Sexual life in ancient Greece : with thirty-two full-page plates

Lyric POETRY

In another poem, which can hardly be Theocritus’s own, we read the last complaints of an unhappy lover, who puts an end to his torments by suicide, and the revenge taken by the insulted Eros on the prudish boy who, while he is bathing in the gymnasium, is struck down by a falling marble statue of Eros.

A third poem, also inscribed aduca, iS 2 complaint against the inconstancy of the loved one, an exhortation to remain faithful, and a reminder, while still in his tender youthful bloom, of the old age that threatens. He should therefore requite his love, so that their bond may be one day spoken of like the love of Achilles and Patroclus.

Tender and affectionate is a poem which gives expression to the joy of seeing the favourite again after three days of separation, and to the wish that their love may always be like that which flourished in Megara, where Diocles introduced the boys’ kissing contest (p. 109), “about whose grave, so surely as spring cometh round, your children vie in a kissing-match, and whosoever presseth lip sweetliest upon lip, cometh away to’s mother loaden with garlands.” ‘‘ How blessed are both in the joy of love! Their picture shines to us from a time—how he devotes his love to the

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The charming poem entitled the “ Harvest Festival”, already called by old Heinsius the ‘queen ” of the poems of Theocritus, is dedicated to the memory of a day joyfully spent on the island of Cos, and the poet relates how he wanders from the city into the country with two friends. On the way they meet a goatherd by name Lycidas, to whom the poet, after a brief conversation, proposes that he should rest and try his skill against him in a country singing-match. Lycidas gladly consents, and then sings a propemptikon (farewell song), in which he wishes his beloved Ageanax a happy journey over the sea :—

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