to the church of Nikomedia
where voice raised and quite devout
he reads the Holy Writ
and the people admire his Christian piety.
Before Time Changes Them
They were very sorry at their parting.
They didn’t want it. It was circumstance.
Needs of livelihood made the one
go far away, New York or Canada.
Their love to be sure was not the way it was.
It had diminished, the attraction, by degrees.
It had diminished, Love’s attraction, a lot.
But they did not want to part.
It was circumstance—or maybe Chance
(made manifest as artist) parts them now
before Time quenches what they feel,
before Time changes them.
Each for the other will always be
twenty-four years old, an attractive young man.
He Came to Read
He came to read: open there are
two, three books: historians, poets,
but he barely read ten minutes
before he gave up. He is half asleep
on the sofa. He belongs to books
but he is twenty-three, and fair,
and love passed this afternoon
over his perfect flesh, his lips,
over his flesh which is all beauty
love’s warmth passed
without ridiculous feelings of shame
over that kind of enjoyment.
31 BCE in Alexandria
From his tiny hamlet on the outskirts
still covered with dust from his trip
the tradesman arrived, “Gum” and “Incense”
“Oil—best grade” and “Scent for the Hair”
he cried through the ways. But with the noise of the crowd
parades and musicals, how to be heard?
Jostled and pulled and bumped by the mob
now at a loss he asks, “What is this foolishness?”
Someone tosses him the gigantic lie,
that from the palace, “Antony victor in Greece.”
John Kantakouzinos Prevails
He looks at the fields he still controls
the grain, the herds, the fruitful
trees, and further on his ancestral home
full of luxurious clothes and furnishings and silver.
They will be taken away from him—
Lord Jesus Christ
They will be taken away from him now.
Will Kantakouzinos take pity on him
if he goes and falls at his feet?
They say he is merciful, full of mercy.
But his people? his army?
Or to Lady Irene, to fall at her feet? to weep?
Stupid! to get involved in Anna’s party
if only Master Andronikos had not lived
long enough to marry her. Did we see success
from her carrying-on? Did we see humanity?
Not even the Franks respect her now.
Her plans are a joke. Imbecilic all her preparation.
While they were terrorizing all those from the City
Kantakouzinos trashed them, trashed them did Master John.
To think that he had aimed
to go with Lord John’s party!
And he would have done it.
He would have been happy now
an important commander for good, and secure
if at the last second the bishop had not
with his sacerdotal sway turned him around
with items of information top-to-bottom wrong
and promises and idiocies.
Temethos, Antiochene, 400 AD
Love-struck young Temethos’ lines of verse
have the title “Emonides”, who was Antiochos
Epiphanes’ cherished companion, a gorgeous youth
out of Samosata. If the lines appear warm
and full of feeling, it is because that Emonides
(from that old time, the one hundred
thirty-seventh year of the Kingdom of Hellenes
maybe a little before) was set in the poem
as mere name, fitting well there nonetheless.
The poem expresses Temethos’s love,
fair and worthy of him. We who are initiates,
close friends of his, we who are initiates,
know for whom the lines were written.
Unsuspecting Antiochenes read “Emonides.”
Of Colored Glass
One detail from the coronation in Vlachernae
of Ioannis Kantakouzenos and Irene Asan,
Andronikos’ daughter,
moves me very much:
as they had but few precious stones
(great was the poverty of our troubled land)
they wore fakes, lots of pieces of glass
red, green, and blue. Nothing
mean, no disgrace, I would say,
in these pieces made of colored glass.
Instead they are like a grievous protest
against injustice, the wretched destiny
of the two being crowned.
They are emblems of what it befit them to have
of what it was wholly right that they have
at their coronation, a Lord Ioannis
Kantakouzenos, a Lady Irene Asan
Andronikos’ daughter.
The Twenty-fifth Year of his Life
He goes regularly to the tavern where they met last month.
He asked and they did not know a thing to tell:
from their talk he knew he had met a total unknown,
one out of many unknown and dubious young there
who pass on by.
He goes regularly anyhow to the taverna at night
and sits and looks at the door to a point of exhaustion.
He looks at the door. He may come in.
Tonight he may come.
Three weeks almost he acts like that: his wits are sick with lust.
Their kisses stay on his mouth. He suffers relentless yearning
in all his flesh the feel of that body on him
he wants to be with him again
He tries, agreed, not to betray himself,
but sometimes he almost does not care.
He knows to what he’s exposed,
and besides he did decide.
His way of life—it is not unlikely—
is carrying him to destructive scandal.
On the Italian Shore
Kemos, Menedoros’ son, young Italian Hellene
passes his life in amusements as these do,
the young men from Magna Grecia
reared in great wealth.
But today quite against his nature
pensive and downcast, close by the seashore,
full of melancholy he watches ships unload
their booty from the Peloponnese.
Booty from Hellas. Corinthian loot.
Ah, surely today it is not allowed
it cannot be that the young Italian Hellene
has any lust for amusement.
In a Boring Little Town
In the boring little town where he works
as clerk in a general store,
so very young—and where he waits
for two, three months to go by
two or three months for work to slow down
so to change to the city and plunge
straight into circulation and fun.
In the boring little town where he waits—
this evening, he fell into bed
sick with love, all his youth on fire
with fleshly yearning
in beautiful tension all his beautiful youth
and in his sleep, the pleasure came:
in his sleep he sees and has
the form and the flesh he wanted.
Apollonius Tyaneus in Rhodes
On proper upbringing and its practice
Apollonios was speaking
with a young man who at Rhodes
was building a high-priced house.
“When I go into a holy place,”
the man from Tyana said at the end,
“I would much rather see
even in a little space
a statue of ivory and gold
than one in a large space
made of cheap terra-cotta.
“Terracotta” and “cheap”—hateful.
And yet like a swindler it fools some
(those without enough training)
the terracotta and cheap.
Kleitos Ill
Kleitos, an amiable lad, twenty-three about,
upbringing best, Greek learning well out of ordinary,
is very very ill: the fever found him:
it threshed in Alexandria this year.
The fever found him exhausted already in spirit
from longing: his companion, young actor,
stopped loving him, stopped wanting him.
He is very very ill and his parents tremble.
And an old servant who brought him up
trembles too for the life of Kleitos
thinks in her fearful anguish of an idol
she worshipped when she was small
before she entered service of prominent Christians here
and became herself a Christian.
Cakes and wine and honey she takes in secret and places
before the idol, and sings from chants of supplication
all she can remember, bits and pieces,
does not sense, silly thing,
the dark spirit little cares
if he gets well or not, he a Christian.
In a Town of Asia Minor
“News of the outcome of the naval battle at Actium
was certainly not expected,
but no need to order a new inscription,
just change the name there
before the last lines:”
“ . . . freed the Romans
from the pernicious Octavian,
that comic copy of a Caesar.”
“Now we’ll put:” “ . . . freed the Romans
from the pernicious Antony.”
“The whole text fits nicely.”
“To the victor, most glorious,
in every deed of war insuperable,
wonderful for grand political accomplishment,
for whom the people warmly prayed:
Antony’s triumph.”
“Here—as we said—the change:” “ . . . Caesar’s triumph,
regarding him God’s fairest gift,
to the mighty protector of the Greeks,
honoring in his kindness Greek ways,
beloved in every Greek land,
highly designated for glory and praise,
to the end of extended broadcast of his deeds
in the Greek language, verse and prose,
in the Greek language, which is the vehicle of fame . . .”
“etc., etc. It all fits splendidly.”
Priest at the Serapeion
That good old man, my father,
who always loved me the same,
the good old man, my father, I mourn:
he died two days ago a little before dawn.
Jesus Christ, it is my effort every day
to tend in every act, and every word, and thought
the precepts of your most holy church.
And all who deny you, them do I abhor.
But now I mourn, I grieve,
Christ, for my father,
although he was—awful to say—
at the particularly damned
Serapeion a priest.
In the Taverns
In Beirut’s taverns and cribs I wallow:
in Alexandria, I did not want to stay.
Tamides left me: he went with the Eparch’s son
for a villa on the Nile, for a palace in town.
In Alexandria, it would not have done
for me to stay.
In Beirut’s taverns and cribs I wallow:
in mean debauch I pass my lowdown time.
One thing keeps me alive
like a lasting beauty, like a fragrance
that has stayed on my flesh.
It is that Tamides for two years
was my very own, supernal young man,
my very own and not for a house
and not for a villa on the Nile.
A Great Train of Priests and Laity
A train of priests and laity
every calling represented
passes through gateways, streets, and squares
of the renowned city of Antioch.
At the head of the great imposing train
a handsome ephebe dressed in white
carries with arms upraised the Cross
our power and hope, the holy Cross.
The pagans, so arrogant just before
timid now and fearful get themselves
in haste far from the train.
Far away from us, far away
I hope they stay forever.
(As long as they do not renounce their error)
On ahead, the holy Cross proceeds.
To every neighborhood
where Christians live in reverence
the Cross brings comfort and joy.
They come out, the pious,
at the doors to their houses
and full of exultation pay respect—
to the power, the world’s redemption, the Cross.
It is an annual Christian Feast Day
But look, today they celebrate
with much more show.
The state at last is freed from its travail.
The execrable, the abhorrent
Julian rules no more.
Let us wish most reverent Jovian well.
Esteemed sophist, here out of Syria,
planning a history of Antioch
there should be mention in your account
of famous Meve, without question
nicest looking, best-beloved
young man of Antioch.
None of the other young men
living the life gets his pay.
To be with Meve two, three days
very often you pay
up to one hundred staters.
“At Antioch,” I said, but also
Alexandria, and even too at Rome
no young man is as lovable as Meve.
Julian and the Men of Antioch
“The Chi, they say, did not do the city any wrong, nor did the Kappa. . . . We happened on people who could explain . . . and learned that the letters are the beginnings of names. One means Christ, the other Constantius.”
Julian, Misopogon
Was it possible ever for them to disown
their beautiful life, their mix
of daily entertainments, their luminous
theater where Art joined
the erotic tendencies of flesh?
Corrupt to a point—probably quite a lot—
they were, but content that theirs
was the notorious life of Antioch,
the sensual, the absolutely elegant life.
Disown this? To pay attention to what?
His windy talks about false gods?
His boring talks about himself?
His childish fear of the theater?
His awkward prudery? His funny beard?
Oh yes, they preferred the Chi.
Oh yes, they preferred the Kappa,
one hundred times over.
Anna Dalassini
In the golden bull that Alexios Comnenos put out
to grant his mother signal honor,
the astute lady, Anna Dalassini—
worthy of note for her work and her manner—
there are various kinds of praise.
Here from among them let us co
nvey
one courteous, beautiful turn:
“ ‘Mine or yours,’ this cold expression, was not said.”
Days of 1896
He was utterly debased: his amorous bent
strictly forbidden and held in contempt
(inborn for all of that) was the cause.
He lived in a thoroughly sanctimonious world.
By degree he lost his little bit of money
and then his place in that world
and next, his good name.
Close to thirty, he had not spent
one year at work—known at least.
Sometimes he made his expenses
as go-between in negotiations thought shameful.
He had become the sort
if you were seen with him often
you were very much compromised.
But not just this. That would not be right.
Worthy of something more
is the memory of his beauty.
There is another point of view from which
he strikes one as likeable.
He strikes one as a simple
genuine creature of love
who sets over honor and good name
without examination the pure
sensual pleasure of his pure flesh.
His good name? But a thoroughly
sanctimonious world would
make stupid comparisons.
Two Young Men, 23 to 24 Years Old
From half past ten he was in the cafe
expecting him soon to appear;
midnight came and he still expected;
half-past one came: the café
had emptied almost wholly,
he was bored with reading newspapers
mechanically; of his lone three shillings
only one was left: over the time he waited
he spent the rest on coffees and cognac.
He had smoked all his cigarettes:
so much expectation used him up:
by this time, alone as he was, there began
to occupy him bothersome thoughts
of his misguided life
but when he saw his friend come in—right away
weariness, boredom, thoughts fled.
His friend brought unexpected news:
he had won at cards sixty pounds.
Their beautiful faces, their exquisite youth,