Greek Anthology Books 10-12

§ 12.231 STRATO Euclides, who is in love, has lost his father. Ah, the ever lucky fellow! His father used ever to be good-natured to him about anything he wished, and now is a benevolent corpse. But I must still play in secret. Alas for my evil fate and my father's immortality!

§ 12.232 SCYTHINUS Now you stand straight, nameless one, and don't shrivel, and you are intent as if you would never stop. But when Nemesenos stretched out next to me to give whatever I want, you hung down dead. Reach out, rend, weep, all in vain, you will have no pity from our hand.

§ 12.233 FRONTO Comedian, thou deniest that thy prime is “The Treasure,” knowing not that it is swifter to depart than “The Phantom.” Time will make thee “The Hated Man” and then “The Countryman,” and then thou shalt seek “The Clipped Lady.”

§ 12.234 STRATO If thou gloriest in thy beauty, know that the rose too blooms, but withers of a sudden and is cast away on the dunghill. To blossom and to beauty the same time is allotted, and envious time withers both together.

§ 12.235 STRATO If beauty grows old, give me of it ere it depart; but if it remains with thee, why fear to give what shall remain thine?

§ 12.236 STRATO A certain eunuch has good-looking servant-boys — for what use? — and he does them abominable injury. Truly, like the dog in the manger with the roses, and stupidly barking, he neither gives the good thing to himself nor to anyone else.

§ 12.237 STRATO Off with thee, pretended hater of evil; off with thee, low-minded boy, who didst swear so lately that never again wouldst thou grant me it. Swear no longer now; for I know, and thou canst not conceal it from me, where it was, and how, and with whom, and for how much.

§ 12.238 STRATO The shameless colts when they are playing provide mutual pleasure to one another, the same ones taking turns for the one to climb on the back of the other, carrying out reciprocally the doing and receiving. Nor does one take advantage of the other: for the one who gave before stands again behind. Anyway this is the proverb: the ass knows to scratch the ass for a like reward, as they say.

§ 12.239 STRATO You ask for five drachmas: I will give ten and you will... have twenty. Is a gold sovereign enough for you? Sovereign gold was enough for Danae.

§ 12.240 STRATO Already the locks of hair on my temples are gray, and my penis hangs inert between my thighs. My testicles are idle; old age hits me hard, alas, I know how to sodomize but I'm unable.

§ 12.241 STRATO You have made a hook, my child, and I am the fish you have caught. Pull me where you will, but don't run or you might lose me.

§ 12.242 STRATO [See Bk. XI No. 21]

§ 12.243 STRATO If sodomy destroys me and I come down with gout, Zeus, make me a meat-hook.

§ 12.244 STRATO If I see a white boy it is the death of me and if it be a honey-complexioned one I am on fire; but if it be a flaxen-haired one I am utterly melted.

§ 12.245 STRATO Dumb animals merely copulate. We rational animals are superior to the others because we discovered sodomy. Those who stick with women are no better than dumb animals.

§ 12.246 STRATO A pair of brothers love me. I know not which of them I should decide to take for my master for I love them both. One goes away from me and the other approaches. The best of the one is his presence; the best of the other my desire for him in his absence.

§ 12.247 STRATO Theodorus, as once Idomeneus brought from Crete to Troy Meriones to be his squire such a dexterous friend have I in thee; for Meriones was in some things his servant, in others his minion. And do thou, too, all day go about the business of my life, but at night, by Heaven, let us essay Meriones.

§ 12.248 STRATO Who can tell if his beloved begins to pass his prime, if he is ever with him and never separated? Who that pleased yesterday can fail to please today, and if he please now, what can befall him to make him displease tomorrow?

§ 12.249 STRATO Ox-born bee, why, catching sight of my honey, dost thou fly across to the boy's face, smooth as glass? Wilt thou not cease thy humming and thy effort to touch his most pure skin with thy flower-gathering feet? Off to thy honey-bearing hive, where'er it be, thou truant, lest I bite thee! I, too, have a sting, even love's.

§ 12.250 STRATO Going out in revel at night after supper, I, the wolf, found a lamb standing at the door, the son of my neighbour Aristodicus, and throwing my arms round him I kissed him to my heart's content, promising on my oath many gifts. And now what present shall I bring to him? He does not deserve cheating or Western-style oath-breaking.

§ 12.251 STRATO Hitherto we had kisses face to face, and all that precedes the trial; for you were still a little boy, Diphilus. But now I supplicate for them behind, that will be no longer with thee afterwards; for let all things be as befits our age.

§ 12.252 STRATO I will burn thee, door, with the torch; and burning him who is within, too, in my drunken fury, I will straight depart a fugitive, and sailing over the purple Adriatic, shall, in my wanderings, at least lie in ambush at doors that open at night.

§ 12.253 STRATO Give me thy right hand for a time, not to stop me from the dance, even though the fair boy made mockery of me. But if he had not been lying at the wrong time next his father, he would not, I swear, have seen me drunk to no purpose.

§ 12.254 STRATO From what temple, whence comes this band of Loves shedding radiance on all? Sirs, my eyes are dazed. Which of them are slaves, which freemen? I cannot tell. Is their master a man? It is impossible; or if he be, he is much greater than Zeus, who only had Ganymede, though such a mighty god. While how many has this man!

§ 12.255 STRATO Unsociable man! does not the word itself teach you by the words from which it is truly derived? Everyone is called a lover of boys, not a lover of big boys. Have you any retort to that? I preside over the Pythian games, you over the Olympian, and those whom I reject and remove from the list you receive as competitors.

§ 12.256 MELEAGER Love hath wrought for thee, Cypris, gathering with his own hands the boy-flowers, a wreath of every blossom to cozen the heart. Into it he wove Diodorus the sweet lily and Asclepiades the scented white violet. Yea, and thereupon he pleated Heraclitus when, like a rose, he grew from the thorns, and Dion when he bloomed like the blossom of the vine. He tied on Theron, too, the golden-tressed saffron, and put in Uliades, a sprig of thyme, and soft-haired Myiscus the ever-green olive shoot, and despoiled for it the lovely boughs of Aretas. Most blessed of islands art thou, holy Tyre, which hast the perfumed grove where the boy-blossoms of Cypris grow.

§ 12.257 MELEAGER I, the flourish that announce the last lap's finish, most trusty keeper of the bounds of written pages, say that he who hath completed his task, including in this roll the work of all poets gathered into one, is Meleager, and that it was for Diocles he wove from flowers this wreath of verse, whose memory shall be evergreen. Curled in coils like the back of a snake, I am set here enthroned beside the last lines of his learned work.

§ 12.258 STRATO Perchance someone in future years, listening to these trifles of mine, will think these pains of love were all my own. No! I ever scribble this and that for this and that boy-lover, since some god gave me this gift.