by Hine, Daryl;
CCIV STRATO
Were downy Diocles to trade his ass
For Sosiades’, he’d get gold for brass,
Roses for brambles, figs for toadstools, or
A lamb for an ox. And what did you get for
Your favours, foolish boy? The pleasures had
By hairy heroes in the Iliad !
CCV STRATO
The kid next door exites me, with his bold,
Enticing glances and precocious snigger—
Although he is no more than twelve years old!
Green fruit grows free. He’ll be locked up when bigger!
CCVI STRATO
A. To start with, grapple your opponent round
The waist, bestride and pin him to the ground.
B. You’re mad! For that I’m hardly competent,
Wrestling with boys is something different.
Withstand my onslaught, Cyris, hold your own!
Let’s practice together what you do alone.
CCVII STRATO
Yesterday in the bath Diocles’ penis
Rose from the water like The Birth of Venus.
On Ida, if he’d sprung this same surprise,
Paris would have given it the prize.
CCVIII STRATO
I do not, little book, begrudge your luck,
Should any adolescent reader tuck
You under his chin, or nibble you, or press
You with his hairless thighs—what happiness!
How often you would sidle next his heart,
Or, dropped on a seat, dare touch a certain part!
You speak to him in private frequently,
Slim volume; now and then please speak of me.
CCIX STRATO
Don’t lie there at my side inert and glum,
Diphilus, like a kid who’s gone astray.
What about some kisses, cuddles, some
Pillow talk and amorous foreplay?
CCX STRATO
Three in one bed: while two are being done
Two are doing them. Resolve this riddle.
Strange but true: the fellow in the middle
In front and in behind is having fun.
CCXI STRATO
Were you a novice I’d tried to persuade
To vice, you might be right to be afraid;
But since your master’s bed taught you a lot,
Why not treat someone else to what you’ve got?
Called to your post, your duty done, without
A word, your sleepy master throws you out.
But here are other pleasures, free speech and
Fun by solicitation not command.
CCXII STRATO
What now, my pet, depressed, in tears again?
What do you want? Don’t torture me! Speak plain.
You hold your palm out! I’m disgusted at
Your asking payment. Where did you learn that?
Seed cakes and conkers will not make you merry
Now, that your mind has grown so mercenary.
I curse the customer with his perverse
Lessons who made my little rascal worse!
CCXIII STRATO
Against a wall you lean your fundament,
Cyris. Why tempt the stone? It’s impotent.
CCXIV STRATO
You’d say, “I’m rich!”, if you sold me the thing
I crave. Now grant it freely, like a king.
CCXV STRATO
Now Spring, you will be Summer soon. Recall,
Cyris, how you’ll be stubble in the Fall.
CCXVI STRATO
In solitude, you prick, you lift your head,
Who yesterday in company played dead.
CCXVII STRATO
You’re off to join the army? Such a nice
Mama’s boy should think about it twice.
Who prompted you to wear a helmet, wield
A spear and hide your head behind a shield?
Lucky that new Achilles who will spend
Time in his tent with such a bossom friend!
CCXVIII STRATO
Tell me, Pasiphilus, how long must I
Endure your laughter and your vapid chatter?
I ask, you laugh; again, and no reply.
You laugh at my tears, which are no laughing matter.
CCXIX STRATO
Ungrateful teachers, you want money, too?
Isn’t the sight of boys enough for you?
Is chatting up and greeting your young scholars
With a kiss not worth a hundred dollars?
If you have winning kids, send them to me;
And if they’ll kiss me they can name their fee.
CCXX STRATO
Prometheus, for spiriting away
Fire are you bound, or marring mortal clay?
You gave boys body hairs, the horrid basis
Of fuzzy shanks and, what’s worse, fuzzy faces.
Therefore you feed the eagle that once bore
Off Ganymede. Zeus too finds beards a bore.
CCXXI STRATO
O eagle, flap your widespread wings and fly
Conveying Ganymede to Zeus’s sky.
Grip tight the tender youth and don’t let fall
The server of his sweetest drinks of all.
Be careful you don’t scratch him with your claws,
Or Zeus will be annoyed, and with just cause.
CCXXII STRATO
A wrestling coach who’d bent a hairless lad
Over his knee, to stroke his midriff, had
Him by the nuts, when, seeking the little guy,
The head of the establishment chanced by.
The trainer flipped his pupil on his back,
Bestrode him, and put his hands around his neck,
Quickly. His boss, who knew a trick or two,
Said, “Squeezing the kid a little hard, aren’t you?”
CCXXIII STRATO
A boy looks so charming as he faces you,
You don’t gaze at his backside as you pass;
As in a temple when we face a statue
We seldom bother to inspect its ass.
CCXXIV STRATO
Together down the primrose path we go,
And, Diphilus, take care to keep it so.
We both boast high-flown qualities: you glory
In beauty, I in love—each transitory:
A little while in tandem lingering,
Once they forget each other they take wing.
CCXXV STRATO
At cock crow there is never any need
To do it doggy style or milk the bull,
Or to besprinkle with your liquid seed
Your Ganymede’s pubescent patch of wool.
CCXXVI STRATO
All night long I wipe my weeping eyes
And soothe my sleepless soul that wakes and cries
For Theodore, my friend who went away
And left me all alone here yesterday.
He swore he’d soon be back; if he is late,
I can not long continue celibate.
CCXXVII STRATO
Although I will not meet a cute boy’s eye,
I turn around as soon as I pass by.
CCXXVIII STRATO
If any minor foolishly consents
We blame the corrupter of his innocence.
But once a youth has outgrown child’s play, it
Is twice as shameful for him to submit.
But there’s a time when it’s not yet too late
Moeris, or too soon, to celebrate.
CCXXIX STRATO
How good, Alexis, is that Nemesis,
To check whose dread advance we spit like this!
You did not see her coming, thinking your
Invidious beauty yours for evermore,
Since ruined by harsh hairs. And that is why
We, once your followers, now pass you by.
CCXXX CALLIMACHUS
If, Zeus in heaven! dark Theocritus
&nbs
p; Dislikes me, judge him twice as odious.
But if he cares for me, befriend him. Need
I cite your love for fair-haired Ganymede?
CCXXXI STRATO
Euclid in love is lucky. His dad died.
In life this kindly corpse indulged whatever
His son desired. Still I am doomed to hide
My pleasures—my old man will live forever.
CCXXXII SCYTHINUS
Erect you stand now, thingamajig, as if
You’d never quit, so vigorous and stiff.
When Nemesenus snuggled up in bed,
Indulging my every whim, you hung your head.
Now swollen fit to burst you weep in vain:
My hand will not take mercy on your pain.
CCXXXIII FRONTO
The role of your lifetime was My Secret Garden,
You thought, but it is Gone with the Wind now, boy.
After Stand by Me, you’ll play Flesh Gordon,
And soon you’ll be rehearsing Midnight Cowboy.
CCXXXIV STRATO
You vaunt your beauty; you know roses flower,
Wither, and are thrown out on the midden.
Beauty and bloom which share a given hour
By grasping time are equally hag-ridden.
CCXXXV STRATO
If beauty spoils, share it before it’s spent;
If not, why fear to give what’s permanent?
CCXXXVI STRATO
A eunuch has cute slaveboys. What’s the use?
Can he subject them to profane abuse?
A dog in the manger, barking to annoy,
He spoils for others what he can’t enjoy.
CCXXXVII STRATO
Fuck off, you hypocrite, you little lout!
You swore that nevermore would you put out.
Don’t swear again; I’m not deceived by you:
I know with whom, where, how—for how much, too.
CCXXXVIII STRATO
In their erotic play with one another
Puppies give and take a lot of pleasure:
Reciprocally mounted by each other,
They screw as they are screwed, measure for measure.
The underdog—for no one is left out—
Immediately to the rear will pass.
So in the proverb: turn and turn about,
It’s said, it takes an ass to scratch an ass.
CCXXXIX STRATO
You ask for five, I’ll give you ten, or twenty.
Is gold enough? For Danae it was plenty.
CCXL STRATO
Already on my head the hairs grow white,
Between my thighs my doodle dangles too;
My balls are useless. Old age looms in sight.
Though I know how, I can no longer screw.
CCXLI STRATO
You’ve baited your hook and caught me, child. You may
Tug as you like, but don’t run, or I’ll get away.
CCXLII STRATO
Your rosy fingered prick that used to charm
Us, Alcimus, is now a rosy arm.
CCXLIII STRATO
Ass-fucking ruined me and made me limp:
Though gouty, good God forbid I should go limp!
CCXLIV STRATO
A milk-white boy undoes me at first sight;
A honey-coloured lad sets me alight;
A golden boy, however, melts me quite.
CCXLV STRATO
Dumb brutes only fuck; we clever human
Beings, in this superior at least,
Invented buggery. The slaves of women
Have no more sophistication than a beast.
CCXLVI STRATO
Twins love me, and I do not know which brother
To choose as overlord, for both I love.
They come and go. I judge the absence of
One equal to the presence of the other.
CCXLVII STRATO
As Idomeneus brought from Crete to Troy
Meriones to be his serving-boy,
I have a helpmeet, Theodore, in you,
Like him a servant and a playmate too.
Perform your household duties every day;
At night at squire and master let us play.
CCXLVIII STRATO
Having your boy beside you all the time
How can you tell if he is past his prime?
Who, pleasing yesterday, will not today?
And if today, why not the following day?
CCXLIX STRATO
Spying my honey, bully boy bee, why
Straight to his slick face in a bee line fly?
Buzz off! Stop trying to massage his sweet,
Unblemished skin with sticky little feet.
Go home to your honeyed boy-hive, flighty thing,
Or I’ll sting you, with my erotic sting.
CCL STRATO
As I set out carousing one night late,
A lucky wolf, I found a lambkin at my gate,
My neighbour’s son. I kissed and hugged him tight,
And promised him plenty in my heart’s delight.
What shall I give him? He’s too sweet to cheat,
Or hoodwink with slick, Italianate deceit.
CCLI STRATO
Foreplay and kisses face to face we had
When, Diphilus, you were a little lad;
‘Behind and out of mind’, I now assuage,
Kneeling, my passing passion. Act your age.
CCLII STRATO
I’ll burn the door down with a fiery brand
And roast the boy inside. Then I’ll take flight
Over the wine-dark Adriatic and
Watch at some door that opens up at night.
CCLIII STRATO
Give me a hand, but not to stop me, friend,
Cavorting. Were that cheeky boy not tied
Unfortunately to his father’s side,
He wouldn’t find me tipsy to no end.
CCLIV STRATO
Out of what shrine, bedazzling my sight,
Issues this band of Loves diffusing light?
Which is a slave and which a gentleman?
Their lord can hardly be a mortal man,
Greater than Zeus, for while Zeus hasn’t any
Catamite but Ganymede, he has so many!
CCLV STRATO
You maverick, what language should explain
The derivation of the word makes plain:
Boy-lovers, Dionysius, love boys—
You can’t deny it—not great hobblehoys.
After I referee the Pythian
Games, you umpire the Olympian:
The failed contestants I once sent away
You welcome as competitors today.
CCLVI MELEAGER
For Venus Love arranged a rich bouquet,
Of boys, hand-picked to steal the heart away,
And next to Diodorus’ lily set
Asclepiades’ sweet, white violet,
Let Heraclitus’ thorny rose entwine
Dion like a blossom on the vine,
Shy Uliades’ sprig of thyme beside
Resplendent Theron’s saffron crocus hide;
And evergreen Myiscus’ olive sprout
Aretus’ lovely greenery tricks out.
O blessèd Tyre that boasts the perfumed grove
Of Venus where the cult of boy-love throve!
CCLVIII STRATO
Some reader of this child’s play in another
Age may think these heart-throbs all were mine.
For writing different epigrams for other
Lovers of boys my talent was divine.
CCLVII MELEAGER
As colophon that underlines The End,
Designed these written columns to defend,
I say first Meleager undertook
To gather many poets in one book,
Completing a verse garland twined from these
Memorable flowers for Diocles.
ANTHOLOGIA PALATINA, BOOK XI,
&n
bsp; XLVIII ANACREON
Hephaestus, silversmith,
Do not fashion me
Some warlike panoply,
But a hollow cup
Deep as it can be.
And decorate it with
No constellated stars
Or hateful armoured cars,
But a blooming vine
With bunches beaming up
At the bonny god of wine.
INDEX OF AUTHORS
(References are to the number of each poem.)
Alcaeus: XXIX, XXX, LXIV
Alpheius of Mytilene: XVIII
Anonymous: XVII, XIX, XXXIX, XL, LXI, LXII, LXVI, LXVII, LXIX, LXXIX, LXXXVI, LXXXVII, LXXXVIII, LXXXIX, XC, XCVI, XCIX, C, CIII, CIV, CVII, CXI, CXII, CXV, CXVI, CXXIII, CXXX, CXXXVI, CXL, CXLIII, CXLV, CLI, CLII, CLV, CLVI, CLX
