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

THE POEMS OF THE ANTHOLOGY

in fun, do you, my dear friend, train the boys at night too?”

Evenus (Anth. Pal., xii, 172; cf. Catullus, 85), finds a new formula for the inimitable Od: et amo of Catullus : ‘‘ If to hate is pain and to love is pain, of the two evils I choose the smart of kind pain.”

Julius Leonidas (Anth. Pal., xii, 20) employs an idea of his own: ‘“‘ Zeus must be again rejoicing in the banquets of the Ethiopians, or, turned to gold, is stealing to Danaé’s chamber; for it is a marvel that, seeing Periander, he did not carry off from earth the lovely youth ; or is the god no longer a lover of boys?”

Lastly, we will select three of the thirty-five anonymous epigrams that are preserved in this twelfth book of the Anthology.

“ Persistent love, thou ever whirlest at me no desire for woman, but the lightning of burning longing for my own sex. Now burnt by Damon, now looking on Ismenus, I ever suffer pain that will not be appeased. And not only on these have I looked, but, my eye, ever madly roving, is dragged into the nets of all alike ” (ibid., 87). -

Another time, longing leads the poet safely after a regular carousal: ‘‘ I will go to serenade him, for I am, all of me, mighty drunk. ‘ Boy, take this wreath that my tears have bathed.’ ‘The way is long, but I shall not go in vain; it is the dead of night and dark, but for me Themison + is a great torch” (ibid., 116).

The author of the following is also unknown : ““When Menecharmus, Anticles’ son, won the boxing match, I crowned him with ten soft fillets, and thrice I kissed him, all dabbled with blood as he was, but the blood was sweeter to me than myrrh” (ibid., 123).

1 Themison was also the name of the favourite of King Antiochus I. He came from Cyprus and was fond of dressing up as a young Heraclesnaked with a lion’s skin on his shoulders, armed with bow and arrows

and a club. To him as such the people offered sacrifice (Pythermus in Ath., vii, 289 f.).

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