he will bring back the worship of our gods
and our elegant Greek rites.”
So did he ramble in his poor dwelling
after a reading of Philostratos’
pertaining to Apollonios of Tyana,
one of the few gentiles, the very few
who had stayed, otherwise a meaningless
and cowardly person; in public
he played the Christian and went to church.
It was the time when there ruled
in consummate piety the old man Justin,
and Alexandria, a reverent city,
was repudiating wretched idolaters.
Young Men of Sidon, 400 AD
The actor they brought to entertain them
read them some epigrams he had chosen.
The hall opened out above a garden
a light smell of flowers there
mingled with the scents
of five perfumed young men of Sidon.
Meleager was read, and Krinagoras
And Rhianos too. But when the actor declaimed
“This covers Aeschylus, son of Euphorion,
Athenian,” stressing perhaps beyond need
“famous courage” and “Marathonian grove,”
one vital youth jumped up at once,
fanatic about letters, and protested aloud:
“Ah, I do not like this epigram.
Such expressions somehow show lack of spirit.
Give, I proclaim, all your force to your work
all your care, and remember your work again
at a testing time or when your season no longer inclines.
This I expect of you and ask you
not to remove entire from your mind
tragedy’s radiant Discourse—
What of Agamemnon? Wonderful Prometheus?
The pursuers of Orestes? What of Cassandra?
The Seven Against Thebes?—
not to put down for your epitaph
just that you too in the ranks, in the mass,
fought against Datis and Artaphernes.”
So They Come
One candle is enough: its faint light
is more in harmony, will be kinder
when they come, Love’s Shadows, when they come.
One candle is enough: the bedroom tonight
is not to have very much light. In revery wholly
and prompting and with little light
that way in revery I shall compose visions
so they come, Love’s Shadows, so they come.
Darius
The poet Fernazes composes
the important part of his epic poem,
how Darius, son of Hystaspes, succeeded
to the Persian kingdom (from him
our own glorious king is descended,
Mithridates, Dionysos and Eupator) but here
there is need of philosophy: he must analyze
the feelings Darius would have had,
drunken arrogance perhaps. No—rather
a sort of recognition of the vanity of grandeurs.
Deeply the poet considers the matter.
But his servant interrupts him, comes in
running and announces grave news.
War has begun with the Romans.
Most of the army has crossed the border.
The poet is confounded. What a disaster!
When now will our glorious king,
Mithridates, Dionysos and Eupator,
take time for Greek poems?
At war—imagine, Greek poems.
Fernazes worries. What bad luck!
Just when he was sure with his Darius
to gain distinction; and his critics,
the envious, finally to shut them up.
What a delay! What a delay in his plans!
If it were only delay, fine.
But let us see if we are really safe
in Amisos. It is not a city especially secure.
They are fearsome enemies, the Romans.
Can we be a match for them,
we Cappadocians? Can it ever happen?
Shall we measure ourselves now against the legions?
Great Gods, protectors of Asia, help us.
Still in all his trouble and distress
insistently the idea of the poem comes and goes,
the most likely, surely: drunken arrogance,
drunken arrogance, he would have felt, Darius.
Anna Komnena
In the prologue of her Alexiad
Anna Komnena laments her widowed state:
Her spirit is dizzied,
“And with floods of tears,” she tells us,
“I fill my eyes . . . Alas for the waves,” of her life,
“Alas for the revolutions.”
Pain burns her, “To my bones,
to my marrow,
to the rending of my soul.”
And yet it seems she only truly
knew one telling grief
this power-loving woman
only one deep sorrow did she have
(although she does not say it)
this haughty Grecian lady
she did not for all her skill
manage to acquire the kingship.
He took it out of her hands
almost, the reckless John.
Byzantine Official in Exile, Poetaster
The lightweights, let them call me light,
in serious matters, I was always
most scrupulous. And I shall insist
no one knows better than I
Fathers and Scriptures and Canons of Councils:
in his every doubt, Votoniates,
in his every trouble in churchly affairs,
took counsel with me, me first.
But exiled here (to blame: that mean
Irini Dukena) and dreadfully bored
it is not in any way odd that I amuse myself
writing sestets and octaves,
have fun with mythical stories
of Hermes and Apollo and Dionysos
or heroes of Thessaly and the Peloponnese,
and compose strictly correct iambics,
as—permit me to say—the savants
of Constantinople do not know how.
This correctness, it is likely, prompts their censure.
Their Origin
They’ve had their fill of outlaw pleasure.
They get up from the bed,
dress fast without talk,
exit apart, like thieves, out of the house.
The way they walk, uneasy on the street,
It’s as though they suspect
something about them gives it away:
into what kind of bed they fell
a little while ago.
But for the artist’s life what profit!
Tomorrow, day after, or in years
the lines will be written, the potent lines
that had their origin here.
The Benevolence of Alexander Vala
I am not upset that I broke a wheel
on the car, that I missed a ridiculous win.
With good wines in the midst of pretty roses
I shall pass the night. Antioch is mine.
I am the young man most glorified.
I am Vala’s weakness, he adores me.
Tomorrow, you will see,
they will say the race was not right.
(But if I’d been tasteless, and if I’d given secret orders,
they’d have brought me in first, the toadies,
even with my broken car.)
Melancholy of Jason Kleander, Poet in Commagene, 595 AD
The aging of my body and my looks
is a wound from a horrible knife.
I do not have any tolerance.
I run to you, Art of Poetry:
you know something of medications,
attempts at numbing pain, in Word and Fancy.
It is a wound from a horri
ble knife—
bring your medication, Art of Poetry,
that makes me not feel it—for a little—the wound.
Demaratos
The theme: The Character of Demaratos.
Porphyrios recommended it, in a conversation.
The young sophist expressed it as follows
(He will develop the rhetoric later):
“Courtier first of King Darius
then of King Xerxes
now with Xerxes and his host
here is Demaratos.
Finally he will get his due.
Grave injustice was done him:
he was Ariston’s son. Shamelessly
his enemies bribed the oracle.
And it was not enough for them
to depose him as king,
When he had already conceded
and made his decision
resigning himself to live as private person,
they had to insult him in front of the people
humiliate him publicly on the Feast Day.
Whence his zealous attendance on Xerxes.
With the great Persian army,
he will himself return to Sparta
where king as before, how he will pursue
straightaway, how he will humiliate
that schemer Leotychidas.
His days pass full of care.
He’s to counsel the Persians, explain
what must be done to conquer Hellas.
Many worries, much thought, and this is why
Demaratos’s days are so uncomfortable.
Many worries, much thought, and this is why
Demaratos has not one instant of joy.
Because joy is not what he feels
(It is not; he won’t admit it.
How call it joy? His misery has crested.)
when things show him clearly
the Hellenes will win.
I Brought to Art
I sit in revery: desires and feelings
I brought to Art, something half-perceived
faces or lines, love not consummated
some shifting recollections.
Let me abandon myself to her.
Art knows how to shape the Form of Beauty
almost imperceptibly making life complete
fusing sensations, fusing the days.
From the School of the Famous Philosopher
He stayed a student of Ammonios Sakkas two years
but got bored with philosophy and Sakkas.
Then he entered politics
but gave it up: the prefect was a fool
his people, official pompous woodenheads
their Greek, the miscreants, three times barbaric.
Briefly the Church drew his curiosity
to be baptised, become a Christian
but quickly he changed his mind.
He would surely get in trouble with his parents,
exemplary pagans. And they would stop
instantly—horrid fact—
their very generous presents.
Still he had to do something.
He became a regular
at the special houses of Alexandria
every secret orgy locale.
Luck favored him in this. Luck
gave him exceptional good looks
and he took pleasure in the divine gift.
For ten years at least
his looks would suffice. Then
maybe back to Sakkas once again
and if in the meantime the old man died
he would go to some other philosopher
or sophist. There is always a suitable someone.
Or finally he would go back into politics
laudably having in mind his family traditions
his debt to his country
and other such resonant chestnuts.
The Silversmith
On this mixing bowl, pure silver
made for Herakleides, a household
where exquisite taste prevails
look at the elegant flowers and brooks and thyme;
in the midst I put a fair young man
naked, erotic, one knee still
in the water. Memory, I prayed
to find you my best helper
in shaping the face
of the youth I loved as it was.
Very hard it turned out to be:
some fifteen years had gone by
from the day he fell
soldier in the defeat at Magnesia.
Who Fought for the Achaean League
Brave men, who fought and fell with glory,
you did not fear the universal conquerors.
No blame to you, if Diaios and Kritolaos erred.
When Greeks will boast, “Such men
Our nation brings forth,” they will be talking about you.
So full of wonder will your praises be.
Written in Alexandria by an Achaean.
Seventh year of Ptolemy Lathyros.
To Antiochos Epiphanes
Antiochos’ young man said to his king:
“In my heart there beats one dearest hope:
the Macedonians again, Antiochus Epiphanes,
the Macedonians are in a great struggle.
Just let them win and I’ll give to anyone at all
the lion, and the horses, the Pan made of coral,
the elegant palace, the garden in Tyre,
and all else you gave me, Antiochos Epiphanes.”
He might have been moved a little, the king,
but in an instant he remembered his father and his brother;
and he did not even answer: an eavesdropper could
pass something on. Besides of course
Pydna came on shortly after, the hideous ending.
In an old book—one hundred years old about
I found in its pages forgotten
a watercolor without a signature
creation of a powerful artist.
It carried as title “Figure of Love”
—more fitting however would be
“The Peak Sensations of Love,”
because it was clear when you looked at the work
(the artist’s conception was easy to see)
for all who love in a wholesome way
who stand by convention come what may
he was not designed, the young man of the painting,
with his deep brown eyes
the rare beauty of his face
the beauty of his anomalous charm
lips ideal to bring delight to a cherished body
limbs ideally formed for beds
that current morality calls “shameless.”
In Despair
He lost him completely
and now he goes on seeking
on the lips of every new lover
the lost one’s lips. In union with every
new lover, he seeks to be misled:
it is the same young man;
he is giving himself to him.
He lost him completely
as though that lover never lived at all.
He had wanted—he’d said—to be saved
from the branding of sickly pleasure
from the branding of shameful pleasure
There was still time, as he said, to be saved.
He lost him completely, as though he never lived at all
by fantasy, by illusions on other young men’s lips
he seeks his lips, he seeks to feel his love again.
Julian Observing Too Little Esteem
“Consequently inasmuch as I observe in us
too little esteem for the gods,” he says severely.
“Little esteem”—what, may I ask, did he expect?
He can organize worship all he likes
write to the Bishop of Galatia all he likes
or any other such, exhorting and steering.
His friends, to be sure, were not Chri
stians.
But they could not for all of that
play like him (instructed in Christianity)
with the system of a new church,
amusing in concept and application.
They were Greeks after all.
Nothing too much, Augustus.
Epitaph of Antiochos, King of Commagene
After she came back—sad—from his funeral,
the sister of the sober and gentle-lived,
the very learned Antiochus, King
of Commagene, she wanted an epitaph for him,
and the Ephesian savant, Kallistratos—who stayed
often in the realm of Commagene,
and by the royal household
was gladly and often entertained—
wrote it by recommendation of Syrian courtiers
and sent it to the old grande dame.
“Of Antiochos beneficent king
the fame, Commagenes, will duly be sung:
he was a provident governor of his country;
he was just, and wise, and noble;
he was, moreover, that best thing, Greek.
Humanity has no more precious quality:
what is beyond is among the gods.”
Theater of Sidon (400 AD)
Respected citizen’s son, and above all, nice looking
young man of the theater, variously attractive,
sometimes I compose in the Greek tongue
audacious lines, which I circulate
with utmost secrecy, it is understood.
—Good God! Don’t let them see,
the gray suits who talk about morals—
poetic lines on the special pleasure, that leads
to childless reprobated love.
Julian in Nikomedia
Thoughtless and risky: praise of Hellenic ideals
Magical rites and visits to pagan temples
accessions of ardor for the ancient gods
frequent talks with Chrysanthios
Maximos’ theories, the philosopher,
formidable in any case.
Here is the upshot: Gallus shows himself uneasy—
very. Constantius has a suspicion.
Ah, the counsellors were not alert.
It went too far—Mardonios says—this situation.
The resultant noise must anyhow stop.
Julian goes again as reader