Puerilities

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