἂν εἰς ξένην γῆν ἤλασεν τῆς πατρίδος, κἂν πᾶσαν ἄλλην ἀντεπήνεγκεν βίαν βυθῷ καλύψας καὶ κατακλείσας σκότει, τῆς σῆς τελευτῆς εὐθύμως προειλόμην· πλὴν ἀλλὰ μὴ κάλυπτε, γῆ, τὴν συγγόνην, ἕως με νεκρὸν αὐτόκλητον συλλάβῃς. οὓς μία γὰρ ὤδινε γαστὴρ συγγόνους εἷς καὶ τάφος κρύψειε τῷ κοινῷ τέλει.» τούτους ἐκεῖνος τοὺς ὀδυρμοὺς συμπλέκων καὶ δακρύων ῥοῦν ἄσχετον καταρρέων τὴν τῆς θαλάσσης εἰκόνιζε πλημμύραν, ζώνην τε τὴν σφίγγουσαν αὐτὴν κυκλόθεν ταῖς χερσὶν ὡς σκίασμα τῆς σαρκὸς φέρων ἔλουε τοῖς δάκρυσιν ὑετοῦ δίκην ὁρῶν τε πυκνῶς καὶ τιθεὶς τὴν καρδίαν αὐτήν τε κινῶν τὴν ἀναίσθητον φύσιν εἰς θρῆνον, εἰς ἄμετρα ῥεῖθρα δακρύων.

Οὗτοι μὲν οὕτως ἀντεθρήνουν ἐν μέρει καὶ τοῖς στεναγμοῖς ἀντεπήχουν εἰκότως· ὁ δεσπότης δέ, γῆς ὁ λαμπρὸς φωσφόρος, τῆς συμφορᾶς τὸ κῦμα τῇ ψυχῇ φέρων τὴν ἀθρόαν στέρησιν ἐν νῷ τε στρέφων, στροβούμενος δὲ τοὺς λογισμοὺς τῷ πάθει, πῶς ἐκ μέσων ἥρπαστο τῶν ἀνακτόρων, ἣν εἶχεν ἔνδον τῆς ἑαυτοῦ καρδίας, πῶς ἐξαπέπτη, πῶς ἀπῆλθεν ἀθρόον, ἣν ὡς νεοσσὸν εἶχεν ἐν ταῖς ἀγκάλαις, ἔσπευδε μὲν φρόνημα γενναῖον φέρων τὴν συμφορὰν ἄριστα καρτερεῖν μόνος, νικώμενος δὲ τῷ τυραννικῷ πάθει λεπτῶς ἀνεστέναξεν ἐκ ψυχῆς μέσης, ὁρῶν τε ταύτην ὑπτίαν προκειμένην ἄπνουν, ἄφωνον, μηδαμῶς κινουμένην, ἀπάρχεται, φεῦ, πενθικωτάτων λόγων· «φῶς σήμερόν μοι σβέννυται τῶν ὀμμάτων, ὀφθαλμὸς ἔνδον ὁ βλέπων τῆς καρδίας, αἰαῖ, τυφλοῦται καὶ καλύπτει με σκότος· βέλη πικρὰ κεντοῦσι τῆς ἀθυμίας. ὢ ποίαν εἶδες, ἥλιε, τραγῳδίαν· ὢ ποῖος ἔσβη λύχνος ἀκροφεγγίας. ποῦ μοι τὰ πολλὰ τῶν νοημάτων τέλη, ἡ φροντίς, ἡ μέριμνα τῶν ἐμῶν πόνων, δι' ἣν ἐκαρτέρησα πολλὰς φροντίδας; δι' ἣν ὑπέστην θλίψεων καταιγίδας; ποῦ νῦν ἀπῆλθε πάντα; ποῦ νῦν ἐκρύβη; αἰαῖ τὰ δεινὰ τῆς ἀειστρόφου τύχης, αἰαῖ τὰ ῥευστὰ τοῦ