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Our new translation of these two Ancient Greek laments is now online here.

'The Lament for Adonis' by the Lydian poet Bion, and the 'Lament for Bion', probably written by a pupil of his, were significant influences on subsequent literary tradition.  Eustache Deschamps' laments for Guillaume Machaut and Geoffrey Chaucer; Milton's 'Lycidas' a tribute to his friend Edward King; Shelley's 'Adonais', his lament for Keats; and Lorca's 'Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías', the matador, are fine examples of this, while Rilke's introduction of a female figure personifying Lament to his tenth 'Duino Elegy', is a further example of how these Greek works found later echoes.