Meleager Love Poetry
Translated by Thomas McEvilley
MELEAGER
Help! He is gone. That wild boy, Love, has escaped!
Just now, as day was breaking, he flew from his bed and was gone.
Description? Sweetly tearful, talks forever, swift, irreverent,
Slyly laughing, wings on his back, and carries a quiver.
His last name? I don’t know, for his father and mother,
Whoever they are, in earth or heaven, won’t admit it.
Everyone hates him, you see. Take care, take care,
Or even now he’ll be weaving new snares for your heart.
But hush—look there, turn slowly. You don’t deceive me, boy,
Drawing your bow so softly where you hide in Zenophile’s eyes.
(AP V.177)
Help! He is gone. That wild boy, Love, has escaped!
Just now, as day was breaking, he flew from his bed and was gone.
Description? Sweetly tearful, talks forever, swift, irreverent,
Slyly laughing, wings on his back, and carries a quiver.
His last name? I don’t know, for his father and mother,
Whoever they are, in earth or heaven, won’t admit it.
Everyone hates him, you see. Take care, take care,
Or even now he’ll be weaving new snares for your heart.
But hush—look there, turn slowly. You don’t deceive me, boy,
Drawing your bow so softly where you hide in Zenophile’s eyes.
(AP V.177)
Didn’t I tell you, oh soul, “Look out, you’ll be caught,
You silly thing, if you flutter so near her net?”
Didn’t I warn you?
And now the trap is sprung.
Why struggle in vain?
Love has tied your little wings,
Sprinkled you with cheap perfume, set you fainting in the fire
And given you, in your thirst, hot tears to drink.
(AP XII.132)
You silly thing, if you flutter so near her net?”
Didn’t I warn you?
And now the trap is sprung.
Why struggle in vain?
Love has tied your little wings,
Sprinkled you with cheap perfume, set you fainting in the fire
And given you, in your thirst, hot tears to drink.
(AP XII.132)
That’s the message, Dorkas, and when you’ve told it to her
Then tell it to her again, and then again, now hurry.
But wait a minute; hold on there; slowly, my Dorkas, slowly.
Why are you rushing off before you’ve heard all your instructions?
Say also that I—but no. It’s more manly to be silent.
Don’t tell her a goddamn thing. Say only that I--. Tell it all!
All of it Dorkas, all of it! But, Dorkas, why did I send you,
When, look, I have followed after you, all the way to her door?
(AP V.182)
Then tell it to her again, and then again, now hurry.
But wait a minute; hold on there; slowly, my Dorkas, slowly.
Why are you rushing off before you’ve heard all your instructions?
Say also that I—but no. It’s more manly to be silent.
Don’t tell her a goddamn thing. Say only that I--. Tell it all!
All of it Dorkas, all of it! But, Dorkas, why did I send you,
When, look, I have followed after you, all the way to her door?
(AP V.182)
Do you leave the flowers of spring,
The lilies and the rest,
And plant your little sting
In Heliodora’s breast
To show that in love’s wound,
So deep and terrible,
A sweetness may be found
That makes life bearable?
Oh, please, your news is wasted,
I knew it long ago.
Do you think I have not tasted
Where you, drunkard, linger so?
(AP V.163)
The lilies and the rest,
And plant your little sting
In Heliodora’s breast
To show that in love’s wound,
So deep and terrible,
A sweetness may be found
That makes life bearable?
Oh, please, your news is wasted,
I knew it long ago.
Do you think I have not tasted
Where you, drunkard, linger so?
(AP V.163)
If anything happens to me,
Kleoboulos my friend,
(For I am not safe--
I lie like a curling vine
Flung in the fire of girls)
before you send
My ashes under earth
pour in strong wine,
Then on the drunken urn write,
“Hades, know
Love sends this gift to death”--
And bury me and go.
(AP V.172)
Kleoboulos my friend,
(For I am not safe--
I lie like a curling vine
Flung in the fire of girls)
before you send
My ashes under earth
pour in strong wine,
Then on the drunken urn write,
“Hades, know
Love sends this gift to death”--
And bury me and go.
(AP V.172)
Dawn hateful to lovers, why do you rise so quickly
Beside my bed when I lie with delicious Demo?
Can’t you turn round, run back and be night again,
And stop that sweet smiling that pours out poison light?
Once before you did that, when Zeus was enjoying Alcmena.
Oh, learned at running backward! You can’t say you don’t know how. . .
(AP V.172)
Beside my bed when I lie with delicious Demo?
Can’t you turn round, run back and be night again,
And stop that sweet smiling that pours out poison light?
Once before you did that, when Zeus was enjoying Alcmena.
Oh, learned at running backward! You can’t say you don’t know how. . .
(AP V.172)
Dawn hateful to lovers, why do you roll so slowly
Around the sad world when under another man’s blanket
Demo lies and sheds her god-like heat?
When it was my turn to hold her slender body in my arms
You couldn’t wait to hurl your disgusting light in my eyes.
(AP V.173)
Around the sad world when under another man’s blanket
Demo lies and sheds her god-like heat?
When it was my turn to hold her slender body in my arms
You couldn’t wait to hurl your disgusting light in my eyes.
(AP V.173)
Oh Night, and you, kind lamp beside his bed,
No one else was near so you
Were witness to our vows,
He that he’d love me,
I, that I’d never leave him,
Oh, you remember.
But now he says that vows flow away on the river,
Stay no longer than stay the breaking waves.
And you, oh lamp,
Now you see him lying
In someone else’s embrace.
(AP V.8)
No one else was near so you
Were witness to our vows,
He that he’d love me,
I, that I’d never leave him,
Oh, you remember.
But now he says that vows flow away on the river,
Stay no longer than stay the breaking waves.
And you, oh lamp,
Now you see him lying
In someone else’s embrace.
(AP V.8)
I pray you, Eros, in the name of my muse I pray you,
Oh let me sleep and forget for a while this lust for Heliodora.
My god, I pray by your bow which doesn’t know how to shoot
At anyone else but day and night sinks shafts of screams in me!
Alright, no more prayers, you sonofabitch, you won’t get away with it.
With my last strength I write this poem for the police--
It was love--
Love killed me.
(AP V.215)
Oh let me sleep and forget for a while this lust for Heliodora.
My god, I pray by your bow which doesn’t know how to shoot
At anyone else but day and night sinks shafts of screams in me!
Alright, no more prayers, you sonofabitch, you won’t get away with it.
With my last strength I write this poem for the police--
It was love--
Love killed me.
(AP V.215)
What I cannot see is how,
From the green wave rising,
Out of water, Oh Aphrodite,
You bred a flame.
(AP V.176.5-6)
From the green wave rising,
Out of water, Oh Aphrodite,
You bred a flame.
(AP V.176.5-6)
135 BCE–50
The poet Meleager was born in Gadara, raised and educated in Tyre, and lived as an adult on the island of Cos. His epigrammatic poems have been associated with the work of the Greek Cynics, though most of his poetry has been lost; what does survive are his contributions to the Anthologia Graeca, an ancient anthology of literary and erotic epigrams that he also edited. Meleager also compiled the Stephanos (or Garland, ~100 BCE), the earliest known anthology of literary epigrams, selected from work composed in the prior two centuries. Meleager’s own surviving poems are mainly erotic epigrams, which treat boys and women with both affection and cynicism.
Translations of Meleager’s verse into English include a selection in Daryl Hine’s Puerilities: Erotic Epigrams of The Greek Anthology (2001) and Richard Aldington’s The Poems of Meleager of Gadara (1920).
The poet Meleager was born in Gadara, raised and educated in Tyre, and lived as an adult on the island of Cos. His epigrammatic poems have been associated with the work of the Greek Cynics, though most of his poetry has been lost; what does survive are his contributions to the Anthologia Graeca, an ancient anthology of literary and erotic epigrams that he also edited. Meleager also compiled the Stephanos (or Garland, ~100 BCE), the earliest known anthology of literary epigrams, selected from work composed in the prior two centuries. Meleager’s own surviving poems are mainly erotic epigrams, which treat boys and women with both affection and cynicism.
Translations of Meleager’s verse into English include a selection in Daryl Hine’s Puerilities: Erotic Epigrams of The Greek Anthology (2001) and Richard Aldington’s The Poems of Meleager of Gadara (1920).
TheMagentaHornet.com © 2021 Holly White & Associates |