Meleager translations

Meleager was a Greek poet who lived circa 140-70 BC. Meleager is most famous today for The Garland, an anthology he compiled from epigrammatic poems of his era and earlier. In his preface Meleager assigned each poet the name of a flower, shrub or herb (hence the term "anthology," which means "flower collection"). In his commentary on The Greek Anthology, editor and translator J. H. Merivale said that as a composer of epigrams Meleager was "very far superior" to the authors he included in The Garland.

If I am Syrian, what of it?
Stranger, we all dwell in one world, not its portals.
The same original Chaos gave birth to all mortals.
—Meleager, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Love, how can I call on you;
does Desire dwell next to the dead?
Cupid, that bold boy, never bowed his head to wail.
—Meleager, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Love, I swear,
your quiver holds only empty air,
for all your winged arrows, set free,
are now fixed in me.
—Meleager, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Love, if you incinerate my soul, touché!
For like you she has wings and can fly away!
—Meleager, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

When I see Theron everything’s revealed.
When he’s gone all’s concealed.
—Meleager, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

When I see Theron everything’s defined;
When he’s gone I’m blind.
—Meleager, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

When I see Theron my eyes bug out;
When he’s gone even sight is in doubt.
—Meleager, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Mother-Earth, to all men dear,
Aesigenes was never a burden to you,
thus rest lightly on him here.
—Meleager, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Meleager dedicates this lamp to you, dear Cypris, as a plaything,
since it has been initiated into the mysteries of your nocturnal ceremonies.
—Meleager, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I know you lied, because these ringlets
still dripping scented essences
betray your wantonness.
These also betray you—
your eyes sagging with the lack of sleep,
stray tendrils of your unchaste hair escaping its garlands,
your limbs uncoordinated by the wine.
Away, trollop, they summon you—
the reveling lyre and the clattering castanets rattled by lewd fingers!
—Meleager, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Moon and Stars,
lighting the way for lovers,
and Night,
and you, my mournful Mandolin, my ***** companion ...
when will we see her, the little wanton one, lying awake and moaning to her lamp?
Or does she embrace some other companion?
Then let me hang conciliatory garlands on her door,
wilted by my tears,
and let me inscribe thereon these words:
"For you, Cypris,
the one to whom you revealed the mysteries of your revels,
Meleager,
offers these spoiled tokens of his love."
—Meleager, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Tears, the last gifts of my love,
I send drenching down to you, Heliodora.
Here on your puddling tomb I pour them out—
soul-wrenching tears
in memory of affliction,
in memory of affection.
Piteously, so piteously Meleager mourns you,
you still so precious, so dear to him in death,
paying vain tributes to Acheron.
Alas! Alas! Where is my beautiful one, my heart's desire?
Death has taken her from me, has robbed me of her,
and the lustrous blossom lies trampled in dust.
But Mother-Earth, nurturer of us all ...
Mother, I beseech you, hold her gently to your *****,
the one we all bewail.
—Meleager, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Cupid, the cuddly baby,
safe in his mother's lap,
chucking the dice one day,
gambled my heart away.
—Meleager, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Cupid/Eros, the god of love, was the son of the love goddess Venus/Aphrodite, so Meleager is humorously complaining, “Like mother, like cherubic son!”

I lie defeated. Set your foot on my neck. Checkmate.
I recognize you by your weight;
Yes, and by the gods, you’re a load to bear.
I am also well aware
of your fiery darts.
But if you seek to ignite human hearts,
******* with your tinders;
mine’s already in cinders.
—Meleager, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Silence!
They must have carried her off!
Who could be so barbaric,
to act with such violence,
to wage war against Love himself?
Quick, prepare the torches!
But wait!
A footfall, Heliodora's!
Get back in my *****, heart!
—Meleager, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Keywords/Tags: Meleager, translation, ancient Greek, epigram, Heliodora, garland, flower, anthology, Cupid, Eros

This is the story of a box
and a girl.
And this box –
and this box
was like no other box – No,
like no other box that owned its existence.
Eons of history lived on its walls – I mean, moved on its walls,
I mean, carvings of history played out on the walls
Waves smashed their own heads onto ocean floor dunes,
The lightning swung fierce on the clouds into squalls,
The engravings – the caves shook with war, the volcanoes,
They spat and they hissed, and the nymphs in their watery mists
Danced with haloes on graves of the fallen.
The lifeblood, it pulsed through the veins of this box,
Through the veins of my palm as I held it, the carvings,
They danced with their raw, starving ardors, their bloods and their stardust
And lifeblood, it seeped, lotus droplets, it leaped onto grooves of my skin
Splashed as sparks on my skin and spilled into my palms,
Till my body was filled with the life of this box, with the thrums of this box, with the force of this box
Till the sweet little voice called my name through this box
Whispered, “Open the lid and release me. This box
Is my prison. I’ve risen through hellfire and sunlight and war-blood,
And isn’t it time for the earth to revere me? I am Hope,
I am weary; I am tired of Death and Despair huddled near me
I yearn for the taste of the earth and the Furies
Release me, my vassal, unchain me, release me.”
This is the story of a box
and a girl,
and a thrum, and a voice, and a palm, and a life -
and a war, and a choice, and a hope, and a price,
and a voice that implored me to open the lid
through the trembling, quivering walls,
and I did.

I think that love is an old wives’ tale,
Whispered low to suckling babes
Beneath the glows of grapefruit firelight.

I think old women sick of pails
And endless spools and groaning crates
Sat by the sinking smoke of twilight

And made it up, like ancient hymn-songs,
To ease the creaking of their hips
And the dusty clink of emptiness.

I think they spun it from their wool-threads,
From the creases of their lips,
From the shadows and their heaviness.

I think their youngest daughters listened,
Then wove this teeth-and-murmur myth
Into the folds of cracking tapestries

I think they painted, whistled, christened
This hallowed folklore into gifts
And all the while grew its majesty.

I think these tales turned to scripture
And the scripture into ballads
And the ballads into diction

And now all these many winters
Since that single haggard crone-wife
First dreamt up this wind-swept fiction,

And that first pink-****** maiden
Spun beside these tales and heard them
And repeated them anew -

And now, we murmur these same fables
To our teething, blushing children
And believe them to be true.

Hymn to Aphrodite
by Sappho (her only complete poem)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Immortal Aphrodite, throned in splendor!
Wile-weaving daughter of Zeus, enchantress, and beguiler!
I implore you, dread mistress, discipline me no longer
with love's anguish!

But come to me once again in kindness,
heeding my prayers as you have done before;
O, come Divine One, descend once again from heaven's
golden dominions!

Your chariot yoked to love's consecrated doves,
their multitudinous pinions aflutter,
you once came gliding from the utmost heights, to
this dark earth.

Swiftly they came and vanished, leaving you,
O my Goddess, smiling, your face eternally beautiful,
asking me what unfathomable longing compelled me
to cry out.

Asking me what I sought in my hopeless, bewildered desire.
Asking, "Who has harmed you, why are you so alarmed,
my poor Sappho? Whom should Persuasion
summon here?"

"Though today she flees love, soon she will pursue you;
spurning love's gifts, she soon shall return them;
tomorrow she will woo you,
however unwillingly!"

Come to me now, most Holy Aphrodite!
Release me from my heavy heartache and anguish;
grant me all I request, be once again
my ally and protector!

"Hymn to Aphrodite" is the only poem by Sappho of ****** to survive in its entirety. The poem survived intact because it was quoted in full by Dionysus, a Roman orator, in his "On Literary Composition," published around 30 B.C. A number of Sappho's poems mention or are addressed to Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love. It is believed that Sappho may have belonged to a cult that worshiped Aphrodite with songs and poetry. If so, "Hymn to Aphrodite" may have been composed for performance within the cult. We do know that Sappho was held in very high regard. For instance, when Sappho visited Syracuse the residents were so honored they erected a statue to commemorate the occasion! During Sappho's lifetime, coins of ****** were minted with her image. Furthermore, Sappho was called "the Tenth Muse" and the other nine were goddesses. Keywords/Tags: Sapphic, Sappho, ******, translation, ancient Greek, hymn, Aphrodite, Zeus, daughter, immortal, goddess, holy, lady, heaven, enchantress, enchantment, love potion, charm, spell, persuasion, beguiler, beguilement, mistress, discipline, *******, prayer, prayers, chariot, heaven, descent, ally, protector, lust, desire, passion, longing, ***, crush, girlfriend, women, grief

The elucubrations of the lute, pulsing from the finger strums of starlight,
Plum-twilight of the Colosseum like an emperor’s bowl of plucked fruit,
As the night’s ghost-gods are tuned to Castel Sant’Angelo, Hadrian’s tomb,
Who drink the dwindling hours from the wine-stemmed glass of musical moon.

But come the times out of tune, the dwindling of stone is the going blind of Rome:
Rome is built upon millions of eyes closed with the underside of their lids tattooed,
By labyrinthine aqueducts, far-aging roads, and traceries of Nero’s Golden Home.
Then death its sight-sun blooms through; death the architect of Seven Hills renews.

Her dark hair falls like the lowered trumpets,
Soundless as the eyelid-close of Accursed Gates,
Past the city’s outer walls and alley-clotted throes,
Some shield-hearted soldier sent to his earthen fold,
Her blood-rimmed sky-lids of night foretell the phantom peace
Of Autumn like a head sinking down with the fell-purpled leaf of war.

***
Love, you once guided the black looms of Autumn,
Olive-skinned druid, you are a dark everything,
And a toss of your hair flings to dust all of Rome.

The arbutus is brave
sheds itself in long, showy
strips, aflame
leaving the fair frailest
skin exposed, willing
knife’s tip of lovers’ claim
standing
even
still
holding earth together, scar tissue
marking life
line, root’s depth
patient power

I remember my infant skin
cut, the drowning, breaking surface
with half a breath remaining, and the hollow
I scratched out and burrowed into
that day, undone

Now, underneath the heat
and itch, the crust
my skin inflamed
the fair frailest part of me
thirsty for that cooling breeze, willing
fellowship with sun and knife
to shed and bump against
a tangled life

How else will roots reach down
and down
to find the source
of ancient power?

The ancient rose
still dips in a still dew
it will not dry.
The seven seas sway
rock on the way!