The Bee
by: Anacreon (570-488 B.C.)
translated by Thomas Stanley
Love, a Bee that lurk'd among
Roses saw not, and was stung:
Who for his hurt finger crying,
Running sometimes, sometimes flying,
Doth to his fair mother hie,
And O help, cries he, I die;
A wing'd snake hath bitten me,
Call'd by countrymen a Bee:
At which Venus, if such smart
A Bee's little sting impart,
How much greater is the pain,
They, whom thou hast hurt, sustain?
