Cut These Words into My Stone

For something to read in normal circumstances? Today it’s Michael Wolfe’s wondrous set of translations of ancient Greek epitaphs, Cut These Words into My Stone. A book Keats would deeply appreciate. A book to keep handy by bed or bath. – Bill Berkson Harriet Cut These Words into my Stone is not a long book, but its short pages have a great balance between education and emotionally touching poetry. The translator’s note, introduction, and chapter introductions are all deeply researched, but still accessible to a lay reader. – Elizabeth Franklin Portland Book Review This pleasing volume should introduce a new generation of general readers to the important poetic tradition of the ancient Greek grave epigram… No previous English study of quite this scope exist. Choice A wonderful short volume on Greek epitaphs which will appeal both to the general reader and the specialist… I highly recommend this book as a solid introduction to the reading and translating of Greek epigrams, and as a useful reference for illustrating how poetic translations of ancient Greek can be beautifully rendered for the modern audience while still remaining loyal to the ancient Greek use of language – Philip J. Smith Bryn Mawr Classical Review As you turn the pages of this modest-seeming book you begin to succumb to magic. Each of these epitaphs is a poem that opens a window onto a life in Antiquity… If you wanted to find a single volume that gives a sense of the genius of the ancient Greeks, and reflects their influence on the cultural life of subsequent ages, you would be pushed to find anything better than this. – Alex Martin The Anglo-Hellenic Review

Michael Wolfe is a poet, author, documentary film producer, and president of Unity Productions Foundation, a nonprofit media organization. Wolfe is the author of many books of verse and prose, including The Hadj: An American’s Pilgrimage to Mecca. Richard Martin is Anthony and Isabelle Raubitschek Professor of Classics at Stanford University.