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    AC Benus
  • AC Benus
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  • 12/07/2021
  • 310 Words
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Poetry posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 

The Great Mirror of Same-Sex Love - Poetry - 36. …your image lit in me…

.

Three Epigrams from Meleager

 

i.

It is Aphrodite, a woman,

who tosses at us

the desire for women.

But Eros rules over

our passion for men.

 

Whither shall I incline,

to the youth or to his mother?

I tell you for sure, even

Aphrodite herself admits:

 

“The bold brat ever carries the day.”[i]

 

 

ii.

Why do you, Morning Star,

the foe of love, look down on

my bed so early, just as I lie

warm in dear Demo's arms?

 

Would that you could

reverse your swift course

and be the Star of Eve again,

you whose sweet rays fall

on me most bitter.

 

Once of old, when he lay with Alcmene,

you turned back in the sight of Zeus;

you are not unpracticed

in retracing your tracks.[ii]

 

[after W. R. Paton]

 

 

iii.

At 12 o'clock in the afternoon

In the middle of the street –

Alexis.

 

Summer has all but brought

the fruit to its perilous end:

but the summer light & that boy's look

 

did their work on me.

Night hides the sun;

your face consumes my dreams.

 

Others feel sleep as feathered rest;

mine but in flame refigures

your image lit in me. [iii]

—Meleager,

circa 80 BC

 

[after Peter Whigham]

 

 

 

 

 

[ii] “Why do you, Morning Star” Meleager Greek Anthology 5.172

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Anth.+Gr.+5.172&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2008.01.0472

“Morning Star” refers to Aphrodite once again, or the planet Venus, as we call it. This point of light in the sky, usually very near the moon, is both the morning and evening stars.

[iii] “At 12 o'clock in the afternoon” Meleager Greek Anthology 12.127

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Anth.+Gr.+12.127&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2008.01.0475

_

 

as noted
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Poetry posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 
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AC Benus
On 12/7/2021 at 11:37 AM, 84Mags said:

‘…but the summer light & that boy’s look…’  circa 80 BC.       Wow.  

Thanks @84Mags Meleager was a major poet and anthologist. He came to same-sex love later in life, at first writing his bemusement of it in others, but then fell in love himself with a young man after the poet's wife died. From there, his previously conventional poetry blossomed into being some of the simplest and most powerful ever written 

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AC Benus
On 12/7/2021 at 3:57 PM, Parker Owens said:

These seem as fresh today as when they were written two millennia ago. You are not unpracticed / in retracing your tracks was such a timeless appeal. 

Thanks @Parker Owens Meleager is one of the brightest luminaries in the universe of Gay poetry. The series he wrote for the love of his life, a young man named Myiscus, is one of the most honest and powerful statements of love that exists

Edited by AC Benus
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