Anyte: On a Dolphin

No more in delightful chase through buoyant seas
Shall I toss up my throat from the depths, nor blow around
The ornamented beak of the ship, exulting
In the carved figure-head, my image. But the sea's
Glittering blue has thronged me out of the moist element:
I lie stretched out on a narrow space of dry land.


Tr. John Heath-Stubbs and Carol A. Whiteside. Anyte was an Arcadian poet of the Hellenistic period. Her epitaphs on animals may be some of the first such poems ever written.