A Roman poet studies a drop of amber beside his writing tablet.

The bee in amber

Marcus Valerius Martialis, known as Martial (c. 40–c. 104), was a Roman poet from Bilbilis in present-day Spain. A drop of amber containing a bee gives him the subject for four lines. The insect is perfectly visible and forever beyond reach.

Two stories in a single drop

Phaethon’s name recalls the story of his grieving sisters, whose tears hardened into amber. A second resemblance needs no previous reading. The golden drop makes the bee look as if it were enclosed in its own nectar.

In an amber-drop the bee lies hid and lightens, so that it seems to be shut in its native sweets. Worthy reward for all its toils it has won; methinks itself would have wished so to die.[1]

The turn in the last two lines

The observer imagines that this industrious insect might have wished for just such an end. The Latin words “credibile est” leave room to hear whose idea that is. The bee is silent. The poet can give its death a meaning for the length of an epigram.