Epigram takes a bath
A collation of epigrams published in Constantinople and dedicated to Theodore the Decurion, son of Cosmas. The proems were delivered after the frequent recitations held at the time.
…
I would begin by setting out for you,
In rivalry with men of olden time,
All that progenitors of modern song
Have written in the way of offerings
As though for former gods; for it seemed wise
Yet to conserve an expert mimicry
Of ancient letters. Part the Second, though,
Collects the antique votive offering:
All that we graved with pens or had inscribed
Out in the world [tini khōrōi], on well-wrought statue’s base
Or on the many far-flung monuments
That witness to the breadth of human art.
As for the third part of this book new-made,
It takes as motive, insofar is right,
Whatever mottoes God permitted us
To write for tombs, in verse, while still intent
On truth unswerving. As for what we wrote
Of all the varied paths of human life
And of the teetering scales of fickle fate,
Look for it by the fourth foundation-stone
Of this my book. In quick succession too
The charms of our Part Five may win you round,
In which we wax satirical and write
In the invective mode. The Queen of Love
Steals the sixth chapter, and may well divert
Our path to discourse out of elegy,
And sweet Desires. Within our seventh hive
Of poets’ honey you will ascertain
Pleasures of Bacchus, dancing choruses
That like their drink unwatered, bowls of wine,
And dinner-parties that bring happiness.
Bibliography
Busch, S. (1999), Versus Balnearum. Die antike Dichtung über Bader und Baden im römischen Reich (Stuttgart and Leipzig).
Cameron, A. (1993), The Greek Anthology from Meleager to Planudes (Oxford).
Coleman, K. (2001), ‘Roman baths and bathing’, Classics Ireland 8:121-32.
Dunbabin, K. M. D. (1989), ‘Baiarum grata voluptas: pleasures and dangers of the baths’, Papers of the British School at Rome 51: 6-46.
Fagan G. G. (1999), Bathing in Public in the Roman World (Ann Arbor).
Ginouvès, R (1962), Balaneutikè. Recherches sur le bain dans l’antiquité grecque (Paris).
Robert, L. (1948), Hellenica, Recueil d'épigraphie, de numismatique et d’antiquités grecques. Vol. IV. Epigrammes du Bas-Empire (Paris).
Smith, S. D. (2019), ‘Art, nature, power: garden epigrams from Nero to Heraclius’, 339-53 in M. Kanellou, I. Petrovic, and C. Carey (eds.), Greek Epigram from the Hellenistic to the Early Byzantine Era (Oxford).
Zellinger, J. (1928), Bad und Bäder in der altchristlichen Kirche (Munich).A balneary anthology, AP 9.606-40 (in progress)
AP 9.606
On a bath
Whom Ares loved before, behold her here:
The Cytherean, who bathes in sparkling springs.
Look as she swims, and do not be afraid:
No maiden, no Athena meets your eye;
You will not be the next Tiresias.
AP 9.607
This was the Graces’ bath; and for their fee
They granted it the glamour of their limbs.
AP 9.608
This water is of quality so fine
It birthed our Aphrodite Cythera;
Or else that Cytheraean entered here,
And bathed, and lent the bath her purity.
AP 9.609
This pool is where the Graces come to play:
Graces alone may enter and disport.
AP 9.609a
This one is where the Graces really bathed:
It has no room for any more than three.
AP 9.610
This is a very small facility
But its appearance is delectable:
It is a rose amid the shrubberies,
A violet in the basketsful of flowers
That destine for the garland-weaver’s stall.
AP 9.611
Within a little bath, great beauty lies,
And sweet Desire belongs to those who bathe
Within a stream that is the slenderest.
AP 9.612
There is a tree: its leaves are very small,
And yet its scent is lovely. Even so
This bath is loved though it is small and low.
AP 9.613
On the Bath of Maria <wife of the Emperor Honorius>
The god of Envy saw Maria’s Bath
And wept at seeing it: ‘I cannot stay;
As with its patron, I must go my way.’
AP 9.614
LEONTIUS SCHOLASTICUS
On a small bath next door to the Zeuxippus
Baths of Zeuxippus, do not seek to blame
That this bath is your neighbour. Just the same
The star called ‘Little Darling’ shines out fair
Beside the mighty body of the Bear.
AP 9.615
On a bath at Smyrna
You premises once murky, tell, what man
Rendered you wealthy in the light of day
That shines upon your bathers? Who was he
That found you caked in sooty smut and grime
And scoured it to expose your radiance?
The mind of Theodorus, wise in this
As in all things: how truly did it show,
Even in this, his heartfelt purity;
Though city father, steward of its means,
He never stained his hands with private gain
From public property. Almighty God,
Immortal Christ, protect this patriot
And ward him safe from all calamity.
AP 9.616
There was a time the Graces bathed herein,
And baby Eros stole their lovely clothes
And ran away and left them naked here,
Ashamed to leave and be a spectacle.
AP 9.617
On a chilly bath
You bath-attendant, who put walls around
This icy river? What deceitful man
Renamed as bathing-house this mountain spring?
‘The lord of winds, Hippotes’ son, and friend
To the immortal gods’ has gathered in
The gales of every quarter, here to dwell.
Why are these wooden boards beneath our feet?
Their purpose is not warmth; instead they bear
A chilling stream of freshly melted snow:
Phrixus and Narce find themselves at home.
Put up a sign, then: ‘Bathe in Mesorus,
For Boreas is gusting here within.’
AP 9.618
On another bath in Byzantium
The Lotus-eaters’ ancient tale is true:
This bath is witness. If a man once wash
Amid its pure, clear waters, he forgets
All pain at loss of country or of kin.
AP 9.619
AGATHIAS SCHOLASTICUS
On another bath in Byzantium
I know now, Cytherea, how you won
When you were in that contest long ago
And rigged the vote of Paris, Priam’s son.
For when you dipped your body here within
You found a way to beat the wife of Zeus
Whose bathroom was the streams of Inachus.
It was the bath that won it; doubtless then
Pallas Athena cried ‘I am undone
By better waters, not the Paphian.’
AP 9.620
PAUL THE SILENTIARY
On a twinned bathhouse, in which both women and men bathe
The hope of love is imminent, but still
One cannot catch the women unaware.
A door so small cannot accommodate
The mighty Paphian. And yet in this
I find some balm: for men of broken heart,
Hope is more honeyed than reality.
AP 9.621
Come all ye members of the fairer sex
Who thirst for sex — which is to say, come all,
And you shall be so fortunate to gain
Beauty more gleaming. She who has a man
Will titillate him; she as yet unwed
Will stir a horde of suitors bearing gifts
To ask her hand; and she who makes her way
By selling favours, find her lovers swarm
Upon her threshold if she bathe herein.
AP 9.622
On another bath
If gripped by sweet desire for wedded wife,
Bathe here, and she will find you handsomer.
But if your itch inclines to easy girls
Who work for money, they will take no fee;
They will pay you, who took your bath herein.
AP 9.623
CYRUS
Cypris and all the Graces bathed herein,
Here too her boy of golden archery.
They left a Grace in payment of their fee.
AP 9.624
LEONTIUS SCHOLASTICUS
On another bath next door to the public baths in Byzantium
Beside the doorway of the public bath
A private citizen erected me
Not for the sake of jealous rivalry
But just to be the best that I could be.
Next door can wash the multitude, while we
Furnish a handful who are dear to me
With cooling streams, and myrrh, and sympathy.
AP 9.625
MACEDONIUS THE CONSUL
On another bath in the Lycian Quarter(?)
Let he who guides my door and notes the time
Of new admissions be of mortal men
Most true and scrupulous, lest any see
One of the Nymphs who plunges in my streams
All naked, or the Cyprian herself
Amid her Graces with their lovely hair,
Even by accident. Who would gainsay
The words of Homer, ‘Dangerous are they,
The gods, to witness in the light of day’?
AP 9.626
MARIANUS SCHOLASTICUS
On another bath, named Eros
Within this basin once upon a time
Did Eros bathe his mother Cyprian,
Warming its pretty its waters from below
With his own torch. The sweat that trickled then
From her ambrosial form to merge within
The seething waters — oh, what springtime air
was in its scent, and thenceforth evermore
These bubbling streams are redolent of rose,
As though still bathed the golden Paphian.
AP 9.627
BY THE SAME
On the same
Right here exhausted underneath the planes
Eros once rested in a tender sleep,
His love-torch set aside for Nymphs to mind,
And they said to each other, ‘Why delay?
If only we extinguish this one flame,
That in the hearts of men will die the same.’
But the plunged torch set the whole stream afire,
And ever since those Nymphs are Eros’ prey
And pour forth heated water to this day.
AP 9.628
JOHN THE GRAMMARIAN
On the public bath named The Horse at Alexandria
The smoothly flowing Horse was jaded down
By years of goading, till our wealthy lord
Roused it to action with a bit of gold.
AP 9.629
BY THE SAME
On another <bath>
Pindar, if only I had been around
To bathe you in my streams, your line would run:
‘Water is best — but really just this one.’
AP 9.630
LEONTIUS SCHOLASTICUS
On the Royal Thermae
They call these baths the Royal, rightly so,
For men of old awarded them that name
In wonder, nor by any mortal hand
Are warmed its shining waters, but its spring
Runs hot all by itself, nor would you need
A cold supply to mix your bath just so:
Exactly as you wish it, does it flow.
AP 9.631
AGATHIAS SCHOLASTICUS
On the Spa of Agamemnon at Smyrna
I am a place Danaans used to love:
When they had come to me, they clean forgot
The healing arts of Podalirius.
With battle done, they tended to their wounds
Amid my streams, and drove the venom out
That foreign spears had planted. For this cause
I was enlarged, was fitted with a roof,
And in exchange for heroes’ high esteem
Took ‘Agamemnon’ as my epithet.
From Byron, Don Juan:
His classic studies made a little puzzle,
Because of filthy loves of gods and goddesses,
Who in the earlier ages raised a bustle,
But never put on pantaloons or bodices;
His reverend tutors had at times a tussle,
And for their Aeneids, Iliads, and Odysseys,
Were forced to make an odd sort of apology,
For Donna Inez dreaded the mythology.
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