Simonides

So Simonides imagined himself moving through the rooms to name everyone he’d seen.

One can’t help but think throughout the novel of all those people crushed beneath the roof in the story of Simonides.

The description of Danaë in the wooden chest was the most famous passage of a famous poem by Simonides of Ceos, a great lyric poet who lived in the sixth century.

I have followed Apollodorus, but I have added the fragment from Simonides, and short quotations from other poets, notably Hesiod and Pindar.

For those who mourn the dead — scribes like the Greek poet Simonides, who wrote epitaphs for fallen warriors — your voice must tremble with poignancy, with a certain piteousness.