Puerilities

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,