Venice masks
Showing posts with label 1st century BC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1st century BC. Show all posts

Tuesday, 21 July 2026

Liber III: Ye Venuses and Cupids mourn, - Catullus

Ye Venuses and Cupids mourn,
Ye whom the graces most adorn.
Come, and your tears of sorrow shed:
My Lesbia's little bird is dead—

Saturday, 14 March 2026

Love song - Bion of Phlossa

The Musses know no fear of the cruel Love; 
rather do their hearts befriend him greatly 
and their footsteps follow him close. 

Friday, 3 October 2025

Liber XXXXV: On Acme and Septumius - Catullus

Cupid sneezing in his flight, 
Once was heard upon the right. 
Boding woe to lovers true;

Wednesday, 12 March 2025

Pan is the Speaker - Diodorus Zonas

Nereids, Nymphs of the shore, you saw Daphnis yesterday, 
when he washed off the dust that lay like down on his skin; 

Tuesday, 1 October 2024

Liber VII: To Lesbia still Beloved - Catullus

Lesbia, you ask how many kisses of yours
would be enough and more to satisfy me.

Thursday, 20 June 2024

The Dwelling-places of Wisdom and of Unrighteousness (from The book of Enoch) - Anonymous

Wisdom found no place where she might dwell;
Then a dwelling-place was assigned her in the heavens.

Sunday, 14 January 2024

The Coming Judgment of the Wicked - Anonymous

The First Parable.

When the congregation of the righteous shall appear,
And sinners shall be judged for their sins,
And shall be driven from the face of the earth:

Thursday, 14 September 2023

Epigram 9.312 - Diodorus Zonas

Refrain, sirrah, from cutting the oak, 
the mother of acorns; 

Thursday, 1 June 2023

War is a Crime (Elegy XI) - Tibullus

Whoe'er first forged the terror-striking sword,
His own fierce heart had tempered like its blade.
What slaughter followed! Ah! what conflict wild!

Tuesday, 21 March 2023

The First Book of the Æneis (lines 19-43) - Vergil

Against the Tiber’s mouth, but far away,
An ancient town was seated on the sea;

Thursday, 13 October 2022

Alas! alas! when in a garden fair - Moschus

Alas! alas! when in a garden fair
  Mallows, crisp dill, or parsley yields to fate,
  These with another year regerminate;

Wednesday, 4 December 2019

The True Life - Tibullus

Let other men gather bright gold to themselves
and own many acres of well-ploughed soil,
let endless worry trouble them, with enemies nearby,
and the peals of the war-trumpets driving away sleep:

Friday, 13 September 2019

Georgics Book I (lines 1-42) - Vergil

What makes crops smile,
beneath what star it befits to turn the soil, Maecenas,
and to train the vines to the elm-trees;
what is the management of cattle,
what the system for keeping a herd,
what skill is required for the thrifty bees,
henceforth I will take upon me to sing.

Wednesday, 29 August 2018

Love's Schooling - Bion of Phlossa

I dreamed and lo! the great Cyprian stood before me.
Her fair hand did lead, with head hanging, the little silly Love,
and she said to me: “Pray you, sweet Shepherd,
take and teach me this child to sing and play,”
and so was gone.

Thursday, 2 August 2018

Ode XXXVII: The Death of Cleopatra - Horace

Drink, comrades, drink; give loose to mirth!
With joyous footstep beat the earth,
  And spread before the War-God’s shrine
  The Salian feast1, the sacrificial wine.

Thursday, 19 July 2018

Prologue, addressed to Tullus - Sextus Propertius

Cynthia was the first. She caught me with her eyes, a fool
who had never before been touched by desires.
I really hung my head in shame
when Love pressed down on it with his feet.
He taught me to hate chaste girls!
He was cruel when he told me to live without plan.
It's already been a whole year that the frenzy hasn't stopped.
Even now, the gods are against me.

Friday, 22 June 2018

Love the runaway - Meleager of Gadara

I make hue and cry after wild Love;
for now, even now in the morning dusk,
he flew away from his bed and was gone.

Monday, 27 November 2017

Ode XIV: To the Roman State - Horace

O ship, new waves will bear you back again to sea.
O what are you doing? Bravely seize the port.

Tuesday, 21 November 2017

Idyl I: The Stray Cupid - Moschus

As Cupid from his mother Venus strayed,
Thus crying him aloud the goddess said,
"If any one a wandering Cupid see,
The little fugitive belongs to me:

Saturday, 5 November 2016

Nothing Exists Per Se Except Atoms and the Void - Lucretius

But, now again to weave the tale begun,
All nature, then, as self-sustained, consists
Of twain of things: of bodies and of void
In which they're set, and where they're moved around.