Sources:
Barnstone, Willis, trans. Greek Lyric Poetry. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1967.
Carrier, Constance, trans. The Poems of Propertius . Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1963.
Kate Farrell: Art & Love: An Illustrated Anthology of Love Poetry. New York: Bulfinch Press, 1990.
Lind, L. R., ed. Latin Poetry in Verse Translation. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957.
Wendy Mulford, ed.: Love Poems by Women. New York: Fawcett, 1991.
Rexroth, Kenneth, trans. Poems from the Greek Anthology. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962.
Whigham, Peter, trans. The Poems of Catullus. Baltimore: Penguin, 1966.
Wilhelm, James J., ed. Medieval Song: An Anthology of Hymns and Lyrics. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1971.
The term "lesbian" comes from Sappho, born on the Island of Lesbos, often considered the greatest lyric poet of antiquity; but whether she was a "lesbian" in the modern sense is still disputed. She was married and had a daughter, celebrated marriage, and wrote love poems to both men and women; but her most famous lines are generally addressed to other women. Today we would probably call her a bisexual. Plato called her "the Tenth Muse," others criticized her shamelessness, but until the Christian era she was widely read and admired. The Church set itself against her, destroying her writings when they were found and--more importantly--not recopying them. They exist today primarily as "fragments": brief quotations in discourses on literature, etc. Some substantial pieces were recovered in our own time from a papyrus manuscript which had been cut into strips to wrap an Egyptian mummy. Her modern fame thus rests on a mere handful of poems, of which "To Anaktoria" is one of the most famous. Helen of Troy left her husband King Menelaus to go with Paris, Prince of Troy, an act that triggered the Trojan War when Menelaus decided to try to get her back. The Kyprian is Aphrodite, the goddess of sexual passion, born near the island of Kypris (or Cypris). The "hoplites" were Greek foot soldiers. What is the main contrast Sappho is drawing in this poem? What is its main message?
Ibykos (Samos,,
1st half , 6th C. BCE) Here a lesser-known poet describes the effects of Kypris (Aphrodite)
and her son Eros.
Thrace lay to the north and east of Greece, and was considered a wild and savage
land. What is the basic contrast the poet is drawing here? Chariot racing was wildly popular
in antiquity, and star charioteers were treated like movie stars today. The poet
clearly has a crush on one of these, who cannot be all that young if he is
managing a racing chariot. The poem could be read either as a message to the
indifferent youth or as the musings of the poet to himself. Anakreon was one of
the most famous lyric poets of antiquity.
Rexroth, Kenneth, trans. Poems from the Greek Anthology. Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962., p. 29. People of African origin
were unusual enough in Greek culture to stand out, but far from rare. Some of
them were quite wealthy and powerful. The subject of this poem is a prostitute,
but a gold-hearted one. Prostitutes had a considerably higher status in Greek
society than in ours, some of them being widely admired for their intelligence
and creativity. A cestus is a musical instrument. In what ways is
the poet rebelling against standard notions of beauty? This poem from the
Hellenistic period was written in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, a great center
of both learning and luxury, where many blacks would have lived. By this date,
the population was very mixed, with all pigmentations mingling freely. Like the
preceding poem, it reflects the mild general prejudice against dark skin among
the Greeks, but rejects it. How does the poet make blackness a positive quality?
Anonymous: Only very wealthy people could
have snow carried down from the mountains by special runners for a summer treat;
so the poet is using it as an example of something rare but highly desirable. The
"worship of Kypris" is, of course, lovemaking. In antiquity people often inscribed messages on tombstones. Here a wife
poignantly addresses her dead husband. When people died and went to Hades they
were thought to drink from the waters of the River Lethe, which wiped their
memories clean and left them little better then mindless ghosts. Can you deduce
anything about the writer's beliefs from this poem? By far the most famous and influential of all Roman poets
was Virgil, author of the great Latin epic of the founding of Rome, the Aeneid.
He also wrote many shorter poems, including the pastoral verses called
"eclogues." Based on pastoral verse forms invented by Greek poets
during the Hellenistic age, they create an idealized countryside in which
shepherds and goatherds have little to do but play panpipes, sing, and try to
seduce each other. This dream-world, utterly removed from the real world of
ordinary peasants, exercised an enormous fascination over Greeks, Romans, and
later Europeans for many centuries, inspiring innumerable poems, novels, paintings, sculptures,
ballets, operas, and other works. There is a set list of names associated with
Arcadia (the rural area in Greece depicted in this poetry), and the mere mention
of a name such as "Corydon" or "Alexis" (both names of
men--calling women "Alexis" is a modern innovation) immediately
identifies a poem as pastoral.
Catullus (c. 84-54 BCE) Catullus is one of the most famous and influential love poets of antiquity,
renowned for the wit and passion which he poured into many short but intense
poems devoted to Lesbia. Note that this name had no "lesbian"
associations for the ancients. It is probably a fictional name for a real woman,
though some have argued that she was wholly imaginary. The first poem is a mock elegy for a dead sparrow.
Although Lesbia is upset and Catullus is trying to be sympathetic, he is also
being self-consciously "cute." "Beauty" is here personified
as if she were a goddess. The first line calls for the statue of beauty
(associated with the beautiful Lesbia) to be veiled in a sign of sympathetic
mourning. Orcus is a less common name for Pluto, the King of the Underworld, or
Hades, where all dead souls go. What do you think might be his motivation for
writing this poem? This is one of Catullus' most famous poems. The tumbling
urgency of this translation is most apparent if it is read aloud rapidly. This is
a classic example of the theme tempus fugit
--"time flies." What is the argument the poet is presenting as it
relates to time? A
frequently-quoted verse which expresses typical classical ambiguity about love.
Readers of more of the poems to Lesbia will realize why Catullus is in such
anguish over her: their relationship was a troubled one, to put it mildly. The
women featured in almost all Roman love elegies were courtesans who felt little
obligation to be strictly faithful to their admirers. Like the Egyptian poem we read earlier, this is a poem about a door which
separates lovers. It was customary for rejected lovers to sleep on their
beloved's doorsteps in a public demonstration of their devotion designed to shame
the woman into opening up. Propertius displays his originality by having the
door itself be the speaker. But this is actually a satire in which Propertius
cynically comments on the promiscuity of Tarpeia. The door begins by remembering
the "good old days" when she was visited by respectable people, but now
her reputation is gone, drunken louts come at all hours, and she shuts out only
her faithful lover (Propertius?). The door used to be able to fend off all
comers, but now crowds of men fling the torches which have lit their way through
the dark streets at the doorstep as they enter unhindered. The door's hinges
groan and creak from frequent use. Meanwhile, the faithful lover complains to the
door in classic style. What does the word "cruel" seem to mean in this
poem? Propertius' most famous love was named Cynthia. This
poem is simply a rapturous celebration of lovemaking combined with a tempus fugit closing designed to persuade her to
repeat the experience. Paris' love for Helen, wife of Menelaus, was famous as the
cause of the Trojan War.
Diana, the virgin moon goddess, usually shunned men, but nevertheless fell in
love with Endymion. The Roman love poets seem strikingly
contemporary partly because of their informality, but even more because of the
way in which they reveal themselves so personally as individuals. Very few
personalities from the ancient past come across so vividly as those of Ovid,
Catullus, and Propertius, partly because they are not afraid to describe their
own flaws, even exposing themselves to ridicule. The Roman poets were famous as
satirists, but these three had the rare gift of satirizing themselves as well as
others. In this poem Propertius portrays himself as having come home to Cynthia
after a late-night party, drunk and sentimental. The contrast between his mood
and hers when he awakens here is startling, and shows the poet trying to
"think like a woman." This late
Roman hymn differs from the previous poems by being a serious religious text
devoted to the goddess Venus (or "Dione" as she is also known, not to
be confused with "Diana," the anti-sexual virgin goddess). The occasion
is the night before her springtime holiday on April 1. Because so many of the
Roman authors we still read were cynical about traditional religion, we sometimes
lose sight of the fact that many people took the gods quite seriously. Most
scholars agree that the poem is an artificial composition rather than an
authentic hymn; but though it is elegantly written, it reflects the primeval
belief underlying all fertility goddesses: that human sexuality is intimately
connected with the fertility of nature. Because of this linkage, Venus' holiday
was celebrated when plants were sprouting in the early rains. The raindrops are
imagined as fertilizing sperm, nature as fertile femininity. "Dione" is
"terrible" in the sense of "awe-inspiring." The law of love
which she lays down must be obeyed, or defied at the risk of awful punishment
(like that meted out to the sex-hating Hippolytus). When Uranus, the creator
sky-god ("Father Heaven"), imprisoned his children, they rebelled, and
his son Saturn castrated him, flinging his bloody genitals into the sea near the
island of Cyprus. The combination of blood, semen, and sea water gave rise to
Venus: full of erotic passion and the potential for violence. In this variant,
the blood is said to be Saturn's. What imagery in the second stanza links Venus
to agriculture? The opening of rosebuds into full flowers is an ancient metaphor
for the loss of virginity--or the gaining of sexual maturity. Venus is called
"the Paphian" after Paphos, the city on Cyprus where her cult was
celebrated. Cupid (Greek Eros) is her son. Whereas Venus inspires love, Cupid
is love. He is depicted as naked, but armed with a bow and arrows which
inevitably cause love in their victims. Note the edge of danger which the ancient
world consistently associated with love; it was desirable, but hazardous. How is
the virginal Diana treated on this holiday? Ceres is the goddess of grain,
Bacchus of wine: so people are planning to eat and drink freely. Apollo
is the god of poetry. Mount Hybla is associated with flowers and with Venus.
Aeneas, son of Venus by the Trojan Anchises, is the "Trojan offspring"
she led to Italy ("the land of Latium'), as told in Virgil's Aeneid.
According to the same source, Mars (Greek Hephaestus),
the god of war, fathered Romulus
and Remus (the founders of Rome) on Rea Silvia, the daughter of Numitor, King of
Alba, though she had been dedicated as a Vestal Virgin. When the early Romans
seized the Sabine women, they began a war resolved only when Romulus suggested
that the two groups intermarry. The incident is known as "the rape
[kidnapping] of the Sabine women," and has often been depicted in art. The
result of this union is all future Romans, including Julius Caesar and his nephew
Augustus. Given these facts, can you explain why Venus was politically
significant to the ancient Romans? "The wife of Tereus" is Procne,
whose husband Tereus tried to kill her to keep her from telling the world that he
had seduced her sister Philomela after having cut out Philomela's tongue to keep
her silent. Procne was rescued by a miracle which turned her into a nightingale,
while her sister was turned into a swallow. So when the nightingale sings it
sounds lovely, but is actually singing of a terrible crime. Note the consistent
association of violence, rape, and betrayal that runs through these stories
associated with Venus. The poet finally expresses her/his yearning to be able to
sing of love from experience. Sandro Botticelli: The
Birth of Venus This late classical poem is
an example of a theme closely related to tempus fugit: carpe diem
("seize the day"). Although theoretically it could be interpreted as
an exhortation to enjoy any aspect of life in the brief time allotted to us on
earth, in poetry it is in fact almost always an argument made by a man to
persuade a young woman to make love with him. The standard metaphor is the rose.
If not appreciated while it is young and fresh, it soon wilts and withers, and no
one wants it. The warning to women is plain: do not resist so long that you lose
your attractiveness. Put so crudely, the message is repulsive to modern tastes.
Can you make a case for a more complex, perhaps less offensive reading of the
message conveyed by such a poem? It is impossible to tell whether the "you" of this
poem is a woman or man. A "hayseed" is a countryfied, unsophisticated
person. Why do you think the poet is being so critical of Andromeda? This poem has been badly mutilated in the only copy surviving, hence
the many ellipses toward the end. As Sappho parts from her friend (lover?), she
reminds her of the things they have enjoyed together. It provides some of the
strongest evidence for those who argue that Sappho was indeed "lesbian"
in the modern sense, though this is strenuously rejected by others. This poem is famous for the intensity with which Sappho expresses desire and
jealousy. The opening situation is that the poet is in love with a woman who is
talking to a man, rendered god-like in Sappho's eyes only because he is allowed
to be where she would like to be, next to the beloved woman, and the focus of her
attention. What about these lines suggests that it is the woman that she admires
more than the man? In what way does Sappho see herself as being at a disadvantage
compared to the man, even when she meets her beloved alone on the street? The
existence of only a brief rainy season in Greece means that grass is more often a
creamy color than a bright green. Read the biographical note on p. 261. "Cypris" is Aphrodite,
named after her home island of Cyprus. Read the biographical note on p. 266. Female Roman poets were even rarer
than Greek ones. "Rumor" is here personified as a god. Cythera was
another island associated with Venus. The Muses
were gods who inspired various arts, in this case poetry. What is the mood and
message of this poem? Of what is Sulpicia ashamed in this apologetic poem? We will
read similar expressions of regret in later European women's poetry. Can you
compare the attitudes these women express toward love with the mens'? This page has been accessed
Last revised January 20, 2000.
Poems about
Sappho
Love's Season
From Barnstone,
no. 297.
Theognis (Megara, 544 -c.480 BCE)
The
Athlete
From Barnstone, no. 403
In no other culture has
homosexuality been so institutionalized and praised as in ancient Greece. Even Zeus,
ruler of the Gods, was susceptible to homosexual passion. However, it was mainly
the love of mature men for adolescent boys that was prized: adult male lovers
were often scorned. The Greeks were very male-oriented, and some of them
considered a male's love for another male as being more "masculine,"
more worthy, than love for a mere woman. This sort of relationship was often
highly idealized, but sometimes, as here, it was taken lightly. Here the speaker
imagines having two lovers, one at home (the boy) and the other elsewhere. The
sex of the other lover is not clear, but it is probably another male. What about
this poem suggests self-conscious "maleness?"
Anakreon (Samos c. 572-c. 490 BCE)
Charioteer
From Barnstone, no. 330
Philodemos:
"Philainion is short"
Asklepiades (Alexandria, fl. c. 270 BCE):
"
Negress"
From Barnstone, no. 195.
"It is sweet in
summer";
From Rexroth, p. 29.
Anonymous (from a gravestone at Corinth)
From Rexroth, p.
13.
Roman Poetry
Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro, 70-19 BCE):
Eclogue II
Trans. Mary Grant From Lind, R. Editor.
Latin Poetry in Verse Translation, New York: Houghton Mifflin Co.,
1957, pp. 62-64.
Some pastoral poetry is heterosexual,
some homosexual. The latter is presented as a common and unremarkable
alternative. (When the Arcadian ideal is resurrected in the Renaissance, however,
it is overwhelmingly heterosexual in orientation.) How does Corydon release the
anguish he feels at being rejected by Alexis? His songs are called
"artless" to signify that this is natural, spontaneous, rustic poetry
rather than polished urban verse. This notion is part of the essence of Arcadian
poetry, which is in fact the product of highly urbanized poets who can
sentimentalize about the simple life in the country from a safe distance. The
passage beginning "Were it not best to bear" means that Corydon is
asking himself whether he wouldn't be better off loving Amaryllis (a woman's
name) or Menalcas (another man). What is he saying about Alexis' light skin color
in this stanza? Amphion was famous for his musical skills. Myth said that he
contributed to the development of the lyre and was able to charm stones from the
ground with his music to rebuild ruined walls. It was his brother Zethus who was
more interested in tending herds; but Virgil imagines him as an especially
musical cowherd. Attica is the Greek peninsula where Athens is located. Why was
Corydon able to see what he looked like only when the wind died down?
Daphnis is a common Arcadian name. One of the idylls of Theocritus--the
Hellenistic poet who founded the Arcadian tradition--tells the story of a youth
named Daphnis who dies resisting love, and Longus' Daphnis and
Chloe is familiar to modern audiences by having been made into a ballet
by Serge Diaghilev with music by Maurice Ravel. Another of Virgil's Eclogues is
also about Daphnis. Since the name was associated with extraordinarily attractive
youths, what is Corydon claiming about his own looks? "Pierce the
hind" means "hunt deer." Pan
is a god of the countryside, famous for his reed "panpipes." Corydon
offers Alexis his own panpipe, given him by Damoetas, though Amyntas coveted it
for himself. By telling this story, Corydon is trying to establish the worth of
his gift, well worth having. In addition he offers a pair of fawns. How is what
he says about them similar to what he has said about the panpipes? Notice how
flexible gender relations are in this poetry: Thestylis is a woman. Nymphs
are fun-loving demigods especially associated with Arcadia, and Naiads are water
spirits associated with rivers and streams. These spirits, always portrayed as
beautiful, are said to be bringing flowers and herbs as an offering to Alexis,
rather than he worshipping them. This is a typical form of flattery, not to be
taken too seriously.
The narrator who spoke the first stanza returns,
with the exclamation "Foolish!" Iollas is yet another beautiful youth.
It becomes clear that the narrator feels that he is superior to Corydon as a
suitor, and is trying to argue his rival into giving up. With the words
"What have I done" this narrator begins to address Alexis, complaining
that his own pursuit of the youth has laid waste to the countryside. Alexis
should be happy to stay in the country instead of fleeing to the city. Paris,
Prince of Troy, appears first in mythology tending his sheep on the hills outside
the city. Pallas is Pallas
Athena, the patron goddess of Athens, of wisdom, and therefore a symbol of
civic virtue. The poet prefers the ways of nature. What is the pattern of natural
behavior depicted in the next to last stanza? Does it seem designed to reassure
Alexis? Frustrated, in the last stanza the narrator turns back to Corydon to
argue that Corydon will never succeed in seducing Alexis and might as well get
back to work. An "osier" is a willow stem. The final lines imply that
if Corydon can't get his mind off Alexis by working, he should content himself
with another handsome young man instead.
Notes on
Catullus
"Who loves beauty"
Whigham,
Peter, trans. FromThe Poems of Catullus.Baltimore: Penguin, 1966,
p. 52
"Lesbia/live with me"
From Whigham, p.55
Odi et Amo
From Whigham, p. 197
Propertius
(c. 50 -c. 10 BCE):
Quam fueram magnis olim patefacta
triumphis . . .
Carrier, Constance, trans. The Poems of
Propertius. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1963, pp. 48-49.
O me felicem! O nox mihi candida! Et tu . . .
From Carrier, pp. 80-81.
Qualis Thesea iacuit cedente carina . .
.
From Carrier, pp. 28-29.
What makes these poets distinctly
un-modern is their fondness for alluding to classical myths which every
contemporary reader knew intimately. Ariadne, the daughter of King Minos of
Crete, helped the
adventurer Theseus slay the fearsome Minotaur to whom he had been given as a
sacrifice. Theseus repaid her love by abandoning her on the island of Naxos [click here to see a contemporary
painting related to this scene: warning--contains frontal nudity] where,
according to the most common version of her myth, she committed suicide by
jumping off the rocky headland into the sea. Andromeda was chained to a rock to
be sacrificed to a sea monster, but was rescued by the hero Perseus. Maenads were
the female worshippers and companions of Dionysus
(Bacchus) who danced themselves into an orgiastic frenzy in his worship and then
collapsed. This trio of exhausted women has little in common besides their
exhaustion, but for Roman readers a whole set of images of anguish and frenzy
would be conjured up which are half-seriously applied to the upset Cynthia. The
wealthy had their way lit for them through dark Roman streets by torch-bearing
slaves. Argus had a hundred eyes all over his body. Juno jealously changed Io
into a cow because her husband Jupiter had fallen in love with the mortal maiden.
When Jupiter continued to pursue her, Juno set Argus to guard her, for even when
he slept, some of his eyes were open. But Hermes,
the divine thief, was sent by Jupiter to steal Io and succeeded in lulling all of
Argus' eyes closed with stories and songs, after which he cut off the guard's
head. Obviously to gaze at a woman like Argus is to gaze very intently. (For the
same reason, "Argus" used to be a popular name for newspapers.) Romans
wore wreaths--typically vine-leaves--in their hair during parties. Fruit was
expensive, and the poet has tried to please Cynthia by bringing some home for
her; but the original poem makes it clear that he dumps them clumsily in her
bosom. "Trying the window" suggests a would-be intruder trying to break
in. What gestures suggest that the poet has genuine affection for Cynthia? How do
you react to Cynthia's accusations? Is she more or less sympathetic than the
poet?
Anonymous (2nd-4th C. BCE?):
The Vigil
of Venus
Wilhelm, James J., ed. Medieval Song: An Anthology of
Hymns and Lyrics. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1971, pp. 21-24.
William-Adolphe Bouguereau:
The Birth of Venus
Florus :
Venerunt aliquando
rosæ
From Wilhelm, pp. 24-25.
More poems by women authors from Wendy Mulford, ed.: Love Poems by
Women
"I Hear that Andromeda";
From
Mulford, p. 27.
"Honestly, I Wish I Were Dead"
From Mulford, pp.
39-40.
"He is More Than a Hero"
From Mulford, pp. 231-232.
Nossis of Locri:
"Nothing is Sweeter than Eros"
From Mulford, p.
161.
Sulpicia:
"Finally a Love Has Come"
From Mulford, p.
195.
"Light of My Life"
From
Mulford, p. 211.
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