1 post from July 2009

It must be a right-brained sort of day, one where I think about poetry before sunup. This is an old favorite, found squirreled away in someone's classical poetry anthology, thumbed through and on sale at Green Apple Bookstore on Clement Street. I can't recall what put me in a mind of it, other than the shrugging line of "so what?" when the narrator as good as admits that bitches be crazy, but that's alright by him because it beats the alternative.

It's totally sexist and totally sexy and dammit, I'm going on vacation tomorrow. So it seemed an unusual and lovely way to start the day: with the knowledge that we humans haven't changed our relations very much since Before the Common Era.

--

Elegy 8B
Ovid, 43 BCE-18 CE
translation: Peter Green

--
If I heard a voice from heaven say 'Live without
        loving.'
    I'd beg off. Girls are such exquisite hell.
When desire's slaked, when I'm sick of the whole
        business,
    Some kink in my wretched nature drives me back.
It's like riding a hard-mouthed horse
        that bolts headlong, foam flying
    from his bit and won’t answer the rein -
Or being aboard a ship, on the point of docking, in
        harbour,
    when a sudden squall blows you back to sea:
That’s how the veering winds of desire so often catch
        me –
    Hot Love up to his lethal tricks again.
All right, boy, skewer me, I’ve dropped my defences,
    I’m an easy victim. Why, by now
Your arrows practically know their own way to the
        target
    And feel less at home in their quiver than in me. I’m sorry
for any fool who rates sleep a prime blessing
    and enjoys it from dusk to dawn.
Night In. Night out.  What’s sleep but cold death’s
        reflection?
    Plenty of time for rest when you’re in the grave.
My mistress deceives me – so what? I’d rather be lied to
    Than ignored. I can live on hope. Today
She'll be all endearments, tomorrow throw screaming
        tantrums,
    Envelop me one night, lock me out the next.
War, like love, is a toss-up. If Mars is inconstant, he
        gets that
    From you, his stepson. You're quite
Unpredictable, Cupid, with your lucky-dip favours,
    And more volatile than your own wings.
Maybe you'll hear my appeal though - your delectable
    mother
Might help there - and settle in as king of my heart?
Then admit the flighty sex en masse to your dominions
    and you'd have guaranteed popularity all round.