Though I can and do read Latin with reasonable fluency, I don't know
anywhere near as much about classical Latin literature as I should..
Since I've drawn such a thorough blank, I hope most of the quotes turn
out to be from Greek, which I have never studied beyond a year in
college, whereas I majored in Latin.  :)

I have, however, made a list of the epigrams in question to save
everyone else from having to click on the links to the individual
speeches, and I shall repost the list to a classical mailing list.

Also, if anyone has a lot more time than I do, he or she could take
this list to Perseus and input a few key words from each epigram into
the site's full-text search, hoping to turn up one or more of the
passages that way.  That is of course dependent on the translator's
having chosen the same word as Kipling did (or on the searcher's
guessing correctly what Latin or Greek word Kipling was translating),
but there's a chance it might work for a few of them, especially for
the quotes with proper names.  Perseus is at
<http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/>

Epigrams from "A Book of Words":

I am Earth, overtaking all things except words. They alone escape me.
Therefore, I lie heavy on their makers.

I sought beauty, but men would not see. May their eyes now fall
sometimes upon my wife and babe.


Fear many things, but never the good griefs of youth, terrible and
bright as hail on the young corn that does not know it will recover at
sun-rise.

When the young men jesting played at horses and drew the chariot down
the street, Callimenes did not foresee that he should meet them again,
self-fastened to heavier yokes.


Heronax prays for that plains-commanding City which he knew in her
youth, and now as a matron honoured between sons—that their children
may not shame her children; for she, indeed, bore men strong to drive
the cleansing steel across far fields.


Hades keeps not faith with us later singers, but releases the great
ones full-tongued to overbear us when we would ply our art. Who can
sing against Homer and Sappho, or the voices that have told all?


I was Pausanias, Physician, reported to have died of natural disease,
but (I tell you) harried to death by sick people always asking aid. In
bodiless Hades, however, where (the) one medicine has already been
given, I sleep the night through.


None could foretell what would be required of the men or the ships in
that hour; but both were so tempered that, when their hour came, it
was seen to be no more than one of their hours.

Paracatathecus, the Herald, bequeaths to his successor his white wand
of office with which he was wont to marshal the clamorous litigants in
the Court, and his roll of holy precedents for all words and actions;
knowing that men are better busied about ceremonial than nakedly
delivered to the fear of crowds.


A. “Which of all rewards was dearest to Statius the Charioteer, and to
Crantas the Shipmaster?” B. “Neither the wreath nor the statue; nor
the welcome of the City, nor the profit on the bales; but the strict
verdict of their equals who had, in their time, turned the pillars
grazing the tilted axles, or held straight the prows buffeted by
wandering winds.”


A. “When I heard thy words, my Father, I almost fell asleep through
weariness.” B. “Had I foreseen that sleep, my Son, I would have put
aside all else to have pleased thee alone.”


“The life of wanderers is ill to live?” “Credit it not. I have entered
and possessed new lands daily for many days. Whether their earth or
their water now possesses my carcass, they are welcome to it.”


O foreign-tongued woodlands, we confide to you a child of that
generation for whom their fathers prepared such distant graves.


Certain it is men have fallen upon each other from the first. This is
a business which the Gods lay upon the Young; leaving the Old to weary
with words the unreturning phalanx.

Home came the ships bearing message by sulphur and smoke of the battle.
Home came the tide to the beach and kissed the inviolate sands.


Beyond the Pillars of Hercules, they do things inversely and,
perpetually appearing to dig their own graves, by some means erect
world-beheld monuments—an example, however, not to be followed by less
confident peoples.


These came down from the North which weighs all things in Her mind.
Having struck the balance, they gave all and for ever.

Closer than kinship it is to have loved and suffered together
Ships on a doubled chain ride to the heaviest gale.


By the tales told at their mother’s knee do men live or die. Praise
the Gods, Mother, that you told me tales of the open-breasted Gods,
and not of vermin!


Write on this gate delivered from her tearful yoke by those who have
clothed themselves in the dark dust, that, now, within her, men may
question and speak of all things everywhere.


These men were at first strangers to us till we found that the Sword,
robbing our parents, gave us many brothers.


Truly the Gods oppress us damnably. Yoke up the Oxen!
    Fields well furrowed we need now and not furrows of tears.


I, an unknown man, was eaten out of life by an incurable disease sent,
it was said, from the Gods. Have a care, You Above! My breed also is
immortal and, presently, some of them will be after You with knives to
discover if this was true.


First, above all, Philodemus filled his own platter and his own cup at
his own charges, so that no man could expect to get from him more than
his mere life. Thus he contrived at times to live with himself—a guest
not always placable.


A. “I, a believer, look upwards, drinking in the deep-breathed words
of the Gods, who unravel mysteries.” B. “And I, denying the Gods, look
downwards at the mysteries under my hands and eyes.” C. “Both of you
have missed the matter, seeing that the Gods are, in each case,
present.”


Distant is that tomb of granite under the Sun, which holds two hearts,
each impotent without the other. Now that they are reunited, look for
a new Star to be born!

When I used the Sea to sail toy-boats, all its waters were not wide
enough. Now, knowing its deeps, the sound of one little wave turning
over, makes me horribly afraid.


A. “Which is the greater sinner, Rhadamanthus—he who beats soft iron
into smooth swords that all can use, or he who beats soft reeds into
smooth, all-serving paper?” B. “Chain the two together, till they
settle it between them.”


Gold and Gems we may steal—melt down, re-cut and re-sell them.
    All that we need is the Fire. That we must find in ourselves.

Having sailed under the sun, they found, between steep forests and the
glittering face of ocean, a people touching both worlds, learned and
most courteous to strangers.


Worshipping Gods unknown (to us); oppressed by fears of Gods unknown
(to them); in battle worthy to be rewarded for their valour by all
(Gods).