Omeichein

De-replica-van-Manneke-Pis-vlakbij-de-Grote-Markt-in-Brussel-cc-e1438853110609

Μηδ’ ἄντ’ ἠελίου τετραμμένος ὀρθὸς ὀμείχειν·
αὐτὰρ ἐπεί κε δύῃ, μεμνημένος, ἔς τ’ ἀνιόντα,
μηδ’ ἀπογυμνωθείς· μακάρων τοι νύκτες ἔασιν·
μήτ’ ἐν ὁδῷ μήτ’ ἐκτὸς ὁδοῦ προβάδην οὐρήσεις·
ἑζόμενος δ’ ὅ γε θεῖος ἀνήρ, πεπνυμένα εἰδώς,
ἠ’ ὅ γε πρὸς τοῖχον πελάσας εὐερκέος αὐλῆς.
μηδ’ αἰδοῖα γονῇ πεπαλαγμένος ἔνδοθι οἴκου
ἱστίῃ ἐπελαδὸν παραφαινέμεν, ἀλλ’ ἀλέασθαι.
μηδ’ ἀπὸ δυσφήμοιο τάφου ἀπονοστήσαντα
σπερμαίνειν γενεήν, ἀλλ’ ἀθανάτων ἀπὸ δαιτός.
μηδέ ποτ’ ἐν προχοῇς ποταμῶν ἅλαδε προρεόντων
μηδ’ ἐπὶ κρηνάων οὐρεῖν, μάλα δ’ ἐξαλέασθαι,
μηδ’ ἐναποψύψειν· τὸ γὰρ οὔ τοι λώϊόν ἐστιν.
(Hesiod, Erga kai Hēmerai 727-759)

And do not urinate standing up facing the sun; but be mindful to do so after it sets, and before it rises, but even so do not completely bare yourself; for the nights belong to the blessed ones. And do not urinate while you are walking, on the road or off the road: it is crouching that the god-fearing man, who knows wisdom, does it, or after he has approached towards the wall of a well-fenced courtyard. And inside the house do not reveal your genitals besmirched with intercourse near the hearth, but avoid this. And do not sow offspring when you come home from an ill-spoken funeral, but from a dinner of the immortals. And do not ever urinate into the streams of rivers that flow down towards the sea nor onto fountains – avoid this entirely – and do not defecate into them: for that is not better. (tr. Glenn W. Most)

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: