by Hine, Daryl;
XLI MELEAGER
No, Theron’s beauty does no longer please
Me, nor Apollodotus’ burnt-out charms.
I like cunt. Let bestial goatherds squeeze
Their hairy little bumboys in their arms!
XLII DIOSCORDES
Do not go empty-handed if you look
To win your heart’s desire, Hermogenes,
And smile again. Be sure to bait your hook
Well, or you will catch nothing. Qualities
Like shame and pity are, poor chickenhawk,
Not natural to such a greedy tease.
XLIII CALLIMACHUS
Little I care for your popular cyclical poem:
Such thoroughfares I thoroughly despise.
So I detest a boy who makes himself common,
Nor do I drink from public water supplies.
Yes, you are handsome, Lysanias, terribly handsome.
“And someone else’s!” instantly Echo replies.
XLIV GLAUCUS
Where once you could win over grasping boys
With birds and balls and jacks, all that beguiles
Them now is sweets or cash; old-fashioned toys
Don’t work. Find something new, you pedophiles!
XLV POSIDIPUS
Let fly, young Loves! I stand, the single butt
Of all you brats. Don’t spare me! Your success
Will win you fame, not just as marksmen, but
For the impressive weapons you possess.
XLVI ASCLEPIADES
Not twenty-two, yet I find life a stiff
Proposition. Why such hard attacks,
You dizzy darlings? What would you do if
I got hurt? Continue playing jacks?
XLVII MELEAGER
An infant on his mother’s lap Love lay
And in one morning diced my life away.
XLVIII MELEAGER
Yes, kick me when I’m down, you spiteful sprite!
I feel your weight, I feel your fiery dart.
But if you try to set fire to my heart,
You can’t: it is incinerated quite.
XLIX MELEAGER
Drink deep, boy-lover. Bacchus, bringer of
Oblivion, will soothe your hopeless love.
Drink deep, and as you drain the wine-filled bowl
Purge all the bitter anguish from your soul.
L ASCLEPIADES
What’s wrong, Asclepiades? Drink, don’t weep!
Not you alone does cruel Venus keep
In thrall; not you alone is pungent lust
Transfixing. Why lie panting in the dust?
Drink unmixed wine. The east’s just touched with red;
Let’s wait for its lamp to light our way to bed
Once more. Poor, lovelorn wretch, drink deep:
Short is the time before our long, long sleep.
LI CALLIMACHUS
Drinking to Diocles, don’t dilute
The toast that I propose to honour his
Beauty: and if you call that in dispute,
I’ll be the one to say what beauty is!
LII MELEAGER
Borne on a fair south wind, Andragathon
Has sailed away, and half my soul is gone.
Blessed the ships, the waves themselves are glad,
And fortunate the wind that blows the lad.
I wish I were a dolphin, so astride
My back to Rhodes, sweet boys’ home, he could ride.
LIII MELEAGER
Sea-faring freighters, the next time you sail
The Hellespont with a mild Northern gale,
If on the beach of Cos you chance to see
Phanion gazing at the grey-blue sea,
Say that desire is bringing me there, and
Not by sea, fair ships, but overland,
And straightaway a god-sent wind will blow
And fill your sails, if you will tell her so.
LIV MELEAGER
Venus, denying Cupid is her son,
Finds in Antiochus a better one.
This is the boy to be enamoured of,
Boys, a new love superior to Love.
LV ARTEMON?
Hail, son of Zeus and Leto! Where the seas
Wash Delos you dispense your prophecies.
Your counterpart is Echedemus, whom
Love has illumined with bewitching bloom,
So Athens, mistress of the land and sea
By beauty holds all Greece in slavery.
LVI MELEAGER
Praxiteles once carved a statue of
Venus’ son, the pretty god of love,
Who in his lovely image modelled this
Praxiteles, a living masterpiece,
So one on earth and one in heaven might reign,
Two Loves to deal love-charms to gods and men.
Blest isle of Cos for rearing this new-sprung
God-given Love, ring-leader of the young!
LVII MELEAGER
Praxiteles once from marble sculpted some
Image of beauty, lifeless, stony, dumb.
His modern namesake, by his magic art,
Modelled Love’s lively likeness in my heart.
The name’s the same; his works are more refined:
Instead of marble he transforms the mind.
I wish that he would kindly mould my whole
Nature and build Love’s temple in my soul.
LVIII RHIANUS
Troezen grows sweet boys; you would not err
In praising the most unprepossessing there.
Empedocles with as much more splendour glows,
As does amid spring flowers the gorgeous rose.
LIX MELEAGER
Love, Tyre breeds pretty boys, but as the sun
The stars, Myiscus outshines every one.
LX MELEAGER
When I see Thero I see everything;
But when he’s absent I can’t see a thing.
LXI ANONYMOUS
Watch out, Aribazus! Don’t seduce
All Cnidus! The very stones are coming loose.
LXII ANONYMOUS
You Persian mothers, what fair boys you bear!
But mine to me seems something more than fair.
LXIII MELEAGER
Dumb Heraclitus signals with his eyes,
“I can ignite the lightning from the skies!”
And Diodorus secretly repeats,
“I melt the stone my body overheats.”
Poor sod, who from the eyes of one takes fire
And scents the other’s smouldering desire!
LXIV ALCAEUS
Zeus, lord of Pisa, crown another son
Of Cypris, Peithenor, born to succeed.
Like an eagle pray don’t grab this one
To pour your drinks instead of Ganymede.
Join me and the godlike boy in unison
If I brought you poetic gifts indeed.
LXV MELEAGER
Is Zeus the same who kidnapped Ganymede
To have his nectar beautifully served?
Pretty Myiscus privately I need
To keep, lest Zeus swoop on him unobserved.
LXVI ANONYMOUS
Who does this boy deserve? Let Love decide!
If fit for the gods, I do not strive with heaven;
Should anything for mortal men abide,
Whose was he then? to whom is he now given?
I won, but Dorotheus took his leave.
Don’t be the next one whom good looks deceive!
LXVII ANONYMOUS
I don’t see pretty Dionysius—
Zeus, for a new pot-boy did you snatch him?
When with swift wings you bore the beauteous
Lad off, I hope your talons did not scratch him!
LXVIII MELEAGER
I don’t want Charidamus. He looks up
To Zeus as if indeed he were his cup-
Bearer. Why take the king of heaven for
Successful sexu
al competitor?
Sufficient if, Olympus-bound, my sweet
With my terrestrial tears will wash his feet
In memory of my love—and add to this
One melting glance, one superficial kiss.
Let Zeus have all the rest. Should he allow,
I too shall taste ambrosia, somehow.
LXIX ANONYMOUS
Take pleasure, Zeus, in your first catamite
And gaze from afar at mine. I am forgiving.
But if you carry off the boy by might
Your tyranny will make life not worth living.
LXX MELEAGER
I shall stand up to Zeus, should he design
To snap Myiscus up to serve his wine.
Zeus often said to me himself, “Afraid
I’ll make you jealous? Sympathy has made
Me merciful.” The antics of this fly*
Alarm me: can an eagle tell a lie?
LXXI CALLIMACHUS
Cleonicus, poor sod, where have you been?
I’d hardly recognize you, sight unseen,
You’re merely skin and bones. Are you obsessed
Like me, a victim of some god’s grim jest?
So Euxitheus took you by surprise,
The rogue who gazed at beauty with both eyes!
LXXII MELEAGER
Sweet dawn already! Sleepless on the porch
Damis expires for Heraclitus, who
Has melted him like wax with eyes that scorch
Like coals. Unlucky Damis, wake! I too
Have been hurt by carrying the torch
For Love, and so I weep because you do.
LXXIII CALLIMACHUS
Half of my soul still breathes, but I don’t know
If Love has rapt the other half away,
Or Death. Gone to some little gigolo?
(I told the lads, “Rebuff the runaway.”)
Look no further: that’s where it would go,
I’m sure, the ne’er-do-well, the débauché.
*Myiscus = “fly boy”
LXXIV MELEAGER
If, Cleobulus, I should expire
Being cast on the juvenile pyre,
As to ashes I burn
Sprinkle wine on my urn
And inscribe it, “To Death from Desire.”
LXXV ASCLEPIADES
If you had wings, a bow, and arrows too,
I’d not think Cupid Venus’ son, but you.
LXXVI MELEAGER
If Cupid had no bow, no wings, and no
Quiver filled with fiery arrows of
Desire, by looks alone you’d never know
Zoilus from the wingèd god of love.
LXXVII ASCLEPIADES or POSIDIPPUS
If you had golden wings, and from your shoulder
Dangled, dear, a silver arrow-holder,
And you stood next to Love in naked splendour,
Venus would wonder which did she engender.
LXXVIII MELEAGER
If, instead of wings and a bow, Love had
A mantle and a hat with a broad brim,
Antiochus—I swear by the proud lad
Himself!—would look like Love, and Love like him.
LXXIX ANONYMOUS
Antipater, when love began to pall,
Kissed me, and from ashes stirred desire.
Twice burnt by the same flame, I warn off all
Poor lovers, lest they touch me and catch fire.
LXXX MELEAGER
Poor tearful spirit, does the dormant pain
Of love within your heart flare up again?
For God’s sake, most irrational of souls,
Do not stir up those smouldering, banked coals!
Oblivious of your woes you got away,
But when Love catches you he’ll make you pay.
LXXXI MELEAGER
Unhappy, self-deceiving lovers who
Have known the bittersweet of boy-love too,
Pour round my heart cold water, quick, which flows,
My fellow slaves, from freshly melted snows.
At Dionysius I dared to gaze:
Before I am consumed put out the blaze.
LXXXII MELEAGER
I tried to fly from Love, who snatched a brand
Out of the coals and found my hiding place.
Bending, not his bow but his small hand,
He flicked a pinch of fire in my face,
Enveloping me in flames. Sweet firebrand,
Now you have made my heart your fireplace.
LXXXIII MELEAGER
Love did not wound me with his normal dart;
He lit no blazing torch beneath my heart,
But in my eyes infused a fragrant fire,
Companion to disorderly Desire,
Melting me down: a tiny spark to start
This soulful conflagration in my heart!
LXXXIV MELEAGER
Help! I have only to set foot on land,
Having survived my maiden voyage, and
Love drags me here by force and shines his light
On this boy’s beauty: what a lovely sight!
I dog his steps, and grasping for his fair
Imaginary form, I kiss thin air.
Have I escaped the briny deep and found
Bitterer depths of longing on dry ground?
LXXXV MELEAGER
Drunkards, make room for one who, safe ashore,
Escaped the sea, and pirates furthermore,
No sooner disembarked upon dry land
Than Love lays hold of me by brute force and
Drags me to see a certain boy pass by.
And here, averse, like a sleepwalker I
Stagger, not drunk with wine but with desire.
Give me a little help as I expire,
Dear strangers, take me in, a ruined guest,
For Love’s sake honour friendship’s last request.
LXXXVI MELEAGER
Lady Venus generates our lust
For females; Cupid pricks desire for males.
Which shall I turn to? Even Venus must
Admit her cheeky little brat prevails.
LXXXVII ANONYMOUS
Brash Love, you make me dizzy! Do I yearn
For women? No, for my own sex I burn.
Enflamed by Damon, every time I see
Ismenus I am plunged in misery.
I stare at others too; my roving eye
Is caught by every boy who passes by.
LXXXVIII ANONYMOUS
Two tempestuous passions having ground
Me down, in double madness I am bound.
As soon as to Asander’s person I
Incline, Telephus’ catches my keen eye.
How nice it would be if they could divide
Me equally, and then let chance decide!
LXXXIX ANONYMOUS
Why, Venus, must you take a triple shot
At me, and lodge three arrows in my soul?
I’m pulled this way and that, and don’t know what
I want; this rabid fire consumes me whole.
XC ANONYMOUS
I’m through with love! Three bad upsets I’ve had:
A courtesan, a maiden, and a lad,
All painful. Long did I besiege the whore’s
Door, which was posted, NO SOLICITORS,
And lying sleepless in a colonnade,
I showered longing kisses on the maid;
Ah, how describe the third? From him, as yet,
Glances and promises are all I get.
XCI POLYSTRATUS
Two loves consume my soul. I, having gone
Everywhere looking for a paragon,
Spotted Antiochus, whose charm enjoys
Preeminence among our golden boys.
That should suffice! Why seek a younger one,
Delicious Stasicrates, Venus’ son?
The pair of you are helpless to control
What you may well destroy, this single soul.
XCII MELEAGER
My eyes give me away, those boy-hounds who
Stick ever to their quarry’s tracks like glue!
As sheep catch wolves, and fuel catches fire,
As birds catch snakes, you’ve caught your new desire.
Do as you please. But why shed tears like rain,
Then run right after Hiketas again?
Go on and baste yourself in his good looks:
Love is the chef of sentimental cooks.
XCIII RHIANUS
Boys are an inextricable maze;
Like glue they hold the transitory gaze.
Here Theodorus’ carnal charms attract
You, limbs so round and firm and fully packed;
Here golden-skinned Philocles, who is all
Heavenly grace, although not very tall.
If on Leptinus’ form your eyes you cast,
You cannot budge, your feet will be stuck fast
As adamant; that youngster’s looks are so
Ardent they’ll kindle you from top to toe.
Hail, lovely boys! May you attain your prime,
