You who wring your hands yet are unwilling to go,You whose guests stay for hours sharing sadness and joys.You who’ll run from the cards and Rakoczy bravura,From the glass of the drawing-room and from the guestsTo the keyboard on fire, unable to endureBones and roses and dice and rosettes and the rest.You will fluff up…
The rocks, the dwellings in the village,The sorry little inn, the gloomOf something black beyond the Terek,Clouds moving heavily. Up thereThe day was breaking very slowly;It dawned, but light was nowhere near.One sensed the heaviness of darknessFor miles ahead around KazbekWound on the heights: though some were tryingTo throw the halter from their neck.As if…
Away from earth; distress was growingLike wings – to spread, to hold, to lead.I grew. The veil of woven sunsetsAt dusk would cling to me and swell.With wine in glasses we would gatherTo celebrate a sad farewell,And yet the eagle’s clasp alreadyRefreshes forearms’ heated strain.The days have gone, when, love, you floatedAbove me, harbinger of…
You counted on grief, with your pupils dilated,Their invincibility trying in tears on?At the mass from the vaults then the murals had crumbled,By the play on the lips of Sebastian shaken…But tonight to my hatred all seems drawn-out dawdling,What a pity there is not a whip for my hatred!In darkness, collecting its wits instantaneously,It knew…
It bursts from throats, a clamouran outpour that can’t grow less.The swifts have no way, highup there, overhead, of restrainingtheir clarion cries: ‘O, triumph,see, see, how the earth’s receding!’Like steam from a boiling kettle,the furious flow rushes by –‘See, see – no space for the earthbetween the ravine and the sky.’
Through the blizzard, biting frost and snow,I made the journey into town.At the hour I stepped outside the doorNot a soul could be seen on the street,And through the forest darkness drifted forthThe crunching echo of my tramping feet.At the crossing I was greetedBy the willows of the vacant plot.The constellations towered above the worldIn…
while black Spring burns deepthrough the slush and throbbing.Take a cab. For a clutch of copecks,through bell-towers’ and wheel noise,go where the rain-storm’s din breaks,greater than crying or ink employs.Where rooks in thousands falling,like charred pears from the skies,drop down into puddles, bringingcold grief to the depths of eyes.Below, the black shows through,and the wind’s…
will be his first concern. And he’ll spend the rest of his lifewithout worrying. So Philip says, anyway.Tonight he’s playing a game with dice;he’s in a mood to enjoy himself.Cover the table with roses. What if Antiochoswas defeated at Magnesia? They saythe bulk of his brilliant army was totally crushed.Maybe they’re stretching it a bit;…
From a family on friendly terms with the Synagogue.‘My most valuable days are thosewhen I give up the pursuit of sensuous beauty,when I desert the elegant and severe cult of Hellenism,with its over-riding devotionto perfectly shaped, corruptible white limbs,and become the man I would want to remain forever:son of the Jews, the holy Jews.’A most…
The body’s lines. Red lips. Sensual limbs.Hair as though stolen from Greek statues,always lovely, even uncombed,and falling slightly over pale foreheads.Figures of love, as my poetry desired them. . . . in the nights when I was young,encountered secretly in my nights.
we approve of Aeschylus when he makes Thetis saythat Apollo sang at her wedding in celebration ofher child:‘that he would not know sickness, would live long,and that every blessing would be his;and he sang such praises that he rejoiced my heart.And I had hopes that the divine lips of Apollo,fluent with the art of prophecy,…
How unhappy the poor things areand how bored by the pathetic life they live.How they tremble for fear of losing that life, and how muchthey love it, those befuddled and contradictory souls,sitting -half comic and half tragic-inside their old, threadbare skins.
But Fate did put an end to it a bit abruptly.It was soon over, that wonderful life.Yet how strong the scents were,what a magnificent bed we lay in,what pleasures we gave our bodies.An echo from my days of indulgence,an echo from those days came back to me,something from the fire of the young life we…
But he only read for ten minutes,and gave them up. He is dozingon the sofa. He is fully devoted to booksbut he is twenty-three years old, and he’s very handsome;and this afternoon love passedthrough his ideal flesh, his lips.Through his flesh which is full of beautythe heat of love passed;without any silly shame for the…
roses by the head, jasmine at the feet –so appear the longings that have passedwithout being satisfied, not one of them granteda single night of pleasure, or one of its radiant mornings.
was generally liked in Alexandriaduring the ten days he spent there.In keeping with his name, his dress was also suitably Greek.He received honours gladly,but he didn’t solicit them; he was unassuming.He bought Greek books,especially history and philosophy.Above all he was a man of few words.It got around that he must be a profound thinker,and men…
at least pursue them hesitantly, cautiously.And the higher you go,the more searching and careful you need to be.And when you reach your summit, Caesar at last-when you assume the role of someone that famous-then be specially careful as you go out into the street,a conspicuous man of power with your retinue;and should a certain Artemidoroscome…
I mourn my kind old fatherwho died two days ago, just before dawn.Jesus Christ, I try continuallyin my every thought, word, and deedto keep the commandmentsof your most holly Church; and I rejectall who deny you. But now I mourn:I grieve, O Christ, for my fathereven though he was -terrible as it is to say…
The Macedonians, Antiochos Epiphanis,the Macedonians are back in the great fight.Let them only win, and I’ll give anyone who wants themthe lion and the horses, the coral Pan,the elegant palace, the gardens of Tyre,and everything else you’ve given me, Antiochos Epiphanis.’The king may have been moved a little,but then he remembered his father, his brother,and…
we try desperately to invent ways out,plan how to avoidthe obvious danger that threatens us so terribly.Yet we’re mistaken, that’s not the danger ahead:the news was wrong(or we didn’t hear it, or didn’t get it right).Another disaster, one we never imagined,suddenly, violently, descends upon us,and finding us unprepared -there’s no time now-sweeps us away.
But he read for barely ten minutes,then gave it up, falling half-asleep on the sofa.He’s completely devoted to booksbut he’s twenty-three, and very good-looking;and this afternoon Eros penetratedhis ideal flesh, his lips,an erotic warmth penetratedhis lovely fleshwith no ridiculous shame about the form the pleasure took….
The barbarians are due here today.Why isn’t anything going on in the senate?Why are the senators sitting there without legislating?Because the barbarians are coming today.What’s the point of senators making laws now?Once the barbarians are here, they’ll do the legislating.Why did our emperor get up so early,and why is he sitting enthroned at the city’s…
he just didn’t know how to tell his mothera thing like that: Ptolemy’s demand,to guarantee their treaty, that she too go to Egyptand be held there as a hostage—a very humiliating, indecorous thing.And he would be about to speak yet always hesitate,would start to tell her yet always stop.But the magnificent woman understood him(she’d already…
in Alexandria. Tamides left me;he went off with the Prefect’s son to earn himselfa villa on the Nile, a mansion in the city.It wouldn’t have been right for me to stay in Alexandria.I wallow in the tavernas and brothels of Beirut.I live a vile life, devoted to cheap debauchery.The one thing that saves me,like durable…
bought at least eighty years ago.A good-looking boy, a tailor’s assistant(on Sundays an amateur athlete),stood there with a package. He gave it to one of the householdwho took it in to get the receipt.The tailor’s assistant,left alone as he waited,went up to the mirror, looked at himself,and adjusted his tie. Five minutes laterthey brought him…