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Puerilities: Erotic Epigrams of The Greek Anthology
Elegiac lyrics celebrating the love of boys, which the translator terms Puerilities, comprise most of the twelfth book of The Greek Anthology. That book, the so-called Musa Puerilis, is brilliantly translated in this, the first complete verse version in English. It is a delightful eroticopia of short poems by great and lesser-known Greek poets, spanning hundreds of years, from ancient times to the late Christian era. The epigrams--wry, wistful, lighthearted, libidinous, and sometimes bawdy--revel in the beauty and fickle affection of boys and young men and in the fleeting joys of older men in loving them. Some, doubtless bandied about in the lax and refined setting of banquets, are translated as limericks. Also included are a few fine and often funny poems about girls and women. Fashion changes in morality as well as in poetry. The sort of attachment that inspired these verses was considered perfectly normal and respectable for over a thousand years. Some of the very best Greek poets--including Strato of Sardis, Theocritus, and Meleager of Gadara--are to be found in these pages. The more than two hundred fifty poems range from the lovely to the playful to the ribald, but all are, as an epigram should be, polished and elegant. The Greek originals face the translations, enhancing the volume's charm. A friend of Youth, I have no youth in mind, For each has beauties, of a different kind. --Strat? I've had enough to drink; my heart and soul As well as tongue are losing self-control. The lamp flame bifurcates; I multiply The dinner guests by two each time I try. Not only shaken up by the wine-waiter, I ogle too the boy who pours the water. --Strat? Venus, denying Cupid is her son, Finds in Antiochus a better one. This is the boy to be enamored of, Boys, a new love superior to Love. --Meleager
148 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 28, 2021
A discovery from this year’s LGBT History Month - a participant in the National Gallery’s zoom talk mentioned this so I tracked it down, never having heard of it before.
Basically, in the early Roman Empire period, Greek editors started compiling an anthology of short Greek poems. This was added to over a period of time. In the emperor Hadrian’s time an editor named Strato added a batch of lgbt themed poems, and these subsequently managed to survive into the Christian era by being included in a school text book version (I think I got that right?!!!)
The ancient manuscript was found secreted away in a library in the 17th century. The scandalous content meant that the poems tended not to be translated - this Princeton UP translation is I think the 2nd ever translation into English.
Apparently, the Greek poems influenced the early 20th-century Greek poet Cavafy and reading them the influence is very clear.
This was an interesting read for the social context and to experience the direct voices of lgbt people from antiquity. The poems cover all aspects of gay desire and love. They aren’t great literature, but certainly an incredible historic survival.
Basically, in the early Roman Empire period, Greek editors started compiling an anthology of short Greek poems. This was added to over a period of time. In the emperor Hadrian’s time an editor named Strato added a batch of lgbt themed poems, and these subsequently managed to survive into the Christian era by being included in a school text book version (I think I got that right?!!!)
The ancient manuscript was found secreted away in a library in the 17th century. The scandalous content meant that the poems tended not to be translated - this Princeton UP translation is I think the 2nd ever translation into English.
Apparently, the Greek poems influenced the early 20th-century Greek poet Cavafy and reading them the influence is very clear.
This was an interesting read for the social context and to experience the direct voices of lgbt people from antiquity. The poems cover all aspects of gay desire and love. They aren’t great literature, but certainly an incredible historic survival.
May 27, 2021
I was pleased to see this book contains the original Greek text alongside the translation. As I have studied ancient Greek (and am studying modern Greek), I thought it would be interesting to see if I could attempt translations of my own. I soon abandoned the attempt because I am not yet up to the task– I usually got little more than the general sense. It made me realise that the translator took considerable liberties with the text, however, but also that this is not necessarily a bad thing – on the whole, he has done a remarkably good job.
But were these poems worth it? That’s trickier to answer. Strato, the collator of these poems, included far too much of his own rather sub-standard offerings. There’s a lot by one Meleager, which seemed to me to be similarly weak. At their best, the poems can be witty, amusing, faintly shocking, and occasionally sad and moving. At their worst, they can be trivial and smutty. I’m glad I have them, and I’m glad I studied them, but there’s nothing here as witty or as homoerotic as Shakespeare’s sonnets.
One of the really interesting things about ancient Greek homosexuality is its religious element (see, for example, “The Greeks and Greek Love”, by Davidson). Greek men, after rogering their paramours in secluded caves, loved to record the fact with a carefully chiselled piece of pious graffiti. This, perhaps more than anything else about ancient Greek sexual practices, is completely foreign to contemporary understanding. Here, however, there is no hint of piety. This may be to do with the context in which the manuscript was discovered (in a monastery!). Could it be that whoever preserved it felt titillated by the sex but rigorously excluded any overt paganism? Or was Strato just a compiler of ancient Greek Grindr verse and therefore full of hidden shallows? Or was the whole Greek homosexuality thing just so much more complicated than we now realise? I’m buggered if I know.
But were these poems worth it? That’s trickier to answer. Strato, the collator of these poems, included far too much of his own rather sub-standard offerings. There’s a lot by one Meleager, which seemed to me to be similarly weak. At their best, the poems can be witty, amusing, faintly shocking, and occasionally sad and moving. At their worst, they can be trivial and smutty. I’m glad I have them, and I’m glad I studied them, but there’s nothing here as witty or as homoerotic as Shakespeare’s sonnets.
One of the really interesting things about ancient Greek homosexuality is its religious element (see, for example, “The Greeks and Greek Love”, by Davidson). Greek men, after rogering their paramours in secluded caves, loved to record the fact with a carefully chiselled piece of pious graffiti. This, perhaps more than anything else about ancient Greek sexual practices, is completely foreign to contemporary understanding. Here, however, there is no hint of piety. This may be to do with the context in which the manuscript was discovered (in a monastery!). Could it be that whoever preserved it felt titillated by the sex but rigorously excluded any overt paganism? Or was Strato just a compiler of ancient Greek Grindr verse and therefore full of hidden shallows? Or was the whole Greek homosexuality thing just so much more complicated than we now realise? I’m buggered if I know.
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December 11, 2014Sometimes amusing, mostly gross; as everyone knows by now pedophilia and misogyny were some of the mainstays of Greek cultural life.
If any minor foolishly consents
We blame the corrupter of his innocence.
But once a youth has outgrown child’s play, it
Is twice as shameful for him to submit.
ah yes
Dumb brutes only fuck; we clever human
Beings, in this superior at least,
Invented buggery. The slaves of women
Have no more sophistication than a beast.
The translation was fine, though.
If any minor foolishly consents
We blame the corrupter of his innocence.
But once a youth has outgrown child’s play, it
Is twice as shameful for him to submit.
ah yes
Dumb brutes only fuck; we clever human
Beings, in this superior at least,
Invented buggery. The slaves of women
Have no more sophistication than a beast.
The translation was fine, though.
February 5, 2007
Ever really wonder what the ancient Greeks thought about boy love? This collection of poetry is about such a thing. The poems range from pathetic to comic, but they all focus on the singular object of desire, and reveal to some degree the particular nature of men/boy relationships. It strikes me that ancient greek men saw a beauty ideal in boys, and that by chasing after them somehow redeemed their aging selves--as if by loving them, they were avoiding death.
October 13, 2023
Uniquely for me, I liked this translation of Book XII of the Palatine Anthology, rather noted for being almost entirely about Greek homosexual love and thus pederasty, not because it is accurate - indeed it isn't at all - but because of its attempt to carry its bawdy tone and "form" to the modern day by making it rhyming, light-hearted stanzas. As an accurate translation, it fails; at getting the mood and music of "Strato's 12th Book", it works quite well, better than any translation I've ever seen or indeed can imagine.
If you want to read an accurate translation, one is included in Gay and Lesbian Poetry: An Anthology from Sappho to Michelangelo, so check that out instead; if you want something much freer and loser but better as poetry, I would recommend giving this version a read though. The author himself admits to all these inaccuracies right at the beginning and explains that he is not trying to do a wholly accurate translation, and if you read classical Greek, in any case, you can read it yourself, since it is bilingual (I imagine due to the fact that on its own it'd be too small a volume).
There is no academic commentary or anything, it is literally just the poems, it is presented to you here as if it was any poetry collection today.
As for the original poems themselves: they are basically an essential source to understanding the dynamics of pederasty in the ancient world, and are valuable for that alone. As the intro itself says, these poems are bawdy but not quite vulgar, and although they are trifles, much like Catullus, they are also not as much "waste-paper". They are all very short - not one is over a single stanza - and mostly express a single sentiment in a pithy way.
If you want to read an accurate translation, one is included in Gay and Lesbian Poetry: An Anthology from Sappho to Michelangelo, so check that out instead; if you want something much freer and loser but better as poetry, I would recommend giving this version a read though. The author himself admits to all these inaccuracies right at the beginning and explains that he is not trying to do a wholly accurate translation, and if you read classical Greek, in any case, you can read it yourself, since it is bilingual (I imagine due to the fact that on its own it'd be too small a volume).
There is no academic commentary or anything, it is literally just the poems, it is presented to you here as if it was any poetry collection today.
As for the original poems themselves: they are basically an essential source to understanding the dynamics of pederasty in the ancient world, and are valuable for that alone. As the intro itself says, these poems are bawdy but not quite vulgar, and although they are trifles, much like Catullus, they are also not as much "waste-paper". They are all very short - not one is over a single stanza - and mostly express a single sentiment in a pithy way.
March 24, 2017
So what shall I say? I must point out that I read it with mind-set of contemporary europian, so when poem was perving about "hot boy" my mind imagined someoen sixteen years old or so...
And if your mind can do this, well than it's a cool book. But once you realise it's sometimes also 'bout twelve years old (some poems will make you realize that) enjoyment from the book lowers. But well it was different culture we can't compare them with our twelve year olds...
As for quality of poems. Well, sometimes there was clever idea in it but generaly it was just poor poetry and reason I spend most of this review discussing content of poems is that the content of the poems is the only thing that is extraordinary about them. Otherwise it's just same old lyric poetry without the slightiest touch of inovation...
And if your mind can do this, well than it's a cool book. But once you realise it's sometimes also 'bout twelve years old (some poems will make you realize that) enjoyment from the book lowers. But well it was different culture we can't compare them with our twelve year olds...
As for quality of poems. Well, sometimes there was clever idea in it but generaly it was just poor poetry and reason I spend most of this review discussing content of poems is that the content of the poems is the only thing that is extraordinary about them. Otherwise it's just same old lyric poetry without the slightiest touch of inovation...
November 3, 2015
A wonderful collection, Hine's translations are lyrical and beautiful. His translation, however, does not strive for complete fidelity in translation, he often prefers to translate in the spirit of the poem rather than its text in an attempt to appeal to the modern reader. His approach in translation, while on the whole leads to lucid and beautiful verse, does occasionally prove jarring, such as when Hine introduces modern pop culture references to his translation. Thankfully, this edition sports facing Greek text for those of us who are able to read the original Greek, and thus appreciate its original meaning. Despite my few misgivings as to his translation methods (admittedly Hine vigorously makes the case for his approach in the comprehensive and engaging foreword), this edition is much preferable to other, earlier translations (I think specifically to the old Loeb) of book XII of the Greek Anthology.
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April 11, 2022Alcaeus
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews