The Great Mirror of Same-Sex Love - Poetry - 74. EPITAPH FOR PEGASUS, A GAY GLADIATOR

Perhaps a wittier rendering of this line might be: "And Hylas lived, Hercules-slain on his daddy's grave."

Now there’s an epitaph! I doubt the like could be engraved on a stone at a cemetery in most cities today. 

On 8/8/2022 at 9:38 AM, Parker Owens said:

Now there’s an epitaph! I doubt the like could be engraved on a stone at a cemetery in most cities today. 

Thank you, Parker. Beccadelli's Intersex Person is a fascinating read, once later anti-gay translations are set aside and the originals re-captured in all their freedom of thought. The poet covers all aspects of sexual expressions and love, with some very tender love poems interspersed amongst the more baudy pieces, which were clearly written for fun. What I find telling here is that Renaissance people had no problems seeing Gay culture as a continuum, with references to "our ancestors," "our fathers," etc. This goes a long way in refuting the Gay-deniers who want to say we did not exist in the past except as isolated, one-off, self-loathers. Shame on them for trying to propagate a lie meant to keep current Queer people from knowing the extent of our culture and history 

I dare anyone - say, especially certain higher judicial officials in this country - to say there’s no substantial history of gay persons and their relationships on this continent or in western history. 

On 8/8/2022 at 10:16 AM, Parker Owens said:

I dare anyone - say, especially certain higher judicial officials in this country - to say there’s no substantial history of Gay persons and their relationships on this continent or in western history. 

In the 2010s, Justice Roberts tried to say (from the bench, no less) that "gay marriage" was newer than the cellphone, even though the Supreme Court itself ruled on the matter of same-sex marriage in 1972. Does he pretend to be this ignorant on all subjects, or just ones of Gay History . . . ?  

Ha, as if Beccadelli is making my point for me, I was just in my folder cleaning up my texts to translate, and came across this gem, also from The Intersex Person. Here's basically the raw, unpolished translation, more or less straight from DeepL. (Odo is the name of a critic; a homophobic one, no doubt.)

VERSUS THE BITING ODO

Odo says my life is not demure:

this idea he conceives from my writings.

Odo must not have read the tender Catullus,

Nor certainly saw thee, O circumcised Priapus.

Why shall I hold to be tawdry to me what was not so

For Macus, for Marso, for the Queers, and for all others?

Let me err with so many other poets, [and]

You, O Odo, believe, with the crowd, what you will.

Lovely poem, spicy and lucid

7 minutes ago, W_L said:

Lovely poem, spicy and lucid

Thanks, W_L. I think that's the balance the poet was aiming for