Mnasidika's breasts - Pierre Louÿs

Carefully, with one hand, she opened her tunic and tendered me her breasts, warm and sweet, just as one offers the goddess a pair of living turtle-doves.

Illustration for Mnasidika's breasts
by Willy Pogany

"Love them well," she said to me, "I love them so! They are little darlings, little children. I busy myself with them when I am alone. I play with them; I pleasure them.

"I flush them with milk. I powder them with flowers. I dry them with my fine-spun hair, soft to their little nipples. I caress them and I shiver. I couch them in soft wool.

"Since I shall never have a child, be their nursling, oh! my love, and since they are so distant from my mouth, kiss them, sweet, for me."

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Pierre Louÿs (1870 - 1925) France
Translated by Alvah C. Bessie
Source: The Songs of Bilitis by Pierre Louÿs translated by Alvah C. Bessie, Macy-Masius, 1926