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EPITAPH ON DIOPHANTUS, by             Poem Explanation         Poet's Biography
First Line: With diagrams no more to daunt us
Last Line: The life and death: required the age.
Subject(s): Diophantus (3rd Century); Epitaphs; Mathematics


WITH diagrams no more to daunt us,
Here sleeps in dust old Diophantus;
Who scorns to give you information,
Even of his age, but in equation.
A lad unskill'd in learning's ways,
He pass'd the sixth part of his days;
Within a twelfth part more, appear'd
The scatter'd blossoms of a beard.
A seventh part added to his life,
He married (for his sins) a wife;
Who, to complete her husband's joy,
Produced, in five years, a fine boy.
The boy, by the good man's directions,
Read Euclid, Simson's Conick Sections,
Trail's Algebra—was learn'd, was happy,
And had got half as old as pappy,
When, spite of surds and biquadraticks,
Death cured him of the mathematicks.
Poor Diophantus, you'll believe,
Did nothing for four years but grieve,
Then died.—GIVEN of a Grecian sage
The life and death: REQUIRED the age.





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