Lovers by lamplight

Not long ago I posted three translations of poems about lamps, each from a different book of the Anthology. The oil-lamp is an erotic motif first and foremost because every bedroom has one, whether or not there are lovers around to profit from the light it sheds. In one poem (5.190) Meleager wonders whether he will arrive at his girl's place to find her

    ...chasing sleep, | Sobbing her woes, the lamp alone to hear,

-- though he thinks it more likely he will catch her 'with another man again'.

Here are my versions of two such lamp poems, from the Anthology's fifth book, where the erotic epigrams live. Neither of these is in my World's Classics selection.

5.7

ASCLEPIADES

Lamp, you were there when Heraclea swore

That she would come, and still she is not here.

She swore by you; so if you are a god,

Frustrate that lying woman. Every time

She entertains a caller, douse your flame,

And steal the lamplight from their indoor game.

5.128 

MARCUS ARGENTARIUS

Bosom to bosom, breast that leaned on breast,

Lips clasped to lips of sweet Antigone;

Flesh reaching out to flesh. I say no more

Of what our confidant, the oil-lamp, saw.

Three by 'Anacreon'

These poems are part of a substantial sequence in the dedicatory Book 6 of the Anthology (AP 6.134-45) credited to Anacreon, one of the nine poets of the Greek lyric canon. Anacreon was active in the late 6th and early 5th century BC, long before epigram became a literary genre; but since epigram began as inscriptions and these poems are at least notionally inscriptional, who knows. Romantically I would like to entertain the possibility that they are his.

Anacreon's legendarily exuberant persona inspires numerous poems in the Anthology; you can read a draft article by Katherine Gutzwiller about Anacreontic echoes and impersonations in its other books.

My version of 6.135 is quite loose; the rhyming last two lines unpack just three words in the Greek, μνᾶμα ποδῶν ἀρετᾶς. I wanted to capture something of the epic flavour of Anacreon's phrasing here. What might have been more baldly rendered as 'excellence of feet' (ποδῶν ἀρετᾶς) recalls Homer's Iliad (20.411), ποδῶν ἀρετὴν ἀναφαίνων, of a young son of Priam who glories in his fleetness of foot but finds it cannot save him from Achilles' spear. Liddell and Scott explain pous as meaning 'foot' particularly in its aspect as that with which one runs, which I took as an excuse for 'drumming feet'.

6.134

‘ANACREON’

Our Heliconias, she who holds the wand,

Xanthippe with her, Glauce too, come down

From mountain pasture for the choral dance,

Bring Dionysus ivy for his crown,

A bunch of grapes, a tubby billy-goat.

6.135

THE SAME

Phidolas’ horse from Corinth’s open plain

Stands here as offering to Kronos’ son,

A lasting witness to the mighty pace

Of drumming feet with which he won the race.

6.136

THE SAME

This dress was fashioned by Prēxidice,

Designed by Dyseris: two of a kind

Who share a genius for industry.