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

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EPITAPHIUM PEGASI, GLAUDI PAEDICONIS

 

Si vis scire meum nomen votumque, viator,

Pegasus hac ego sum claudus humatus humo.

Vota deinde scias, nomen quum sciveris; audi:

Sic desiderio tu potiare tuo.

Quum pathicum quemquam paedicat, urus ephebum es,

Illud in hac tumba, quaeso, viator agas,

Atque ita mi animas coitu, non thure, piato,

Scilicet hanc requiem manibus, oro, dato.

Hoc apud infernas genus est leniminis umbras

Praecipuum; prisci sic statuere patres;

Quippe ita Chironis cineres placabat Achilles,

Sensit et hoc podex, flave Patrocle tuus,

Gnovit Hylas patrio percisus ab Hercule busto.

Tu mihi majores quod docuere lita.

 

 

 

EPITAPH FOR PEGASUS, A GAY GLADIATOR

 

If, traveler, you wish to pray and know my name,

Pegasus am I, imperfectly here buried.

Since you will know how to pray once you learn the name,

Listen: Do as told and you'll seize what you desire.

Plow any willing boy, who's a wild teenage bull,

Here on this tomb, visitor, as that stud's tribute

To soothe my soul not with incense but with fucking,

For such derring re-ignites we resting shadows.

Amongst the underworld types, this is a comfort

To our particular set: our forefathers knew;

It's how Achilles the ashes of Chiron dowsed;

Just as his ass, your golden-haired Patroclus, felt;

And Hylas lived, Hercules-fucked on his daddy's grave.

My people have shown what’s proper to offer up.

—Antonio Beccadelli,[i]

circa 1430

 

 

 

 

 

 


[i]EPITAPH FOR PEGASUS, A GAY GLADIATORAntonio Beccadelli L’ermanfrodito ["The Intersex Person"] (Milan 1922) [Angelo Ottolini, Editor], Liber I, 7, p. 16

https://archive.org/details/lermafroditodian00beccuoft/page/16/mode/2up

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

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

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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 

Edited by AC Benus
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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. 

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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 . . . ?  

Edited by AC Benus
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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.

 

 

Edited by AC Benus
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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 :)

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