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Evenings of the cities of Achaea …
Ah, the pleasure of naked bodies above all …
So Nero. And in Spain, Galba
was secretly assembling his army and preparing it:
the old man, seventy-three years old.
[1915; 1918]
Safe Haven
Emes, a young man of twenty-eight, came by a Tenian
ship (meaning to learn the incense trade) to this Syrian
haven. But during the voyage he took sick,
and just after he had disembarked,
he died. His burial, the very cheapest kind,
took place there. A few hours before he died,
he whispered something about “home” and “elderly parents.”
But no one knew who they might have been;
nor what his native land might be, in all the wide Greek world.
Better this way. For this way, while
he lies dead in this safe haven,
his parents will keep hoping he’s still alive.
[1917; 1918]
One of Their Gods
Whenever one of Them would cross Seleucia’s
marketplace, around the time that evening falls—
like some tall and flawlessly beautiful boy,
with the joy of incorruptibility in his eye,
with that dark and fragrant hair of his—
the passersby would stare at him
and one would ask another if he knew him,
and if he were a Syrian Greek, or foreign. But some,
who’d paid him more attention as they watched,
understood, and would make way.
And as he disappeared beneath the arcades,
among the shadows and the evening lights,
making his way to the neighborhood that comes alive
only at night—that life of revels and debauch,
of every known intoxication and lust—
they’d wonder which of Them he really was
and for which of his suspect diversions
he’d come down to walk Seleucia’s streets
from his Venerable, Sacrosanct Abode.
[1899; 1918]
Tomb of Lanes
The Lanes whom you loved is not here, Marcus,
in the tomb where you come to cry, and stay for hours and hours.
The Lanes whom you loved you have much closer to you,
at home, when you shut yourself in and look at his picture:
it preserves some part of what was precious in him,
it preserves some part of what you’d loved.
Remember, Marcus, how you brought the famed
Cyrenian painter back from the proconsul’s palace,
and with what artful cunning he attempted
to persuade you both, no sooner had he seen your friend,
that he simply had to do him as Hyacinth
(which would make his portrait so much better known).
But your Lanes didn’t loan out his beauty like that;
and objecting firmly he told him to represent
neither Hyacinth nor anyone else,
but Lanes, son of Rhametichos, an Alexandrian.
[1916; 1918]
Tomb of Iases
Here I lie: Iases. Throughout this great city I was renowned
for being the most beautiful boy.
Admired by men of deep learning—and also by the less profound,
the common folk. Both gave equal joy
to me. But they took me so often for a Narcissus or a Hermes
that excess wore me out, and killed me. Passerby,
if you’re an Alexandrian you won’t judge me. You know the yearnings
of our life; what heat they hold; what pleasures most high.
[1917; 1917]
In a City of Osrhoene
From the tavern brawl they brought him back to us, wounded—
our friend Rhemon, around midnight yesterday.
Through the windows we’d left open all the way
the moon illumined his beautiful body on the bed.
We’re a hodgepodge here: Syrians, Greeks, Armenians, Medes.
Rhemon too is such a one. But yesterday, as the moon
shone its light upon his sensuous face
we were put in mind of Plato’s Charmides.
[1916; 1917]
Tomb of Ignatius
Here I’m not the Cleon who’s renowned
in Alexandria (where they aren’t easily impressed)
for my fabulous houses, for my gardens,
for my horses and for my chariots,
for the diamonds and the silks I wore.
Far from it: here I’m not that Cleon.
May those twenty-eight years be erased.
I am Ignatius, a Lector, who very late
came to my senses. But still I lived ten blessed months
in the serenity and security of Christ.
[1916; 1917]
In the Month of Hathor
With difficulty I read upon this ancient stone
“O Lo[r]d Jesus Christ.” I can just discern a “So[u]l.”
“In the mon[th] of Hathor” “Leuciu[s] went to his re[s]t.”
Where they record his age “The span of years he li[ve]d”
the Kappa Zeta is proof that he went to his rest a youth.
Amidst the erosion I see “Hi[m] … Alexandrian.”
Then there are three lines radically cut short;
but some words I can make out— like “our t[e]ars,” “the pain,”
