Games of Venus

An Anthology of Greek and Roman Erotic Verse from Sappho to Ovid

Peter Bing, Rip Cohen, Peter Bing, Rip Cohen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9781138136885
• eBook ISBN:
  9781136611155
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: Literature

Recent attacks on contemporary art have portrayed the erotic content of works by Robert Mapplethorpe and others as if it were a deviation from the Western artistic tradition. On the contrary, there is a rich tradition of eroticism in the arts beginning with the erotic verse of ancient Greek and Roman poets.

Games of Venus, the first comprehensive anthology in English of ancient Greek and Roman erotic verse, revives this tradition for the modern reader. Itpresents the whole spectrum of erotic poetry from Sappho to Ovid in translations which evoke the full range of styles and tones present in the original Greek and Latin.

Brief biographical sketches accompany the work of each poet as do notes referring to the myths, geography, historical events, personages, and sexual and social customs mentioned in the verse.

GREECE

ARCHILOCHUS

A contemporary of king Gyges of Lydia (ca.687–652 B.C.), Archilochus came from the island of Paros. He went as a soldier to the Parian colony of Thasos, and died back in Paros some time after 648 (fr. 122 West mentions a total solar eclipse probably dateable to April 6 of that year) in a battle against the Naxians. In antiquity Archilochus was considered the foremost representative of “iambos,” or blame-poetry. Such poetry was especially connected with iambic trimeter—though there was enough blame to go around to other meters too. Archilochus’ invective was most famously associated with the story of Lykambes and his daughters. Lykambes was said to have promised his daughter Neoboule to Archilochus in marriage, but to have gone back on his word. Archilochus avenged this insult by attacking the family in poems so vitriolic that it drove them all to hang themselves. In this story (as in those surrounding the later blame-poet, Hipponax), however, we must reckon with the possibility that these figures were “stock characters in a traditional entertainment.”¹ In support of this theory, it has been noted that the names of both Lykambes and Neoboule may be significant, the former possibly meaning “Wolf-walker,” the latter “she who always has a new plan,” i.e. who is fickle. It is characteristic for Greek and Roman poetry as a whole that we find in such invective the coarsest, most explicit sexual language and descriptions. Blunt sexuality, then as now, was a favored mode of derogation and attack.

The First Cologne Epode, P. Colon.7511 = SLG 478²

“.......³
holding back completely; and you've got to do the same.

But if you're in a hurry and passion urges you on,
there is someone in our house who really wants to now[ ,

a lovely, tender girl. I think
her looks are flawless. Make her your [....”

So much she said, and I answered
“Daughter of Amphimedo, that good and [

lady whom the mouldy earth holds,⁴
there are many pleasures of the goddess for young men

besides the divine thing;⁵ one of those will suffice.
But those things you and I shall consider

at our ease, with help from heaven, when...... darkens.
I'll do what you tell me....... me a lot.

But under the coping-stone and the gates,⁶
don't grudge me, darling [

for I will land in the grassy meadows.⁷
But there's something I want you to know right now: some other man can

have Neoboule. Oh god! she's overripe; twice as old as you;
her maiden blossom's fallen away,

and the grace that once was hers; for she can't get enough[
That rabid woman has shown the lengths she'll go to.

She can go to hell. I hope I never get stuck
with a woman like that and become

the laughing-stock of the neighborhood. You're the one I really want.

You I can trust, you're no double-dealer.

She, though, is cunning, and makes many men [
I'm afraid that, in my hurry, I gave birth

like the bitch in the proverb to blind pups, born too soon.”⁸
This much I said. I took the girl and laid her down

among blooming flowers, and covering her with my soft
cloak, cradling her nape in my elbow,

..........................................]just like a fawn[.
With my hands I gently clasped her [;

her fresh skin showed, the magic of her youth.
And handling her beautiful body,

I spent my.......force, touching her blond hair.⁹

Iambic Fragment 23 (West)

]I replied to her:

“Woman, don't be at all afraid of what men

say. I'll take care of.........

So soften your heart.

Did you think I'd sunk to such a state

of wretchedness—did I seem to you so cowardly?

That's not the kind of man I am, nor was my family.

I know how to love where I am loved

and hate the hateful and.....

An ant......

This city [ ]you're roaming over

men have never sacked; but you've

taken it at spear-point and won great fame.

Rule it now, be tyrant of the place;

you'll be the envy of many men.¹⁰

Iambic fragment 30–32 (West)

she took pleasure in holding a sprig of myrtle

and the lovely blossom of the rose, and her hair

shaded her shoulders and back.

Iambic fragment 41 (West)

(the girl, like a) halcyon

perched upon the jutting stone, flapping.

Iambic fragment 42 (West)

As on a straw a Thracian man or Phrygian

sucks his brew, forward she stooped, working away.

Iambic fragment 43 (West)

His cock, like that

of a crop-gobbling donkey from Priene, overflowed.

Iambic fragment 46 (West)

out of the pipe and into the pail

Tetrameter fragment 119 (West)

and to go at a hard-working bag and thrust

belly on belly, thigh on thigh.

Epode fragment 184 (West)

She's cunning, in one hand she

carries water, in the other, fire.

2nd Cologne Epode = P. Colon.7511 = SLG 478b (188 West)¹¹

No longer does your soft flesh bloom, the swath

is sere........of horrid age is overtaking you.

The sweet lure of your alluring face has dissolved

...... Yes, many gusts

of winter wind have blasted you.

Epode fragment 189 (West)

Many's the blind eel you've taken in

Epode fragment 191 (West)

Such desire for love, coiled at my heart,

shed a thick mist over my eyes,

stealing the tender senses from my breast.

Epode fragment 193 (West)

Wracked with desire I lie,

lifeless, pierced through the bone

by the crushing pains of the gods.

Epode fragment 196 (West)

but desire unhinges me, my friend, it ma...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Series
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• List of Abbreviations
• A Note on the Translation
• Introduction
• Greece
• Archilochus
• Alkman
• Mimnermos
• Sappho
• Ibycus
• Anacreon
• Theognis The “Second Book”
• Erotic Elegies from the “First Book” of Theognis
• Hippnax
• Pindar
• Bacchylides
• Miscellaneous Lyric and Inscriptions
• Hermesianax
• Asclepiades
• Callimachus
• Theocritus
• Herodas
• Machon
• The Grenfell Papyrus
• Anonymous Song from Marisa
• Anonymous Epigrams
• Meleager
• Rome
• Catullus
• Virgil
• Horace
• Tibullus
• Sulpicia
• Propertius
• Ovid
• Suggestions for Further Reading