“My Rome praises, loves, and sings my little books—
Every pocket, every hand holds me.
Look: someone turns red, yellow, is dumbstruck, looks again, and hates!
This is what I long for: now my songs have pleased even me.”
Laudat, amat, cantat nostros mea Roma libellos,
meque sinus omnes, me manus omnis habet.
Ecce rubet quidam, pallet, stupet, oscitat, odit.
Hoc uolo: nunc nobis carmina nostra placent.
Perhaps shit-talking is a trope in Roman poetry
Catullus, Carmen 83
“Lesbia talks a lot of shit about me when her husband is around
This brings the greatest pleasure to that fool.
Ass, do you know nothing? She would be sound
If she forgot us in silence—but she rants and she squawks.
She not only remembers me but—a thing sharper to touch,
She’s enraged: it’s like this, she’s burning and talks.”
Lesbia mi praesente viro mala plurima dicit:
haec illi fatuo maxima laetitia est.
mule, nihil sentis? si nostri oblita taceret,
sana esset: nunc quod gannit et obloquitur,
non solum meminit, sed, quae multo acrior est res,
irata est. hoc est, uritur et loquitur.
Diogenes Laertius Vita Phil 1.3 (32)= Greek Anthology 5.79
“I am tossing you an apple. If you willingly love me,
Take it and share with me your virginity.
But if the worst should happen and you retreat.
Take the apple and think: its ripeness is preciously brief.”
Aristokles, BNJ 831 F 3b (=Stobaios, Florides 4.20 b74)
“In the second book of his Wonders, Aristokles has this: A young man named Aristonymos, an Ephesian of a noble family, was Demostratos’ son, but in reality he was Ares’ son.
In the middle of the night, because he hated all women, he went to his father’s herd and had sex with a female donkey. She got pregnant and gave birth to the most beautiful girl, named Onoskelia, a nickname borrowed from the way she was born.”
“When erotic madness grabs a hold of a person truly and sets him on fire, there’s no poetry, no magic spell, nor any change of place that can restore. So people lust when present and long when absent and pursue at day or prowl around outside doors at night. They invite pretty people over when sober and sing about them while drinking. Someone has also said that the poetic fantasies are waking dreams because of their intensity—but this is more true of the notions of lovers who speak with people as if they are present, embrace them, or even rebuke them.”
“The most noble thing is to be just.
The best thing is to live without sickness; the sweetest is when
Someone has the ability to get what he wants each day.”
Aristokles, BNJ 831 F 3b (=Stobaios, Florides 4.20 b74)
“In the second book of his Wonders, Aristokles has this: A young man named Aristonymos, an Ephesian of a noble family, was Demostratos’ son, but in reality he was Ares’ son.
In the middle of the night, because he hated all women, he went to his father’s herd and had sex with a female donkey. She got pregnant and gave birth to the most beautiful girl, named Onoskelia, a nickname borrowed from the way she was born.”
“When erotic madness grabs a hold of a person truly and sets him on fire, there’s no poetry, no magic spell, nor any change of place that can restore. So people lust when present and long when absent and pursue at day or prowl around outside doors at night. They invite pretty people over when sober and sing about them while drinking. Someone has also said that the poetic fantasies are waking dreams because of their intensity—but this is more true of the notions of lovers who speak with people as if they are present, embrace them, or even rebuke them.”
