Two lovely bums

 Two handsome boys with especially lovely bottoms. From Book 12 of the Anthology, of course, so with the usual disclaimers.

12.15
STRATO

Graphicus got a splinter in the bath;
The planking nipped his bum. So what am I,
A living, feeling man, supposed to do,
When lifeless wood is moved to feeling too?

12.37
DIOSCORIDES

Sōsarchus of Amphipolis — that bum:
Murderous Eros played a nasty trick
By moulding it as soft as marrowfat.
He aimed to bother Zeus, because those thighs
Are far more sweet than those of Ganymede.

Smutty and sweet, round two

 Two more from Strato, with the same content warning as before. I'm quite happy with the rhymes. Yes, the first one is about wanking.

12.13
I happened on some lovesick lads one day,
Playing at doctor; they’d a remedy,
And ground it from a natural recipe.
I had them bang to rights; they begged, ‘Don’t say’.
I answered, ‘I’ll keep silent, but my fee
Is that you lay your healing hands on me.’

12.16
Please do not hide our love, Philocrates:
Its guardian spirit needs no further aid
To trample on my heart. But share with me
Some little fraction of a cheerful kiss.
One day you too will beg for favour so,
From boys whose loveliness you seek to know.

One smutty, one sweet

These are both by Strato, and newly translated for the blog. If you are likely to be offended or upset by references to ancient boy-love, I advise you to stop reading now.

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Still here? The first poem used to be read as being about boys' penises at different ages; now it's understood as being about stages of arousal during a sexual encounter. 'Lalou' and 'Coco' are nonsense-words, not found anwhere outside this poem: they could have been in common use among boy-lovers in Strato's time, or he could be making them up. The second poem is sweet.

12.3
Every boy has one, and each finds its place,
Friend Diodorus, in our trifold scheme.
Your second lesson: terminology.
The member yet untouched and in its spring,
You call ‘Lalou’; the one that just began
To puff and swell, is ‘Coco’; and the stage
When it is keen to shudder in the hand,
You call the ‘Lizard’. As for fully-grown —
You know to call it by its proper name.

12.9
You are so fair right now, and fully ripe
For older lovers; even if you wed,
We swear that we shall not abandon you.