Skip main navigation

[Alcaic Fragment]


You can add notes or queries to any part of the poetic text by simply clicking on the line in question and filling in the annotations form with your details. All contributions will be submitted to the editor in the first instance for review.

[Alcaic Fragment]


1 O lachrymarum Fons, tenero sacros
2 Ducentium ortus ex animo; quater
3     Felix! in imo qui scatentem
4     Pectore te, pia Nympha, sensit!

Expanding the poem lines (+) shows notes and queries taken from various critical editions of Gray's works, as well as those contributed by users of the Archive. There are 0 textual and 1 explanatory notes/queries.

All notes and queries are shown by default.

0 [Alcaic Fragment] 1 Explanatory

Title/Paratext] "[Prose translation by J. R. [...]" H.W. Starr/J.R. Hendrickson, 1966.

"[Prose translation by J. R. Hendrickson:]
"Alcaic Fragment"

    O fountain of tears which have their sacred sources in the sensitive soul! Four times blessed he who has felt thee, holy Nymph, bubbling up from the depths of his heart!"

The Complete Poems of Thomas Gray: English, Latin and Greek. Edited by Herbert W. Starr and J. R. Hendrickson. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1966, 141.

Add a note or query to this line


1 O lachrymarum Fons, tenero sacros
2 Ducentium ortus ex animo; quater
3     Felix! in imo qui scatentem
4     Pectore te, pia Nympha, sensit!

Works cited

  • The Complete Poems of Thomas Gray: English, Latin and Greek. Edited by Herbert W. Starr and J. R. Hendrickson. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1966.

Contractions, italics and initial capitalization have been largely eliminated, except where of real import. Initial letters of sentences have been capitalized, all accents have been removed. The editor would like to express his gratitude to library staff at Pembroke College, Cambridge, at the British Library, and at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, for their invaluable assistance.

About this text

Editions in the Digital Library

  • 1775: The Poems of Mr. Gray. To which are prefixed Memoirs of his Life and Writings by W[illiam]. Mason. York, 1775.
  • 1775: The Latin Odes of Mr. Gray, in English verse, with An Ode on the Death of a favorite Spaniel [by E. B. G.] London, 1775.
  • 1800: The Poetical Works of Thomas Gray. London, 1800.
  • 1800: The Poems of Gray. A new edition. London, 1800.
  • 1814: The Works of Thomas Gray, Vol. I. Ed. Thomas James Mathias. London, 1814.
  • 1816: The Works of Thomas Gray, Vol. I. Ed. John Mitford. London, 1816.
  • 1826: The Poetical Works of Thomas Gray. London, 1826.
  • 1836: The Works of Thomas Gray, Volume I. Ed. John Mitford. London, 1836.