Inside of this elaborate memorial,
made entirely of stone,
which so many violets, so many lilies adorn,
Eurion lies buried, so beautiful.
A boy of twenty-five, an Alexandrian.
Through the father’s kin, old Macedonian,
a line of alabarchs on his mother’s side.
With Aristoclitus he took his philosophical instruction;
rhetoric with Parus. A student in Thebes, he read
the sacred writings. He wrote a history
of the Arsinoïte district. This at least will endure.
Nevertheless, we’ve lost what was most dear: his beauty,
which was like an Apollonian vision.
C. P. Cavafy, “Tomb of Eurion”, in Collected Poems, translated by Daniel Mendelsohn