Seductive Godess (Erotic Feast Book 13)

---

Therefore Echemenes, in his history of Crete, says that it was not Zeus who carried off Ganymedes , but Minos. But the before-mentioned Chalcidians say that Ganymedes was carried off from them by Zeus; and they show the spot, which they call Harpagium; and it is a place which produces extraordinary myrtles. And Minos abandoned his enmity to the Athenians, although it had originated in consequence of the death of his son, out of his love for Theseus ; and he gave his daughter Phaedra to Theseus for his wife, as Zenis or Zeneus of Chios , tells us in his History of his Native Land.

For in the presence of his favourite, a man would choose to do anything rather than to get the reputation of being a coward. And this was proved in practice in the case of the Sacred Band, as it was called, which was established at Thebes by Epaminondas. Harmodius and Aristogeiton made a deadly attack on the Peisistratidae ; and at Acragas in Sicily , the mutual love of Chariton and Melanippus produced a similar result, as we are told by Heracleides of Pontus , in his treatise On Amatory Matters. For when Melanippus and Chariton were informed against as plotting against Phalaris , and were tortured in order to compel them to reveal their accomplices, not only did they not betray them, but they even made Phalaris himself pity them, because of the tortures which they had undergone; so that he dismissed them with great praise.

On which account Apollo , being pleased at this conduct, gave Phalaris a respite from death; declaring this to the men who consulted the Pythian priestess as to how they might best attack him. The circumstances, too, that happened to Cratinus the Athenian, are well known. For he, being a very beautiful boy, at the time when Epimenides was purifying Attica by human sacrifices, on account of some old pollution, as Neanthes of Cyzicus relates in the second book of his treatise On Initiation Rites , willingly gave himself up to secure the safety of the woman who had brought him up.

And after his death, Apollodorus, his friend, also devoted himself to death, and so the calamities of the country were terminated. And owing to love affairs of this kind, the tyrants for friendships of this sort were very adverse to their interests altogether forbade the fashion of making favourites of boys, and wholly abolished it. And some of them even burnt down and rased to the ground the palaestrae , considering them as fortresses hostile to their own citadels; as, for instance, Polycrates the tyrant of Samos did.

I am not ignorant that the story which is told about Cratinus and Aristodemus is stated by Polemon Periegetes, in his Replies to Neanthes , to be a mere invention. But you, O Cynulcus , believe that all these stories are true, let them be ever so false. And you take the greatest pleasure in all such poems which speak of boys and favourites of that kind. The fashion of making favourites of boys was first introduced among the Greeks from Crete, as Timaeus informs us. But others say that Laius was the originator of this custom, when he was received in hospitality by Pelops ; and that he took a great fancy to Pelops' son, Chrysippus , whom he put into his chariot and carried off, [] and fled with to Thebes.

But Praxilla the Sicyonian says that Chrysippus was carried off by Zeus. And the Celts , too, although they have the most beautiful women of all the barbarians, still make great favourites of boys; so that some of them often go to rest with two lovers on their beds of hide.

Athenaeus: The Deipnosophists

And the Persians , according to the statement of Herodotus , learnt from the Greeks to adopt this fashion. Accordingly, Dicaearchus , in his treatise On the Sacrifice at Troy , says that he was so much under the influence of Bagoas the eunuch, that he embraced him in the sight of the whole theatre; and that when the whole theatre shouted in approval of the action, he repeated it. And Carystius , in his Historical Commentaries , says,- "Charon of Chalcis had a boy of great beauty, who was a great favourite of his: And in the same spirit, when he had taken as prisoners the daughters of Dareius , and his wife, who was of extraordinary beauty, he not only abstained from offering them any insult, but he took care never to let them feel that they were prisoners at all; but ordered them to be treated in every respect, and to be supplied with everything, just as if Dareius had still been in his palace; on which account, Dareius, when he heard of this conduct, raised his hands to the Sun and prayed that either he might be king, or Alexander.

And Diotimus, in his Heracleia , says that Eurystheus was a great favourite of Heracles , on which account he willingly endured all his labours for his sake. And it is said that Argynnus was a favourite of Agamemnon ; and that they first became acquainted from Agamemnon seeing Argynnus bathing in the Cephisus. And afterwards, when he was drowned in this river, for he was continually bathing in it, Agamemnon buried him, and raised a temple on the spot to Aphrodite Argynnis. But Licymnius of Chios , in his Dithyrambics, says that it was Hymenaeus of whom Argynnus was a favourite.

And Aristocles the harp-player was a favourite of King Antigonus: And when Hermesilaus, who was connected with him by ancient ties of hospitality, and who was also the proxenus of the Athenians, entertained him, the boy who was mixing the wine was standing by the fire, being a boy of a very beautiful complexion, but made red by the fire: For if a painter were to cover the cheeks of this boy with purple paint he would not be beautiful at all.

And so it is not well to compare what is beautiful with what is not so. And you do not either like the poet who spoke of the golden-haired Apollo ; for if a painter were to represent the hair of the god as actually golden, and not black, the picture would be all the worse. Nor do you approve of the poet who described women as rosy-fingered. For if any one were to dip his fingers in rosy-coloured paint he would make his hands like those of a purple-dyer, and not of a pretty woman. And when he was very near he took him by the hand and kissed him. And when all clapped their hands, laughing and shouting out, to see how well he had taken the boy in, he said, 'I, my friends, am practising the art of generalship, since Pericles has said that I know how to compose poetry, but not how to be a general; now has not this stratagem of mine succeeded perfectly?

The boy laid his own cloak on the grass, and they used Sophocles' cloak to cover them. When they had finished their encounter, the boy went off with Sophocles' cloak, and Sophocles was left with a boy's cloak. Naturally, this affair became the subject of gossip, and when Euripides was told about it he scoffed at Sophocles, saying that he too had used this boy, but he had not had to pay any extra, whereas Sophocles had been treated with contempt because of his licentiousness.

When Sophocles heard this, he composed the following epigram, which refers to the fable about the sun and the north wind, and also hints at Euripides' adultery: And," he says, "she was about to play the flute at the Pythian games, if she had not been hindered by the populace. This boy was brought also to Philippus by his father, but was dismissed without any favour. Onomarchus also gave to Damippus, the son of Epilycus of Amphipolis , who was a youth of great beauty, a present which had been consecrated to the god by Pleisthenes. And Philomelus gave to Pharsalia, a dancing-woman from Thessaly , a golden crown of laurel-leaves, which had been offered by the Lampsacenes.

But Pharsalia herself was afterwards torn to pieces at Metapontum , by the soothsayers, in the market-place, on the occasion of a voice coming forth out of the brazen laurel which the people of Metapontum had set up at the time when Aristeas of Proconnesus was sojourning among them, on his return, as he stated, from the Hyperboreans , the first moment that she was seen entering the market-place. And when men afterwards inquired into the reason for this violence, she was found to have been put to death on account of this crown which belonged to the god.

For boys are only handsome, as Glycera the courtesan said, while they are like women: But my opinion is that the conduct of Cleonymus the Spartan was in strict conformity with nature, who was the first man to take such hostages as he took from the Metapontines- namely, two hundred of their most respectable and beautiful maidens; as is related by Duris the Samian , in the third book of his History of Agathocles. But you, my philosophical friends, even when you are in love with women. For a bull was excited by the sight of the brazen cow at Peirene ; and when a picture was displayed of a bitch, and a pigeon, and a goose: But when they got near enough to touch them, they desisted; just as Cleisophus of Selymbria did.

For he fell in love with a statue of Parian marble that then was at Samos, and shut himself up in the temple to gratify his affection; but when he found that he could make no impression on the coldness and unimpressibility of the stone, then he discarded his passion. But the statue spoken of is the work of Ctesicles ; as Adaeus of Mytilene tells us in his treatise On Sculptors. And Polemon , or whoever the author of the book called Helladicus is, says- "At Delphi , in the museum of the pictures, there are two boys wrought in marble; with one of which, the Delphians say, a visitor fell in love so strongly, that he made love to it, and shut himself up with it, and presented it with a crown; but when he was detected, the god ordered the Delphians, who consulted his oracle with reference to the subject, to dismiss him freely, for that he had given him a handsome reward.

But this Secundus was a slave of Nicomedes the king of Bithynia ; as Nicander informs us in the sixth book of his essay On Changes of Fortune. And, at Aegium , a goose took a fancy to a boy; as Clearchus relates in the first book of his Amatory Anecdotes. And Theophrastus , in his, essay On Love , says that the name of this boy was Amphilochus, and that he was a native of Olenus. And Hermeias the son of Hermodorus, who was a Samian by birth, says that a goose also took a fancy to Lacydes the philosopher.

And in Leucadia according to a story told by Clearchus , a peacock fell so in love with a maiden there, that when she died, the bird died too. There is a story also that, at Iasus , a dolphin took a fancy to a boy. This story is told by Duris, in the ninth book of his History; and the subject of that book is the history of Alexander , and the historian's words are these: For near Iasus there was a boy whose name was Dionysius, and he once, when leaving the palaestra with the rest of the boys, went down to the sea and bathed; and a dolphin came forward out of the deep water to meet him, and taking him on his back, swam away with him a considerable distance into the open sea, and then brought him back again to land.

And after this it happened to him to be shipwrecked near Myconos , and while every one else perished, Coeranus alone was saved by a dolphin. And when, at last, he died of old age in his native country, as it so happened that his funeral procession passed along the sea-shore close to Miletus, a great shoal of dolphins appeared on that day in the harbour, keeping only a very little distance from those who were attending the funeral of Coeranus, as if they also were joining in the procession and sharing in their grief.

And his words are these: And when the woman did die, the affection for the child displayed by the beast was most extraordinary; for it could not endure the child to be away; and whenever it did not see him, it was out of spirits. And so, whenever the nurse fed the infant with milk, she placed it in its cradle between the feet of the beast; [] and if she had not done so, the elephant would not take any food; and after this, it would take whatever reeds and grass there were near, and, while the child was sleeping, beat away the flies with the bundle.

And whenever the child wept, it would rock the cradle with its trunk, and lull it to sleep. And very often the male elephant did the same. And at those times we should praise those who indulge in that kind of conversation to a moderate and temperate degree, but blame those who go to excess in it, and behave in a beastly manner. But if logicians, when assembled in a social party, were to talk about syllogisms, then a man might very fairly think that they were acting very unseasonably. And a respectable and virtuous man will at times get drunk; but they who wish to appear extraordinarily temperate, keep up this character amid their cups for a certain time, but afterwards, as the wine begins to take effect on them, they descend to every kind of impropriety and indecency.

Witness the fierce wild boar that once struck down white Adonis , hunting the ridge of Ida ; there in the marsh, they say, his beauty lay, and you, Venus , ran there with out-spread hair. But you will call back my voiceless shade in vain, Cynthia: I wish her peace terms had not been made known to me so late! The path was under my feet and I was blind: This attitude I have found the best: She comes today, who said no, yesterday.

Now, mea lux , shall my ship preserved come to your shores, or sink, fully laden, in the shallows? Because if you change towards me, perhaps through some fault of mine, may I lie down dying at your threshold! O night shining for me! And O you bed made blessed by my delights! How many words thrashed out when the lights were near us, what striving together when light was taken away! Now with naked breasts she struggled against me, now, tunic gathered, demanding delay.

She, with her lips, opening my eyelids weary with sleep, and saying: Our arms were varied in how many changing embraces! How long my kisses lingered on your lips! No joy in corrupting Venus to a blind motion: They say, Paris himself was ruined by the Spartan , Helen , as she rose naked from the bed of Menelaus. And Endymion , they say, was naked, when he aroused Diana , and lay with the naked goddess. And I wish you might tie us like this, clinging together, in chains that no day might ever unloose!

Let doves, coupled together in love, be your image, male and female wholly joined. Earth will sooner taunt farmers with false spring; Sol the sun-god drive with black horses; streams start calling waters back to their fountains; the fish be stranded, the deep dry land; sooner than I can transfer my pangs to another: But if she will grant me such nights with her as this, one year will be as long as a lifetime. This at least those that come after us can justly praise: Just as the leaves fall from dried garlands: A praetor came just now from the land of Illyria: Now banquets are given, the tables burdened, without me: But you, Venus , O, help me in my pain, let his incessant lusts destroy his member!

Can anyone then buy her love with gifts? The shameful girl is undone by money. And I wish that no one in Rome was wealthy, and our Leader himself would live in a thatched cottage. You would never lie seven nights apart, your gleaming arms around so vile a man, and not because I have sinned you are the witness but because everywhere lightness was always the friend of beauty.

A barbarian, excluded by birth, stamps his foot, and now, suddenly blessed, he holds my kingdom! See what bitterness Eriphyla found in gifts, and with what misfortunes Creusa burned as a bride. Is there no insult sufficient to quench my tears? Surely this grief will never be far behind your sins? So many days have gone by since desire for the theatre or the arena stirred me, and food gives me no joy.

I should be ashamed, oh, ashamed! But perhaps as they say sinful love is always deaf. I wish they were earth or water to you. Neither the Pleiades nor rainy Orion does these things: I whom envious admiration once considered happy, I too am hardly allowed in, now, one day out of ten. Continual complaints cause dislike in many: Or if anything happens to pain you, deny the pain!

She often fondled him, descending into her waters, before she bathed her yoked horses with care. She, when she rested in his arms, by neighbouring India , lamented that day returned too soon. Her joy was greater that old Tithonus was alive, than her grief was heavy at the loss of Memnon.

A girl like that was not ashamed to sleep with an old man, or press so many kisses on his white hair. But you even hate my youth, unfaithful girl, though you yourself will be a bowed old woman on a day not so far away. Still, I let care fade, since Cupid is often inclined to be harsh on the man, to whom he was once kind. Now do you even imitate the Britons , stained with woad, you crazy girl, and play games, with foreign glitter painting your cheeks? Belgian colour looks foul on Roman cheeks. May there be many an evil for that girl, in the underworld, who, false and foolish, dyes her hair!

Get rid of it: Let your couch itself always keep watch over you: No games will have the power to corrupt you there, no sanctuary temples giving the most frequent chances for your sins.

Why cry more than Briseis when she was led away? Why weep more sadly than Andromache , the anxious prisoner? Why do you weary the gods, crazy girl, with tales of my deceit? Why complain my faithfulness has fallen away? Though my arms were fastened with bronze links: My ears are deaf to whatever they say of you: But if your name or your beauty did not hold me, the gentleness of your demands might hold me. Many men sought to be yours, you have sought me only: This is the whole of my law: As many times as Panthus has written a letter to you,.

That handsome lover of yours has a wife! So many nights wasted? He says arrogantly you were often at his house against his will. Let me be ruined, if he seeks anything else but glory from you: So Jason, the stranger, once deceived Medea of Colchis: So Calypso was foiled by Ulysses , the Ithacan warrior: O girls too ready to lend an ear to lovers, having been dropped, learn not to be thoughtlessly kind!

You know that before today many girls pleased me equally: O, the theatre was made to be my constant downfall. Whether some girl spreads her white arms in a tender gesture, or whether she sings in various modes! Meanwhile our eyes search out their own wound, if some beauty sits there, her breast not hidden, or if drifting hair strays over a chaste forehead, hair that an Indian jewel clasps at the crown: Love has no answer to your question: Why do some men slash their arms with sacred knives, and are cut to pieces to frenzied Phrygian rhythms?

Nature at birth gave every man his fault: Jupiter , for Alcmene , halted both the Bears , and the heavens went two nights without their king: Did the Trojans run from the Greek javelins less? One or the other could destroy ships or walls: See how now the sun, and now the moon serve in the sky: Why take pleasure in dealing out pointless words?

This one pain, above all others, is sharpest for a lover, if she suddenly refuses to come as he hoped. What great sighs hurl him round his whole bed, as he kills some unknown man, who has been admitted! I who was persuaded to keep away from the public roads, now water fetched from the lake tastes sweet to me. And ask so many times: What it costs us, that night that comes just once in a whole year! Let them perish, those who take pleasure in closed doors!

So let it be no surprise to you, my seeking common girls: Is this what at first you ordered me to take delight in? A moment ago you praised me, and read my poetry: Let that man contend with me in ingenuity, contend in art, let him be taught how to love in one house first. Then this insolent man will be one of the cowards for you, who now comes, officiously, swollen with honour: I believe that not a few have been undone by your figure, but I believe that many men have not been true.

Theseus took delight for a brief space in Ariadne , Demophoon in Phyllis: The woman who acts out simulated love for many men is hard: Unique woman, born to beauty, you, the object of my pain, since my fate excludes me from your saying: But no old age would draw me away from loving you, not even if I were Nestor , or I were Tithonus. But I will still endure.

The iron blade is eaten by rust, and the flint by drops of water: Does anyone perform his vows in mid-storm, when often a ship drifts shattered in the harbour? Or demand his prize before the race is run, and the wheel has touched the post seven times? The favourable breeze plays us false in love: You, meanwhile, though she still delights in you, contain imprisoned joy in your silent heart. Though she often calls for you, remember, go only once: But were there to be ages like those that pleased the girls of old, I would be what you are now: But this age should still not change my habits: But you, that recall service to many loves, if so, what pain afflicts your eyes!

You see a tender girl of pure white, you see a dark: You see a form that expresses the Greek , or you see our beauties, either aspect seizes you. I saw you, in my dreams, mea vita , shipwrecked, striking out with weary hands, at the Ionian waters, confessing whatever ways you lied to me, unable to raise your head, hair heavy with brine, like Helle , whom once the golden ram carried on his soft back, driven through the dark waves.

How frightened I was, that perhaps the sea would bear your name, and the sailor would weep for you, slipping through your waters! What gifts I entertained for Neptune , then, for Castor and his brother, what gifts for you Leucothoe , now a goddess! At least, like one about to die, you called my name, often, barely lifting your fingertips above the deep. And already I was trying to hurl myself from a high rock, when fear woke me from such visions.

Let them admire the fact, now, that so lovely a girl serves me, and that they talk of my power throughout the city! Though Cambyses and the rivers of Croesus should return, she will not say: Loyalty is great in love: One shore will calm us, and one tree overspread us, and we will often drink at a single spring. Let Jupiter himself set our boat on fire, so long as she is never absent from my eyes. Neptune equals his brother Jove in loving. The god redeemed his pledge for that embrace, and the golden urn poured out a celestial stream.

And Orithyia , though raped, denied that Boreas was cruel: Believe me Scylla will be gentle to us, and huge Charybdis who never ceases from her changing flow: What does it matter if my life is laid down upon your body? It will not be a dishonourable death. You mortals, then, enquire for the uncertain funeral hour, and by what road death will come to you: You weep again that your head is threatened by war, when Mars joins the wavering ranks on either side: Jupiter , be merciful, at last, to the unfortunate girl: That time has come when the scorching air burns, and Earth starts to blaze under the torrid Dog-star.

This undoes girls, this has undone them before: Was Venus annoyed that you were compared to her? You beauties have never learned to be sparing with words. Your tongue was harmful to you in this: Io lowed in her first years with altered forehead: Ino strayed as a girl over the earth: Andromeda was given to the sea-monster: Callisto , a she-bear, wandered Arcadian pastures: Now, as best as you can, comply, stricken, with fate: Juno , the wife, might even forgive you: The chanting of magic, the whirling bullroarers cease, and the laurel lies scorched in the quenched fires.

Now the Moon refuses as often to climb down from heaven, and the dismal night bird sounds its funeral note. One raft of fate carries both our loves, setting dark-blue sails to the lake of Hell. But take pity on both of us, not just on one! I bind myself with a sacred verse against this wish: Persephone , let your mercy endure: There are so many thousands of lovely girls among the dead: Down there with you is Iope ; with you shining Tyro ; with you is Europa , and wicked Pasiphae ; and whatever beauty old Troy and Achaia bore, the bankrupt kingdoms of ancient Priam and of Apollo ; and whoever among that number was a Roman girl, perished: No one has endless fortune, or eternal beauty: Since you have escaped, mea lux , out of great danger pay Diana the gift of the song and dance you owe her, and keep vigil as well for that heifer, now a goddess; and, for my sake, give her the ten nights you vowed.

But all were naked. One more lascivious than the rest, said: Saying this, in a moment, a rope was round my neck. Another one ordered me thrust in their midst, and a third cried: Stop, now, brothers, now he promises true love, and look, now, we have come to the house as ordered.

Account Options

It was dawn, and I wanted to see if she slept alone: So she looked to me, shedding recent sleep. Oh, how great is the power of beauty in itself! There are no traces deep in the bed, signs of wallowing about, or of mutual slumber. Look, no breath panting from my whole body, confessing adultery. So I withdrew from spying on such chaste love: Now, you get ready to go to Phrygia , cruel one, now, over the waves, and seek by ship the shore of Hyrcanian seas. Where are you going, O, mad one?

Even if winds, divided, snatch you on winged sandals, the highways of Mercury will do you no good. Love always pursues overhead, pursues lovers, and himself sits heavy on the neck that was free. Let hard old men denounce the revels: Their ears are filled with ancient rules: Should I be ashamed to live serving one mistress? Cynthia , be pleased to lie with me, in caves of dew, in mossy hills.

Then, when they put you in the front rank of the circling dance, Bacchus there in the middle with his cunning wand, then I will let the sacred ivy berries hang from my head: You ask why I come to you late? Then in the midst, the temple reared up in bright marble, dearer to Phoebus than his Ortygian land. Right on the top were two chariots of the Sun, and the doors of Libyan ivory, beautifully done.

Next the Pythian god himself was singing, in flowing robes, between his sister and mother. He who seemed to me, more beautiful than the true Phoebus, lips parted in marble song to a silent lyre. He who sees you sins: O Cynthia , why else do you search out dubious oracles at Praeneste , or the walls of Aeaean Telegonus? Why do chariots take you to Herculean Tibur? Why the Appian Way, so often, to Lanuvium? But the crowd tell me not to trust you, when it sees you rush faithfully, carrying a torch, on fire, to the sacred grove, and bear light to the goddess Trivia.

Lately a rumour spoke evil in my ear, and nothing good was said about you in the city. Apollo bears witness that your hands are clean. Helen abandoned her country for a foreign lover, and was brought home again alive without being judged. They say that Venus herself was corrupted by libidinous Mars , but was always honoured, nevertheless, in heaven. Contemplating such debaucheries, surely no one asks: Where did his gifts come from? Lesbia did all these things before, with impunity: So if you imitate Greek and Roman women, I sentence you to be free for life! The wretched rites are back again: This goddess, whoever she was, who so often separates lovers, was always ill-natured.

Surely Io you learnt from hidden couplings with Jove , what it is to go many ways, when Juno ordered you, a girl, to wear horns, and lose your speech to the harsh sound cows make. Oh, how often you galled your mouth on oak-leaves, and chewed, in your stall, on once-eaten strawberry leaves!

Why take such a long journey to Rome? What good is it to you that the girls sleep alone? Perish the man who discovered neat wine, and first corrupted good water with nectar! Icarius you were rightly killed by Cecropian farmers, you have found how bitter the scent is of the vine. You, Eurytion the Centaur , also died from wine, and Polyphemus , you by Ismarian neat. Wine kills our beauty, and corrupts our youth: Let your table be drenched with more jets of Falernian , and foam higher in your golden cup. No girl ever willingly goes to bed alone: Passion is often greater in absent lovers: Mine was nearly stolen away like that.

That god corrupts families, separates friends, and makes sad calls to arms to those in happy agreement. Lynceus , you traitor, then, how could you lay hands on my darling? Could you have lived with the shame? Kill me with daggers or poison: You can be a companion in life and body: But the frown of strict morality will never fool me: My Lynceus, himself, insane at last with love!

What use now the wisdom of Socratic works, or being able to talk of the nature of things? Old men are no help with a great love. Stop composing tragic Aeschylean verse, stop and let your limbs go, in soft choric dancing. Begin to turn your verse on a tighter lathe, and come to your own flames, hardened poet.

You shall not go more safely than Homer , or than Antimachus: Nor will you be able to suffer harsh love on your own. First, your truculence must be quelled by me. Look at me, with hardly any wealth left to my family, with no ancestral triumphs long ago, but here I rule the fun, among the crowd of girls, by the intellect you disparage!

Give way you Roman authors! Give way you Greeks! Under the pine-trees of shadowed Galaesus , you sing, of Thyrsis and Daphnis , with the practised flute, and how the gift of ten apples, or an un-weaned kid, can corrupt a girl. Happy who buys their love cheaply with apples! Tityrus herself, the unkind, might sing for that. Happy that Corydon who tries to snatch virgin Alexis , delight of his master, the farmer!

And you sing the precepts of old Hesiod , the poet, what plains crops grow well on, what hills should grow vines. You make such music as Apollo mingles, fingers plucking his cunning lyre. The swan dies, melodious, with no less spirit, though with less effrontery than the ignorant song of the goose. And but now, in the waters of Hell, dead Gallus washed multiple wounds, from lovely Lycoris!

Ghosts of Callimachus , and shrines of Coan Philetas , I pray you, allow me to walk in your grove. I am the first to enter, a priest of the pure fountain, to celebrate Italian mysteries in the rhythms of Greece. Tell me in what valley did you both spin out your song? On what feet did you enter? Which waters did you drink? Away with the man who keeps Phoebus stuck in battle! Let verse be finished, polished with pumice — because of it Fame lifts me high above Earth, and, born of me, a Muse goes, in triumph, with flower-hung horses, and young Loves ride with me in a chariot, and a crowd of writers hangs at my wheels.

Why struggle, vainly, against me, with slack reins? Rome , many will add praises to your story, singing that Persia will be a boundary of Empire: Muses grant your poet gentle garlands: Their own soil would scarcely know Deiphobus , Helenus , Pulydamas , or Paris embracing any kind of arms. Nor would Homer , himself, who wrote your fall, not feel his work made greater by posterity.

And Rome will praise me among later generations: I foresee that day myself, after the fire. Let me return, meanwhile, to the world of my poetry: They say that Orpheus , with his Thracian lyre, tamed wild creatures, held back flowing rivers: No wonder if, befriended by Bacchus and Phoebus , a crowd of girls cherish my words? My poems are so many records of your beauty. Mind stands firm, a deathless ornament.

Then Phoebus , spotting me, from his Castalian grove, leant on his golden lyre, by a cave, saying: Who asked you to meddle with epic song? Why is your page wrenched from its destined track? Scrape an oar through the water, the other through sand: He said it, and showed me a place with his ivory plectrum, where a new path had been made in mossy ground. This one chose ivy for a wand, that one tuned the strings for a song, and another planted roses with either hand.

And one of this crowd of goddesses touched me it was Calliope , I think, by her face , saying: So Calliope said, and, drawing up liquid from her fountain, sprinkled my lips with the waters of Philetas. Caesar , our god, plots war against rich India , cutting the straits, in his fleet, over the pearl-bearing ocean. Men, the rewards are big: Tiber , and Euphrates will flow to your tune.

Go, get going, prows expert in battle: I sing you auspicious omens. And avenge that disaster of Crassus! Go and take care of Roman history! May Venus herself protect your children: Let the prize go to those who earned it by their efforts: O primal earth shaped badly by Prometheus!

He set to work on the heart without enough care. He laid the body out with art, but forgot the mind: Conquered and conqueror mingled, as one, in the shadows: Captive Jugurtha , you sit by Marius the Consul: Croesus of Lydia not far from Dulichian Irus: It pleases me too to cloud my mind with much wine, and always have spring roses round my head. This is the end of life that waits for me: Every messenger should be without deceit: Now, start to tell it from the first inception, if you can: So, did you see her weep with dishevelled hair, vast waters pouring from her eyes?

Did you see no mirror, Lygdamus, on the covers, on the bed? No rings on her snow-white fingers? And a mourning-robe hanging from her soft arms, and her letter-case closed lying by the foot of the bed. Was the house sad, and her servants sad, carding thread, and she, herself spinning among them, and pressing the wool to her eyes, drying their moisture, and going over our quarrel in querulous tones?

If that pleases him, let him mock at my death, Lygdamus. The spider will weave corruption in his empty bed, and Venus will sleep, herself, on their nights together. While he was chasing you, the poor man was cut down in his prime, and floats an alien food for far-off fish. Paetus, the seabirds hover over your bones, and you have the whole Carpathian Sea now for a tomb. Cruel North-Wind , whom ravished Orithyia feared, how great are the spoils to be won from him? Why do you find joy in shipwreck, Neptune? That ship carried righteous men. Paetus, why number your years: The waves have no gods.

Though your cables were fastened to rocks, the storms in the night fell on them: Return his body to earth: Worthless sands, of your own will, cover Paetus. Go, and shape curving keels, and weave the causes of death: Earth was too small for fate, we have added the oceans: Can the anchor hold you, whom the household gods could not? Nature lying in wait has paved the watery paths of greed: Atrides would not let the fleet sail, for the loss of this boy, and Iphigenia was sacrificed through this delay.

The cliffs of Caphareus shattered a triumphant fleet, when the Greeks were shipwrecked drawn down by the salt mass. Ulysses wept for his comrades hurled down one by one: From him, still living, the surge tore away his nails, and unwillingly, poor man, his throat swallowed the waters: Still he gave this command, weeping, with his last moans, as the dark wave closed over his dying breath: Are these guilty hands I bring to your seas?

Alas for me, the sharp cliffs of the halycon will tear me! The dark-green god has struck me with his trident. At least let the tide hurl me on Italian shores: But you, fierce Northern Wind, will never see my sails: Our quarrel by lamplight last night was sweet to me, and all those insults from your furious tongue, when frenzied with drinking you pushed the table back, and threw full glasses over me, with an angry hand.

Truly bold, attack my hair, you, and mark my face with your lovely nails, threaten to scorch my eyes with a flame beneath them, rip my clothes and bare my chest! You give me certain signs of love: Let my friends see the wounds in my bitten neck: I want to suffer with love, or hear about suffering: I hate those sighs that never shatter sleep: I would always wish to turn pale for an angry girl.

The passion was dearer to Paris when he could cut his way through Greek ranks to bring pleasure to his daughter of Tyndareus. Be glad, that no one equals your beauty: As for you, a Vulcan , who wove a net for our bed, may your father-in-law be immortal, and your house never lack her mother! You who were granted the wealth of one stolen night, it was her anger against me, not love of you that gave it. Maecenas , knight of the blood of Etruscan kings, you who are keen to achieve success: All things are not equally suited to all: Apelles claims highest place for paintings of Venus: Parrhasius deserves his for art in miniature.

For Phidias Jupiter clothes himself in an ivory statue: Though an officer of the Roman state, allowed to set up the axes of law, and judge in the midst of the Forum ; though you pass through the fierce spears of the Medes , and burden your house with weapons on nails; though Caesar grants you power to achieve things, and easy money slithers in all the time; you hold back, and, humbly, crouch in the lowly shadows: Let these poems inflame our youths, and our girls: Gentle patron seize the reins of my fresh undertakings, and give the sign with your right hand when my wheels are let loose. I wondered what the Muses had sent me, at dawn, standing by my bed in the reddening sunlight.

Let this day pass without a cloud, the winds still in the air, and threatening waves fall gently on dry land. Let me see no one sad today: And oh, you, my dearest girl, born to happy auguries, rise, and pray to the gods who require their dues.

Editorial Reviews

First wash sleep away with pure water, and dress your shining hair with deft fingers. And ask that the beauty that is your power may always be yours, and that your command over my person might last forever. Submit the strident flute to nocturnal dancing, and let your wantonness be free with words, and let sweet banqueting stave off unwelcome sleep, and the common breeze of the neighbouring street be full of the sound.

And let fate reveal to us, in the falling dice, those whom the Boy strikes with his heavy wings. Why do you wonder if a woman entwines my life and brings a man enslaved under her rule? The sailor can best foretell his future fate, the soldier is taught by his wounds to nurture fear.

I once boasted like you when I was young: Amazon Penthesilea once dared to attack the Danaan fleet with arrows fired from horseback: Semiramis built Babylon , the Persian city, so that it rose a solid mass with ramparts of baked brick, and two chariots might set out on the walls, in opposite directions, without their axles touching and sides scraping: Why should I seize on heroes, why gods who stand accused?

Jupiter shames himself and his house. Why Cleopatra , who heaped insults on our army, a woman worn out by her own attendants, who demanded the walls of Rome and the Senate bound to her rule, as a reward from her obscene husband? Noxious Alexandria , place so skilled in deceit, and Memphis so often bloody with our grief, where the sand robbed Pompey of his three triumphs. Rome, no day will ever wipe away the stain. Better for you Pompey, ill at Naples, if your funeral procession had crossed the Phlegraean Plain, or that you had bowed your neck to Caesar , your father-in-law.

Celebrate a triumph Rome , and saved by Augustus beg long life for him! You fled then to the wandering mouths of frightened Nile: I saw your arms bitten by the sacred asps, and your limbs draw sleep in by a secret path. And your tongue spoke overpowered by endless wine: The gods founded them, may the gods protect these walls: Apollo of Actium will speak of how the line was turned: But you, sailor, whether leaving or making for harbour, be mindful of Caesar through all the Ionian Sea.

She in the meantime will pine away at each idle rumour, for fear your courage will cost you dear, or the arrows of Medes enjoy your death, or the armoured knight on a golden horse, or some bit of you be brought back in an urn to be wept over. Your morals deserve a different wife! What shall a girl do with no fear to guard her, with Rome to instruct her in its voluptuousness? On whatever day fate sends you safely home, modest Galla will hang about your neck.

Postumus will be another Ulysses with a wife to wonder at: Not in vain, since his wife had stayed chaste at home. The reason for such ruin is clear and certain: These weapons take sheltered modesty by storm: Happy that singular custom at the funerals of Eastern husbands that the reddening dawn colours with her chariot! The winners are inflamed and offer their breasts to the fire and rest their scorched faces on their husband.

Here the race of brides is treacherous: Happy were the young country folk, once, peaceable: With such blandishments as these the kisses of girls were won, given to sylvan youths in secret hollows. The pine leaned over them and threw its rich shadows round them: The horned ram, head of the flock, led back his sated ewes himself to the empty fold of Pan the shepherd god. But now the shrines decay in deserted groves: Money drives out loyalty, justice is bought for money, money rules the law, and, without the law, then shame. For money, vile Polymestor of Thrace , reared you, Polydorus , in impious hospitality.

Amphiaraus is lost, and his horses swallowed up, so that you Eriphyla can cover your shoulders with gold. I speak truth, but no one will believe. Since, neither was Cassandra , the Trojan Maenad , believed to be truthful in the ruin of Pergama: Her frenzies were fitting for her father and her house: You yourself can speak about things without a go-between: No Tyrian garments beguile roving eyes, no affected toying with perfumed hair. But my love goes surrounded by a great crowd, without the slimmest chance of getting an oar in: So let me know, now, no more storms in my love, and let the night not come to me when I lie awake without you!

While three years have passed it is not much less I can barely remember ten words between us. Your love has buried everything, no woman, since you, has thrown a sweet chain about my neck.

Customers who bought this item also bought

Dirce is evidence, made jealous by a true reproach that Antiope had slept with her Lycus. How often she loaded the servant girl with unreasonable tasks, and ordered her to sleep on the hard ground! Often she suffered her to live in filth and darkness, often she refused her foul water for her thirst. Heavy chains scar her wrists. Yet on her own, with whatever strength was in her body, she broke the royal manacles with both hands. It was night and her sad couch was scattered with frost. Driven from her house their mother tested her hard-hearted son Zethus and her son Amphion easily moved to tears.

And as the sea ceases its vast heaving, when the East wind leaves its assault on the South-West , and the coast is quiet, and the sounds of the shore diminish, so the girl sank on her bended knees. Still piety came though late: Dirce is your glory dragged along to meet death in many places. But be careful of tormenting Lycinna who does not deserve it: May no story about us strike your ears: Commit myself to covering darkness, and fear audacious hands on my members?

Yet if I were to ignore her message from fear, her weeping would be worse than an enemy in the night. Yet no one would hurt a sacred lover: The Moon helps him on his way; the stars light the ruts; Love shakes the blazing torch up ahead; raging wild dogs avert their gaping jaws. But if I knew my certain death followed the event, perhaps such a fate would be worth more to me. Let a leafy tree hide me in quiet ground, or bury me entrenched in unknown sands: Now, O Bacchus , I prostrate myself humbly in front of your altars: Lovers are joined by you, by you set free.

Bacchus wash this trouble from my soul. That you also are not innocent of love, Ariadne bears witness, drawn through the sky, by lynxes of yours, to the stars. This disease that has kept the flame in my bones from of old, the funeral pyre or your wine will heal. A sober night is always a torment for lonely lovers, and hope and fear strain their spirits this way and that. Your white neck burdened with trailing clusters of ivy-berries, Bassareus , a Lydian turban crowns your hair. Your smooth throat will glisten with scented olive oil, and the flowing robe will brush your naked feet.

Dircean Thebes will beat the soft drums, and goat-footed Pans will play on unstopped reeds. Nearby the Great Goddess, Cybele , with turreted crown will clash harsh cymbals in the Idaean dance. The mixing bowl will stand in front of your temple doors, for wine to be poured over your sacrifice from the golden ladle. Only do you set me free from this despotic servitude, and conquer this anxious mind with sleep.

He is dead, and his twentieth year is left ruined: All must still go there, of high or low station: Though a cautious man sheathe himself in iron or bronze, death will still drag out his hidden head. Let them carry this body void of its soul, to you, Boatman, who ferries across the dutiful shades: You often taunt me with my passion: The fire in burning corn will sooner be stamped out, the rivers return to the founts where they were born, the Syrtes offer quiet harbour, and savage Cape Malea offer the sailor kind welcome on its shore, than any man be able to restrain your course, or curb the spurs of your impetuous wantonness.

Witness Pasiphae who suffered the disdain of the Cretan bull, and wore the deceptive horns of the wooden cow. Myrrha too is a reproach, on fire for her aged father, buried in the foliage of a new-created tree. Why need I mention Medea , who, in her time as a mother, satisfied her fury by the murder of her children?

Or Clytemnestra through whom the whole House of Mycenean Pelops remains infamous for her adultery? That was the dowry the virgin pledged to his enemy! Nisus , treacherous love opened your city gates. And you, unmarried ones, burn torches of happier omen: Still Minos does not sit as a judge in Hell without reason: Cruel the man who could exchange his girl for wealth!

Was all Africa worth as much as those tears? But you, foolish girl, think idle words are gods. Perhaps he wears out his heart on another passion. Your house is fortunate, if only your lover is true. My first night has come! Grant me the space of a first night: Moon linger longer over our first couch. You also Phoebus , who prolong the fires of summer, shorten the path of your lingering light. First the terms must be laid out, and the pledges sealed, and the contract written for my new love.

Amor with his own seal binds these tokens: How many hours must give way to my discourse, before Venus urges sweet battles on us! Let the first omens keep us loyal. So then, who breaks the pledges sworn on the altars, and dishonours the nuptial rites on a strange bed, let him know all the miseries love is used to: For love for my girl grows with constant gazing: Hoist happy sails to the top of the mast: Towers of Rome , and you, my friends, farewell, and farewell you too, girl, whatever you meant to me!

Either the passage of years, or the long spaces of the deep will heal the wounds in my silent breast: And Cybele of Dindymus fashioned from carved tusks; and the path taken by the horses of Dis the rapist? Though the cities of Helle , daughter of Athamas , delight you, perhaps, Tullus, still be moved by my longing. Fame is not ashamed of your history Rome. Since our power is established by loyalty as much as weapons: But no horned snakes slithering on scaly bellies, Italian waters are not seething with strange monsters. No savage Bacchantes hunt Pentheus through the trees, nor are Greek ships set free by the substitution of a doe.

This place gave you birth, Tullus, this is your sweetest home, here is honour to seek, worthy of your people. Here are citizens for your oratory: So, my clever writing-tablets are lost, then, and so many good texts too! They were worn away by my hands former usage, and they required good faith by not being sealed.

Moreover without me they knew how to pacify my girls, and how to speak eloquent words without me. Such as they were they stayed faithful always to me, and always produced a good effect. Perhaps the tablets were entrusted with these words: Or did someone else seem lovelier to you? Or did you spread some unkind slander about me? Oh well, now some miser writes his accounts on them, and places them with his dire ledgers!

Whoever gives me them back can have gold: Go boy, and quickly stick these words on some column, and write that your master lives on the Esquiline. I often praised the many beauties combined in you, because love thought you were what you are not. Your aspect was often compared with rosy Dawn , though the beauty of your face was all applied by hand: This I confessed, in truth, not compelled by knife or flame, wrecked on Aegean waters.

I was bound, my hands twisted behind my back. Behold, my wreathed boats reach harbour, the Syrtes are past, and I cast anchor. I come to my senses now at last, weary of the wild surge, and my wounds are closed and healed. Good Sense , if there is such a goddess, I dedicate myself to your shrine! Jupiter was deaf to all my prayers. I was laughed at among the guests seated for the banquet, and whoever wished was able to gossip about me. I managed to serve you faithfully for five years: Tears have no effect on me: I was ensnared by those wiles: Cynthia you only every wept with guile.

I will weep, departing, but insult overcomes tears: Now goodbye to the threshold weeping at my words: May you long then to tear out white hairs by their roots, ah, when the mirror rebukes you with your wrinkles, and may you in turn, rejected, suffer proud arrogance, and, changed to an old woman, regret what you have done! These are the dread events my pages prophesy for you: From Beyond the Grave. Here, whatever you see, stranger, which is mighty Rome , before Trojan Aeneas was hills and grass: These golden temples sprang from earthly gods: Tarpeian Jupiter thundered from a bare cliff, and Tiber was foreign to our cattle.

The Curia that shines up there robed with the purple hem of the Senate, held the Fathers, dressed in animal skins, to its rustic heart. No man cared to seek out alien gods: Vesta , poor, delighted in garlanded donkeys, and skinny cattle pulled cheap emblems.

Buy for others

Their raw soldiers did not gleam with threatening armour: So were the Titienses , heroic Ramnes , and the Luceres of Solonium , so Romulus drove four white triumphal horses. For certain Bovillae was hardly a suburb of the tiny city, and Gabii was greatly crowded, that now is nothing. And Alba stood, powerful, founded through the omen of a white sow, when it was a long journey from there to Fidenae. Here, Troy , for the best, you sent your exiled household gods.

Here, at such auguries, the Trojan vessel sailed! You win in vain! Wolf of Mars , the best of nurses to our State, what towers have sprung from your milk! Now to try and set out those towers in patriotic verse, ah me, how puny the sound that rises from my mouth! But however thin the streams that flow from my chest, it is all in the service of my country. Let Ennius crown his verse with a shaggy garland: Bacchus , hold out to me leaves of your ivy, so that my books might make Umbria swell with pride, Umbria fatherland of the Roman Callimachus!

Whoever sees the towers of Assisi climbing from the valley, honour those walls according to my genius!

Rome , favour me, the work soars up for you: I will sing rites and days, and the ancient names of places: The threads you spin are not from a true distaff. Singing, you summon tears:

• What Kind Of OWL Are You? (Who Do You Choose To Be? Book 2)
• Contro lassoluto (LiberaMente) (Italian Edition)
• Understanding Hospital Billing and Coding - E-Book
• Das Internet als Instrument der Marktforschung (German Edition)
• Billy Graham: His Life and Influence