Games of Venus: An Anthology of Greek and Roman Erotic Verse from Sappho to Ovid

by Peter Bing

Bring water, bring wine, boy, bring us blossoming garlands, bring them, so I can box with Eros.

The dice that Eros plays with are raving madness and battle din.

Running away from love, I slipped back to Pythomandros—again.

Once more, like a blacksmith, Eros battered me with his huge axe, and doused me in an icy torrent.

Thracian filly, why do you eye me with mistrust and stubbornly run away, and think that I'm unskilled? Rest assured, I could fit you deftly with a bridle and, holding the reins, could steer you past the end posts of our course. Now as it is, you graze the fields and frisk in childish play since you lack a rider with a practiced hand at horsemanship.

I love again, and do not love; I am insane, and still I'm sane.

Lesbian’ did not, in his (sc. Anacreon's) time or at any other time in antiquity, have a primary connotation of homosexuality” (Greek Homosexuality [New York 1978] 183);

connoted sexual aggressivity and shamelessness, and the verb lesbiazein could mean to “fellate.” Another possibility is that the (feminine) “other” that the girl gapes at can, in the Greek, take the (feminine) noun “hair” as its antecedent. In this case, the girl would reject the speaker's white hair for “another” (scil. younger man's) head of hair; or, if the poet is playing on the Lesbian reputation for fellation, the girl might prefer the dark (pubic) hair of another, younger man.

These elegies, all of them pederastic in content, have come down to us as the “2nd Book” of Theognis of Megara, a poet of the mid-6th cent. B.C.

that they were sung at symposia (i.e. “drinking parties”) to the accompaniment of a simple flute melody,

only the elder male speaks (persuading, warning, instructing, cajoling, reprimanding, etc. in short, controlling the discourse); the “boy” —the addressee in most of these poems—is left (almost) voiceless.1

Merciless Eros, the Frenzies cradled you and gave you suck, because of you Troy's citadel was crushed, Theseus, great son of Aigeus, was crushed, and Aias crushed, the noble son of Oileus, by your recklessness.2

Boy, my passion's master, listen. I'll tell no tale that's unpersuasive or unpleasant to your heart. Just try to grasp my words with your mind. There is no need for you to do what's not to your liking.

Don't leave the friend you have to find another, yielding to the words of vulgar men. You know, they'll often lie to me about you, to you about me. Don't listen to them.

Think about my hatred, and the crime. Know in your gut that I will pay you for this wrong as I am able.

Boy, you're like a horse. Just now sated with seed, you've come back to my stable, yearning for a good rider, fine meadow, an icy spring, shady groves.

Happy the man who's got boys for loving and single-foot horses, hunting dogs and friends in foreign lands.

The man who doesn't love boys and single-foot horses and dogs, his heart will never know pleasure.

Boy, you were born good-looking, but your head is crowned with stupidity. In your brain is lodged the character of a kite, always veering, bending to the words of other men.

Boy, you paid back a bad exchange for kindness. No thanks from you for favors. You've never given me pleasure. And though I've often been kind to you, I never won your respect.

Boy and horse, a similar brain: the horse doesn't cry when its rider lies in the dust; no, it takes on the next man, once it's sated with seed. Same with a boy: whoever's there he loves.

Boy, your slutting around has wrecked my affection, you've become a disgrace to our friends. You dried my hull for a while. But I've slipped out of the squall and found a port as night came on.

Eros, too, rises in season, when the earth swells and blooms with Spring flowers. Then Eros leaves Cyprus, that lovely island, and goes among men, scattering seed on the ground.

And I don't sit in judgment on petty errors. Pretty boys get away with doing wrong.

Boy, don't wrong me—I still want to please you—listen graciously to this: you won't outstrip me, cheat me with your tricks. Right now you've won and have the upper hand, but I'll wound you while you flee,3 as they say the virgin daughter of Iasios, though ripe, rejected wedlock with a man and fled; girding herself, she acted pointlessly, abandoning her father's house, blond Atalanta. She went off to the soaring mountain peaks, fleeing the lure of wedlock, golden Aphrodite's gift. But she learned the point she'd so rejected.

Boy, don't stir my heart with rotten anguish, don't let your love whisk me off to Persephone's halls. Beware the anger of the gods and men's talk. Think gentle thoughts.

Boy, how long will you be on the run? I'm following, tracking you down. I only wish I'd reach the end of your anger. But you, lusting and headstrong, run off reckless as a kite. Stop now, do me a favor. You won't hang on to the gift of Kypris, violet-wreathed, much longer.

Knowing in your heart that boyhood's bloom, for all its loveliness, is quicker than a sprint around the track, seeing this, undo these bonds. You may be bound someday, wild boy, when you get to the harder parts of love, like me now with you. So be careful or you could be undone by a bad boy.

You haven't fooled me, boy—I'm on your trail— you've stolen off to your new fast friends, and thrown my love away in scorn. But you were no friend of theirs before. No, out of them all, I thought it was you I'd made a trusted mate. And now you hold another love.

Boy, since the goddess Kypris gave you a lusty grace, and your beauty's every boy's concern, listen to these words and for my sake take them to heart— knowing how hard it is for a man to bear desire.

Boy, as long as your cheek is smooth, I'll never stop praising you, not even if I have to die. For you to give still is fine, for me there's no shame in asking, since I'm in love. At your knees... I beg, respect me, boy, give pleasure, if you're ever to have the gift of Kypris with her wreath of violets, when it's you who's wanting and approach another. May the goddess grant that you get exactly the same response.

Happy the lover who has a work-out when he gets home sleeping all day with a beautiful boy.

I no longer love the boy, I've kicked away terrible pains and fled in joy from crushing sorrows.

I've been freed from desire by Kythereia of the lovely wreath. Boy, you hold no charm for me at all.

Ah me, I love a smooth-skinned boy, who flaunts me— though I'm unwilling—to every friend. I'll put up with not hiding—much is forced on my will. I'm revealed, tamed by a boy not unworthy.

It's a thrill to love a boy: even Kronos’ son, king of immortals, once longed for Ganymede, snatched him, brought him to Olympos and made him a god with the lovely bloom of boyhood. So, Simonides, don't be amazed if I too am revealed, tamed by love for a gorgeous boy.

Boy, don't go reveling, heed an old man reveling's not good for a young man.

It's bitter and sweet, alluring and tough, the yen for youths, Kyrnos—until you get what you want. ‘cause if you get, it gets sweet; but if you pursue and don't get, it's the painfullest thing of all.5

Always, for lovers of boys, the yoke on the neck lies none too light, a chafing mark of welcome; for as you labor at the boy, you've got to coax him into love as you would a hand into a fire of vine-twigs.

Prettiest, most desirable of boys— stick around and listen to me a bit.

Boy-love's fine to have, fine to get rid of; much easier to find than to satisfy. A thousand ills depend on it, a thousand goods, but even in this there's a certain charm.

Being good-looking and loving vice, you hang out with worthless men, and for this you get ugly reproaches, boy. But though I lost your love against my will, I've won, can act like a free man.

Significantly, Eros is seen as a dangerous, socially disruptive force. Paris’ abduction of Helen, the cause of the Trojan war, violated the norms of guest-friendship and marriage; Theseus tried, together with Perithoos, to rape the queen of the underworld, Persephone, thereby overstepping the line between mortal and immortal, living and dead, as well as the sanctity of marriage; Aias raped Apollo's priestess, Cassandra, thus incurring the god's wrath. Cf. J.M. Lewis, “Eros and the Polis in Theognis Book II,” in T.J. Figueira and G. Nagy, eds., Theognis of Megara (Baltimore 1985) 210–211.

Don't caress me with words, your heart and mind in another place, if you love me and your heart is true. Love me with a pure heart or renounce me, start a fight, hate me openly.

I'm a lovely mare, a racer, but I carry the worst man, and this really pains me. Yes, I've often thought of breaking the bridle and running away, flinging that bad rider down.

A young woman isn't right for an old man, she won't respond to the rudder like a boat, anchors won't hold her, she'll often break the ropes, find another harbor in the night.

I can't give you everything you want, heart, be patient. You're not the only lover of pretty boys.

While I alone was drinking from that deepwater spring the water seemed to me sweet and fine. But now it's muddied, the water's mingled with water— I'll drink from another spring, or stream.

In youth you can sleep the night through with a friend, unloading the desire for lusty action,

Already I've risen up on wings like a bird from a great marsh, leaving a rotten man behind, breaking the bond. And you, who've lost my love, will know one day how wise I was.