diff options
Diffstat (limited to '76646-h')
| -rw-r--r-- | 76646-h/76646-h.htm | 3652 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 76646-h/images/colophon.png | bin | 0 -> 4514 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 76646-h/images/cover.jpg | bin | 0 -> 252917 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 76646-h/images/frontispiece.png | bin | 0 -> 7283 bytes |
4 files changed, 3652 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/76646-h/76646-h.htm b/76646-h/76646-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dd1127a --- /dev/null +++ b/76646-h/76646-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3652 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> + <head> +<link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + +<meta charset="utf-8"> +<title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The songs of Bilitis, by Pierre Louÿs. +</title> +<style> + +a:link {background-color:#ffffff;color:blue;text-decoration:none;} + + link {background-color:#ffffff;color:blue;text-decoration:none;} + +a:visited {background-color:#ffffff;color:purple;text-decoration:none;} + +a:hover {background-color:#ffffff;color:#FF0000;text-decoration:underline;} + +.big {font-size: 130%;} + +.bbox{border:3px solid black;padding:.15em; +margin:2em auto;max-width:25em;} + +.bboxx{border:3px solid black;padding:.15em; +} + +.bboxx{border:3px solid black;padding:.15em; +} + +body{margin-left:4%;margin-right:6%;background:#ffffff;color:black;font-family:"Times New Roman", serif;font-size:medium;} + +.blockquot {margin-top:2%;margin-bottom:2%;} +.blockquot p{margin:2em auto;} + +.c {text-align:center;text-indent:0%;} + + h1 {margin:5% auto .5% auto;text-align:center;clear:both; +font-weight:normal;} + + h2 {margin-top:4%;margin-bottom:2%;text-align:center;clear:both; + font-size:100%;font-weight:bold;} + + h3 {margin:4% auto 2% auto;text-align:center;clear:both;} + + hr {width:90%;margin:2em auto 2em auto;clear:both;color:black;} + + hr.full {width: 60%;margin:2% auto 2% auto;border-top:1px solid black; +padding:.1em;border-bottom:1px solid black;border-left:none;border-right:none;} + + img {border:none;} + +.letra {font-size:250%;float:left;margin-top:-1.5%;} + +.nind {text-indent:0%;} + + p {margin-top:.2em;text-align:justify;margin-bottom:.2em;text-indent:4%;} + +.pagenum {font-style:normal;position:absolute; +left:95%;font-size:55%;text-align:right;color:gray; +background-color:#ffffff;font-variant:normal; +font-style:normal;font-weight:normal; +text-decoration:none;text-indent:0em;} + +.r {text-align:right;margin-right: 5%;} + +.rt {text-align:right;vertical-align:bottom;} + +small {font-size: 70%;} + +.smcap {font-variant:small-caps;font-size:100%;} + +table {margin-top:2%;margin-bottom:2%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;border:none;} + +div.poetry {text-align:center;} +div.poem {font-size:100%;margin:auto auto;text-indent:0%; +display: inline-block; text-align: left;} +.poem .stanza {margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom:1em;} +.poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} +.poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 1em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} +.poem span.i3 {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} +.poem span.i10 {display: block; margin-left: 8em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} +.poem span.i13 {display: block; margin-left: 13em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} +.poem span.i15 {display: block; margin-left: 15em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} +.poem span.i16 {display: block; margin-left: 16em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} +.poem span.i9 {display: block; margin-left: 9em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + +.toc {margin:1em auto;max-width:20em; +border:2px solid black;text-indent:0%;text-align:center;} + +</style> + </head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76646 ***</div> +<hr class="full"> + +<div class="c"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="386" height="550" alt=""> +</div> + +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#NOTES_AND_COMMENT"><b>NOTES AND COMMENT</b></a><br> +<a href="#INDEX"><b>INDEX</b></a><br> +</p> + +<p class="c">THE SONGS OF BILITIS</p> + +<div class="poetry"><div class="poem"> +<p class="nind">Of this book, intended for private circulation,<br> + only 975 copies have +been printed, after<br> which the type has been distributed. + +<br><br>      This is Number 229</p> +</div></div> + +<div class="c"> +<img src="images/frontispiece.png" width="200" height="201" +alt=""> +</div> + +<div class="bbox" style="font-weight:bold;"> +<div class="bboxx"> +<div class="bboxx"> +<p class="c"> +PIERRE LOUŸS<br> +<h1> +THE SONGS OF BILITIS<br> +<br></h1> +<p class="c"><span class="big">Translated from the Greek</span><br> +<br> +<i>A New Rendering in English<br> +With Notes and Comment</i><br> +<br> +<img src="images/colophon.png" width="200" +height="136" alt=""> +<br> +<br> +<br> +PRIVATELY PRINTED<br> +MCMXIX<br> +</p> +</div></div></div> + +<div class="poetry"><div class="poem"> +<b>THIS LITTLE BOOK OF ANTIQUE<br> +LOVE IS RESPECTFULLY DEDI-<br> +CATED TO THE YOUNG GIRLS OF<br> THE SOCIETY OF THE FUTURE</b> +</div></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_ix">{ix}</a></span></p> + +<h1><a id="THE_SONGS_OF_BILITIS"></a>THE SONGS OF BILITIS</h1> + +<h2><a id="LIFE_OF_BILITIS"></a>LIFE OF BILITIS</h2> + +<p>Bilitis was born at the beginning of the sixth century before our era in +a mountain village situated on the banks of the Melas, to the east of +Pamphylia. The country is stony and sad, shadowed by profound forests, +dominated by the enormous mass of Tauros; lime springs issue from the +rocks; great salty lakes abide on the heights, and the valleys are +filled with silence.</p> + +<p>She was the daughter of a Greek and of a Phœnician woman. She seems +never to have known her father for he is not mentioned in any part of +the souvenirs of her childhood. Perhaps he died before she came into the +world. Otherwise, it would be hard to explain how she bore a Phœnician +name which her mother alone could have given her.</p> + +<p>In this almost deserted land, she lived a tranquil life with her mother +and her sisters. Other young girls, who were her friends, lived not far +from her. On the woody slopes of Tauros, the shepherds pastured their +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_x">{x}</a></span>flocks.</p> + +<p>In the morning, at the crow of the cock, she arose, went to the stable, +led the animals to drink and busied herself milking them. During the +day, if it rained, she remained in the gynæceum and spun wool from her +distaff. If the weather was fair, she ran in the fields and played a +thousand games, with her companions, of which she speaks.</p> + +<p>Bilitis regarded the Nymphs with ardent piety. The sacrifices which she +offered, nearly every day, were for their fountain. She often speaks of +them but it seems that she never saw them, for she reports with so much +veneration the accounts of an old man who, one day, had surprised them.</p> + +<p>The close of her pastoral existence was saddened by a love of which we +know little, although she speaks of it at length. She ceased to sing of +it when it became unhappy. Having become the mother of a child which she +abandoned, Bilitis quitted Pamphylia for unknown reasons and never +returned to the place of her birth.</p> + +<p>We find her again at Mytilene where she went by way of the sea along the +fair coasts of Asia. She was then scarcely sixteen years old, according +to the conjectures of M. Heim, who established with probability some +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_xi">{xi}</a></span>dates in the life of Bilitis from a verse which alludes to the death of +Pittakos.</p> + +<p>Lesbos was then the centre of the world. On the main road between +beautiful Attica and magnificent Lydia, it had for its capital a city +more elegant than Athens and more corrupt than Sardis: Mytilene, built +upon a peninsula overlooking the shores of Asia. The blue sea +encompassed the city. From the height of the temples one could +distinguish on the horizon the white line of Atarnea which was the port +of Pergamos.</p> + +<p>The narrow streets were always encumbered by a throng resplendent in +many-colored stuffs, tunics of purple and of hyacinth, cyclas of +transparent silks, mantles trailing in the dust of the yellow shoes. The +women carried in their ears great rings of gold set with raw pearls, and +on their arms massive bracelets of silver roughly chiseled in relief. +The men themselves wore their hair brilliantly perfumed with rare oils. +The Greeks wore sandals with the ends fastened to their bare ankles by +large serpents of bright metal, while the Asiatics wore soft, tinted +boots. The passers-by stood in groups before the façades of the shops +where the goods for sale were on display: rugs of sombre colors, cloths +worked<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_xii">{xii}</a></span> with threads of gold, jewels of amber and of ivory, according to +the quarter. The animation of Mytilene did not end with the day; there +was no hour so late that one could not hear, through the open doors, the +joyous sounds of instruments, the cries of women, the noise of dances. +Pittakos himself, who wished to give a little order to this perpetual +debauch, made a law in defense of players of the flute too young to be +employed in the nocturnal festivals; but this law, like all laws that +pretend to change the course of natural morals, determined the secrecy +but not the observance.</p> + +<p>In a society where the husbands were occupied at night with wine and +dancing-girls, the women could not fail to unite and find, among +themselves, consolation for their solitude. Thus it was that they +softened to those delicate loves to which antiquity has given their +name, and which have, whatever men may think, more of true passion than +invoked viciousness.</p> + +<p>At this time, Sappho was still beautiful. Bilitis knew her and speaks of +her under the name of Psappha which she bore at Lesbos. Without doubt +she was the admirable woman who taught the little Pamphilian the art of<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_xiii">{xiii}</a></span> +singing in rhythmic phrases, whereby she preserved to posterity the +remembrance of her loves. Unfortunately, Bilitis has given us few +details of this woman, today so little known, and this is to be +regretted, since the least word is precious which touches that great +Inspiration. Instead, she has left us thirty elegiacs, the history of +her love for a young girl of her own age whom she calls Mnasidika, and +who lived with her. Already we knew the name of this young girl from a +verse of Sappho in which her beauty is exalted; but the name even is +doubtful, and Bergk almost thinks that she was called simply Mnais. The +songs we will read soon, prove that this hypothesis may be abandoned. +Mnasidika seems to have been a little girl, very sweet and very +innocent, one of those charming persons whose mission is simply to +permit themselves to be adored, so cherished that they make little +effort to merit that which is given them. Loves without motives last the +longest: this one endured for ten years. One knows how it was broken +through the fault of Bilitis whose excessive jealousy admitted no +eclecticism.</p> + +<p>When she felt that nothing held her longer to Mytilene, except unhappy +memories, Bilitis made a second voyage; she went to Cypros,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_xiv">{xiv}</a></span> an island +Greek and Phœnician like Pamphylia itself, which must have recalled to +her the aspect of her native country.</p> + +<p>It was there that Bilitis began her life for the third time and in a +manner my readers will understand with difficulty unless they recall the +point to which love was considered holy among the people of antiquity. +The courtesans of Amathus were not, like ours, lost creatures, exiled +from all worldly society; they were girls from the best families of the +city. Aphrodite had given them beauty and they thanked the goddess and +consecreated to the service of her worship the beauty they had received. +All the cities, like those of Cypros, that possessed a temple rich in +courtesans, regarded these women with careful respect.</p> + +<p>The incomparable history of Phryne, as transmitted to us from the +Athenæum, gives some idea of the nature of this veneration. It is not +true that Hyperides stripped her naked to soften the Areopagos, and +because her crime was great: she had committed murder. The orator tore +off the top of her tunic and revealed only her breasts. And he +supplicated the judges: “Do not put to death the priestess and the +inspired of Aphrodite.”—In distinction from the other courtesans who +went<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_xv">{xv}</a></span> out in transparent cyclas through which all the details of their +bodies appeared, Phryne wore a costume which enveloped even her hair in +a great folded vestment of which the statuettes of Tanagra have +preserved the grace. No one, unless it were her lovers, had ever seen +her arms and her shoulders, and she never appeared in the pool of the +public baths. But one day an extraordinary thing occurred. It was the +day of the festival of Eleusis; twenty thousand people had come from all +parts of Greece and were assembled on the sea-shore when Phryne advanced +to the waves: she removed her garment, she unfastened her cincture, she +removed even her under tunic, “she unrolled her hair and entered the +sea.” And in that throng stood Praxiteles who, after this living +goddess, designed the Aphrodite of Knidos; and Apelles who, from her, +revealed his Anadyomene. Admirable people, to whom naked Beauty could +appear without exciting laughter or false shame!</p> + +<p>I would that this history were that of Bilitis, for, in translating her +songs, I have learned to love the friend of Mnasidika. Without doubt her +life was also wonderful. I regret only that she is not spoken of oftener +by ancient authors, and that those whose works<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_xvi">{xvi}</a></span> have survived, give us +so few tokens of her person. Philodemos, who pillaged her twice, does +not even mention her name. In default of better anecdotes, I beg that +you will be contented with the details which she herself has given us +about her life as a courtesan. That she was a courtesan is undeniable; +and even her last songs prove that, if she had the virtues of her +vocation, she had also its worst weaknesses. But I would know only her +virtues. She was pious and skillful. She remained faithful to the temple +so long as Aphrodite consented to prolong the youth of her purest +adorer. “The day when she ceased to be loved, she ceased to write,” she +has said. Nevertheless it is difficult to admit that the songs of +Pamphylia could have been written at the epoch when the events took +place. How could a little shepherdess of the mountains learn to scan +verses according to the difficult rhythms of the Æolic delivery? It is +more reasonable to believe that, become old, Bilitis found pleasure in +singing for herself the remembrances of her childhood. We know nothing +of this last period of her life. We know not even at what age she died.</p> + +<p>Her tomb was found by M. C. Heim at Paleo-Limisso, at the side of an +antique road,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_xvii">{xvii}</a></span> not far from the ruins of Amathus. These ruins have +almost disappeared within the last thirty years and the stones of the +house where perhaps Bilitis lived, today pave the quays of Port Said. +But the tomb was subterranean, according to the Phœnician custom, and it +had escaped even the treasure hunters.</p> + +<p>M. Heim entered it by a narrow pit, once filled with earth, at the +bottom of which he found a walled-up door which had to be demolished. +The wide, low tomb, paved with slabs of limestone, had four walls +covered with plaques of black amphibolite, on which were graven, in +primitive capitals, all the songs we are about to read, except the three +epitaphs which decorated the sarcophagus.</p> + +<p>There reposed the friend of Mnasidika in a great coffin of terra-cotta, +under a cover modeled in delicate sculpture which figured in the clay +the visage of the dead. The hair was painted black, the eyes half closed +and prolonged by the crayon as though she were living and the painted +cheek softened by a slight smile which brought out the lines of the +mouth. Nothing can ever tell of those lips, so clean-cut, with a soft +outward curve, united one to the other and as though intoxicated by +their own contact.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_xviii">{xviii}</a></span></p> + +<p>When the tomb was opened, she appeared in the state in which a pious +hand had placed her, twenty-four centuries before. Vials of perfume hung +from pegs of clay, and one of these, after so long a time, was still +fragrant. The mirror of polished silver in which Bilitis had viewed +herself, the stylus which had trailed the blue pigment over her eyelids, +were found in their place. A little naked Astarte, relic forever +precious, watched always over the skeleton ornamented with all its +jewels of gold, and white like a snow-covered branch, but so soft and so +fragile that at the first breath it mingled with the dust.</p> + +<p class="rt"> +<span class="smcap">Pierre Louÿs.</span><br> +</p> + +<p>Constantinople. August 1894.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_1">{1}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="I"></a>I<br><br> +BUCOLICS IN PAMPHYLIA</h2> + +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Ἀδύ δέ μοι τό μέλισμα, καὶ ἤν σύριγγι μελίσδω κἤν αύλῷ<br></span> +<span class="i2">λαλέω, κἤν δώνκκι, κἤν πλαγιαύλῳ.<br></span> +<span class="i15"><span class="smcap">Theocritos.</span><br></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Sweet, too, is my music, whether I make<br></span> +<span class="i0">melody on pipe, or discourse on the flute, or reed,<br></span> +<span class="i0">or flageolet.”<br></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">(XX—28-29. Lang.)<br></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_2">{2}</a></span>  </p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_3">{3}</a></span>  </p> + +<h2><a id="THE_TREE"></a>THE TREE</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">S</span>TRIPPED of my clothes, I climbed into a tree; my bare thighs +embraced the smooth, moist bark; my sandals trod upon the branches.</p> + +<p>At the top, yet under the leaves and shadowed from the heat, I sat +astride a projecting branch and balanced my feet in the void.</p> + +<p>It rained. The water drops fell and slipped over my skin. My hands +were stained with moss and my toes were reddened from crushed +flowers.</p> + +<p>When the wind passed through the branches I felt the fair life of +the tree; then I pressed my legs yet closer and laid my open lips +upon the hairy nape of a bough.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_4">{4}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="II"></a>II<br><br> +PASTORAL SONG</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">L</span>ET us sing a pastoral song; call upon Pan, god of the wind of +summer. Selenis and I each watch our flocks, from the round shadow +of an olive tree which trembles.</p> + +<p>Selenis lies upon the meadow. She raises herself and runs, searches +for grasshoppers, gathers the flowers and herbs or bathes her face +in the cool waters of the brook.</p> + +<p>And I—I draw up the wool from the white backs of the sheep to +garnish my distaff, and I spin. The hours move slowly. In the sky, +an eagle passes.</p> + +<p>The shadow turns; let us move the basket of flowers and the jar of +milk. Let us sing a pastoral song, call upon Pan, god of the wind +of summer.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_5">{5}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="III"></a>III<br><br> +MATERNAL ADVICE</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">M</span>Y mother bathes me in the darkness, she dresses me in the bright +sunlight and arranges my hair in the light of lamps; but if we walk +out in the moonlight she draws my girdle into a double knot.</p> + +<p>She says to me: “Play with virgins, dance with little children; +look not out of the window, shun the words of young men and turn +from the counsel of widows.</p> + +<p>“One evening, someone will take thee, as others are taken, over the +threshold, amidst a great assemblage with sonorous drums and +amorous flutes.</p> + +<p>“That evening, when thou goest away, Bilito, thou wilt leave me +three gourds of gall, one for the morning, one for midday and the +third, the bitterest, the third for the days of festival.”</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_6">{6}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="IV"></a>IV<br><br> +THE NAKED FEET</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span> HAVE black hair all the length of my back and a small round cap. +My shirt is of white wool. My legs are fast browned by the sun.</p> + +<p>If I lived in the city, I would wear jewels of gold and garments +broidered with gold and shoes of silver.... I regard my naked feet +in their slippers of dust.</p> + +<p>Psophis! come here, little beggar! carry me to the spring, bathe my +feet in thy hands and press olives and violets to perfume them like +the flowers.</p> + +<p>Today thou shalt be my slave, thou shalt follow me and serve me +and, at the end of the day, I will give thee, for thy mother, +lentils from my garden.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_7">{7}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="V"></a>V<br><br> +THE OLD MAN AND THE NYMPHS</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span> BLIND old man lives upon the mountain. For looking upon the +nymphs, his eyes have been dead for a long time. And, since, his +happiness is a distant memory.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I have seen them,” he said to me; “Helopsychria, Limnanthis; +they were standing near the bank of the green pool of Physos. The +water sparkled higher than their knees.</p> + +<p>“Their necks inclined beneath their long hair. Their nails were +thin as the wings of grasshoppers. Their nipples were hollowed like +the cups of hyacinths.</p> + +<p>“They trailed their fingers upon the water and drew up, from an +invisible vase, the long-stemmed water-lilies. Around their parted +thighs, the ripples slowly widened.”</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_8">{8}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="VI"></a>VI<br><br> +SONG</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">“T</span>ORI-TORTUE, what doest thou amongst us?—I wind the wool and the +thread of Milet.—Alas! Alas! Why dost thou not dance?—I am very +sorrowful. I am very sorrowful.</p> + +<p>“Tori-tortue, what doest thou amongst us?—I cut a reed for a +funereal flute.—Alas! Alas! What has befallen him!—I will not +tell. I will not tell.</p> + +<p>“Tori-tortue, what doest thou amongst us?—I press the olives for +oil for the stèle.—Alas! Alas! And who, then, is dead?—Canst thou +ask? Canst thou ask?</p> + +<p>“Tori-tortue, what doest thou amongst us?—He has fallen into the +sea....—Alas! Alas! And how is that?—From the backs of white +horses. From the backs of white horses.”</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_9">{9}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="VII"></a>VII<br><br> +THE PASSER-BY</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span>S I was seated in the evening before the door of the house, a +young man passed by. He looked at me, I turned away my head. He +spoke to me but I did not answer.</p> + +<p>He wished to approach me. I took a sickle from the wall and I would +have cut open his cheek if he had advanced another step.</p> + +<p>Then, drawing back a little, he began to smile and breathed in his +hand toward me, saying: “Receive the kiss.” And I cried! And I +wept! So much so that my mother hastened to me.</p> + +<p>Alarmed, believing that I had been stung as though by a scorpion, I +wept: “He embraced me.” My mother also embraced me and carried me +away in her arms.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_10">{10}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="VIII"></a>VIII<br><br> +THE AWAKENING</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span>T is already light I should rise. But the drowsiness of morning is +sweet and the warmth of my bed enfolds me closer. I long to remain +lying so.</p> + +<p>Soon I will go to the stable. I will give the goats grass and +flowers and a flask of fresh water drawn from the well where I will +drink with them.</p> + +<p>Then I will fasten them to the post and milk their soft, warm +udders; and if the kids are not jealous, I will suck with them from +the supple teats.</p> + +<p>Amaltheia, has she not fed Dzeus? Therefore I will go. But not yet. +The sun has risen too soon and my mother is not yet awake.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_11">{11}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="IX"></a>IX<br><br> +THE RAIN</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE fine rain has fallen over all things, gently and in silence. It +still rains a little. I will go out among the trees. My feet shall +be naked, so that I will not soil my shoes.</p> + +<p>The rain of springtime is delicious. The branches, laden with moist +flowers, have a perfume which bewilders me. One sees the sparkle of +the sun on the delicate bark.</p> + +<p>Alas! how many flowers upon the ground! How pitiful, these flowers +which have fallen. They should not be gathered and mixed with the +mud but saved for the bees.</p> + +<p>The beetles and the snails traverse the path between the puddles of +water; I would not tread upon them nor frighten the golden lizard +which stretches out, blinking his eyelids.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_12">{12}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="X"></a>X<br><br> +THE FLOWERS</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">N</span>YMPHS of the woods and fountains, sweetest of friends, I am here. +Hide not, but come to my aid for I am burdened with many flowers.</p> + +<p>I would choose, from all the forest, a poor hamadryad with raised +arms and in her hair, the color of the leaves, I will place my +heaviest rose.</p> + +<p>See: I have taken so many from the fields that I cannot carry them +away unless you help me make a garland. If you refuse, beware:</p> + +<p>She of you with the orange hair, I saw her yesterday embraced like +a beast by the satyr Lamprosathes and I will denounce the shameless +one.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_13">{13}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XI"></a>XI<br><br> +IMPATIENCE</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span> THREW myself into her arms and wept and for a long time she felt +my hot tears slip over her shoulders; then, when my sorrow let me +speak:</p> + +<p>“Alas, I am only a child; the young men never look at me. When will +I have, like thee, a young woman’s breasts to raise my robe and +entice kisses?</p> + +<p>“There are no curious eyes if my tunic slips; no one gathers up the +flower that falls from my hair, nor does anyone threaten to kill me +if my mouth is given to another.”</p> + +<p>She replied to me tenderly: “Bilitis, little virgin, thou criest +like a cat at the moon and thou art troubled without reason. The +girls who are most impatient are not the soonest chosen.”</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_14">{14}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XII"></a>XII<br><br> +COMPARISONS</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Bergeronnet, bird of Kypris, sing with our first desires! The fresh +bodies of young girls bloom with flowers like the earth. The night +of all our dreams approaches and we talk of it among ourselves.</p> + +<p>Sometimes we compare, all together, the differences in our +beauties, our hair already long, our young breasts still small, our +puberties round like shells and hidden under the nascent down.</p> + +<p>Yesterday I competed with Melantho, my elder sister. She was proud +of her breasts which had grown in a month, and pointing to my +straight tunic, she called me “Little Child.”</p> + +<p>No man could see us, we placed ourselves naked before the girls, +and if she vanquished me on one point, I far surpassed her on all +others. Bergeronnet, bird of Kypris, sing with our first desires!</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_15">{15}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XIII"></a>XIII<br><br> +THE FOREST RIVER</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span> BATHED myself, alone, in the forest river. I am sure I frightened +the naiads for I divined them moving anxiously far within the dark +water.</p> + +<p>I called them. To resemble them better, I plaited upon my neck +irises black as my hair and branches of yellow gilliflowers.</p> + +<p>Of a long floating grass I made myself a green girdle and, to see +it, I pressed up my breasts and inclined my head a little.</p> + +<p>And I called: “Naiads! naiads! play with me, be kind.” But the +naiads are transparent, and perhaps, without knowing, I have +caressed their delicate arms.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_16">{16}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XIV"></a>XIV<br><br> +COME, MELISSA</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">W</span>HEN the sun burns less fiercely, we will go and play upon the +river banks, we will struggle for a frail crocus or for a damp +hyacinth.</p> + +<p>We will make them into round collars and garlands, prizes for our +running. We will take each other by the hand and by the ends of our +tunics.</p> + +<p>Come, Melissa! give us honey. Come, Naiads! we will bathe with you. +Come, Melissa! throw a shadow gently over our perspiring bodies.</p> + +<p>And we will offer you, kind nymphs, not shameful wine, but oil and +milk and goats with twisted horns.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_17">{17}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XV"></a>XV<br><br> +THE SYMBOLIC RING</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE voyagers who return from Sardis tell us that the women of Lydia +are covered with collars and stones from the top of their hair to +their tinted feet.</p> + +<p>The girls of my country have neither bracelets nor diadems, but one +of their fingers carries a silver ring and upon the bezel is graven +the triangle of the goddess.</p> + +<p>When they turn the point outward, they would say: “Psyche is to be +taken.” When they turn the point inward, they would say: “Psyche is +taken.”</p> + +<p>The men believe this, the women do not. As for me, I little regard +which way the point is turned, for Psyche offers herself freely. +Psyche is always to be taken.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_18">{18}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XVI"></a>XVI<br><br> +DANCES BY MOONLIGHT</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">O</span>N the soft grass, in the night, the young girls with hair of +violets have all danced together, one of each two playing the part +of lover.</p> + +<p>The virgins said: “We are not for you.” And, as though they were +bashful, concealed their virginity. Among the trees, an ægipan +played upon the flute.</p> + +<p>The others said: “We have come to seek you.” They arranged their +robes like the tunics of men and they struggled gently while +entwining their dancing legs.</p> + +<p>Then, each pretending to be vanquished, took her friend by the +ears, like a cup with two handles, and, inclining the head, drank a +kiss.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_19">{19}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XVII"></a>XVII<br><br> +THE LITTLE CHILDREN</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE river is almost dry; the brittle reeds are dying in the mud; +the air burns and, far beyond the hollow banks, a clear brook flows +upon the gravel.</p> + +<p>It is there that, from morning to evening, the little naked +children come to play. They bathe themselves only as high as their +calves for the river is low.</p> + +<p>But they walk in the current, sometimes slipping on the rocks, and +the little boys throw water on the little girls, who laugh.</p> + +<p>And when a troop of passing merchants lead their great white oxen +to drink, they clasp their hands behind them and watch the enormous +beasts.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_20">{20}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XVIII"></a>XVIII<br><br> +THE STORIES</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span> AM loved by the little children; when they see me they run to me +and cling to my tunic or clasp my legs in their little arms.</p> + +<p>If they have gathered flowers, they give them all to me; if they +have caught a beetle, they put it in my hand; if they have nothing, +they caress me and make me sit before them.</p> + +<p>Then they kiss me on the cheek, they rest their heads upon my +breasts; they supplicate me with their eyes. I know well what they +would say.</p> + +<p>They would say: “Dear Bilitis, tell us, for we are quiet, the +history of the hero Perseus or the death of the little Hellé.”</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_21">{21}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XIX"></a>XIX<br><br> +THE MARRIED FRIEND</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">O</span>UR mothers were pregnant at the same time and, this evening, she +is married, Melissa, my dearest friend. The roses still lie upon +the path; the torches have not yet burned out.</p> + +<p>And I return, by the same path, with mother, and I dream. Thus, as +she is now, I also will be later. Am I already a woman?</p> + +<p>The cortège, the flutes, the nuptial song and the flowered car of +the bridegroom, all the festival, some other evening, will unfold +for me under the branches of the olives.</p> + +<p>Like Melissa at this same hour, I shall unveil myself before a man, +I shall know love in the night, and, later, little children will +nourish themselves at my swollen breasts....</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_22">{22}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XX"></a>XX<br><br> +CONFIDENCES</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE next day I went to her house and we reddened when we saw each +other. She led me into her chamber where we would be alone.</p> + +<p>I had many things to say to her, but when I saw her I forgot them +all. I did not even throw myself upon her neck, I regarded her high +girdle.</p> + +<p>I was astonished that nothing in her face had changed, that she +still resembled my friend although, since the sleepless night, she +had learned so many things startling to me.</p> + +<p>Suddenly I seated myself upon her knees, took her in my arms, and +whispered quickly, anxiously, into her ear. Then she laid her cheek +against mine and told me all.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_23">{23}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XXI"></a>XXI<br><br> +THE MOON WITH EYES OF BLUE</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE night mingles with the hair of women and the branches of the +willows. I walked at the edge of the water. Suddenly I heard +singing; then only I knew I was there with young girls.</p> + +<p>I said to them: “To whom do you sing?” They replied: “To those who +return.” One awaited her father, another her brother; but she who +awaited her lover was the most impatient.</p> + +<p>They had woven for themselves crowns and garlands cut from the +branches of palms and lotos drawn from the water. They rested their +arms on each other’s necks and sang one after another.</p> + +<p>I moved along the river, saddened and all alone, but in looking +about me I saw that, behind the great trees, the moon with eyes of +blue was guiding me.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_24">{24}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XXII"></a>XXII<br><br> +SONG</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">“S</span>HADOW of the woods, whence she should come, tell me, where has my +mistress gone?—She has descended upon the plain.—Plain, where has +my mistress gone?—She has followed the banks of the river.”</p> + +<p>“Fair river who hast seen her pass, tell me, is she near this +place?—She has left me for the path.—Path, dost thou see her +still?—She has left me for the road.”</p> + +<p>“O white road, road of the city, tell me, where hast thou led +her?—To the street of gold which enters into Sardis.—O street of +light, touchest thou her naked feet?—She has entered the palace of +the king.”</p> + +<p>“O palace, splendor of the earth, return her to me.—See! She has +collars on her breasts and circlets in her hair, an hundred pearls +along her legs, two arms around her waist.”</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_25">{25}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XXIII"></a>XXIII<br><br> +LYKAS</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">C</span>OME, we will go into the fields, under the thickets of juniper; we +will eat honey from the hives, we will make snares for grasshoppers +with the twigs of asphodels.</p> + +<p>Come, we will go to see Lykas who tends his father’s flocks upon +the slopes of shadowy Tauros. Surely he will give us milk.</p> + +<p>Already I hear the sound of his flute. He plays most skilfully. +Here are the dogs and the sheep and he himself standing against a +tree. Is he not fair as Adonis!</p> + +<p>O Lykas! give us milk. Here are figs from our fig trees. We would +rest with thee. Bearded goats, do not leap, for fear of exciting +the restless bucks.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_26">{26}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XXIV"></a>XXIV<br><br> +THE OFFERING TO THE GODDESS</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span>T is not for Artemis whom they adore at Perga, this garland woven +with my hands, although Artemis may be a good goddess who would +guard my couches of pain.</p> + +<p>It is not for Athena whom they adore at Sidon although she may be +of ivory and of gold and carry in her hand a pomegranate which +tempts the birds.</p> + +<p>No, it is for Aphrodite whom I adore in my heart, for she only can +give what my lips most need, if I hang on her sacred tree my +garland of tender roses.</p> + +<p>But I will not ask aloud that which I beg of her. I will raise +myself upon my toes and confide my secret to a cleft in the bark.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_27">{27}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XXV"></a>XXV<br><br> +THE COMPLAISANT FRIEND</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE storm continued all the night. Selenis of the beautiful hair +had come to spin with me. She remained for fear of the mud, and, +pressed one against the other, we filled my little bed.</p> + +<p>When girls lie together, sleep remains at the door. “Bilitis, tell +me, tell me, whom lovest thou?” She slipped her leg over mine to +caress me softly.</p> + +<p>And she said, against my mouth: “I know, Bilitis, whom thou lovest. +Close thine eyes, I am Lykas.” I replied, touching her: “Do I not +know thou art a girl? Thy jest fits badly.”</p> + +<p>But she replied: “In truth I am Lykas if thou wilt close thine +eyes. These are his arms, these are his hands....” And tenderly, in +the silence, she enchanted my reverie into a singular illusion.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_28">{28}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XXVI"></a>XXVI<br><br> +A PRAYER TO PERSEPHONE</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">P</span>URIFIED by the ritual ablutions, and clad in violet tunics, we +have kissed toward the earth our hands laden with branches of +olive.</p> + +<p>“O Persephone of the Underworld, or whatever may be the name thou +desirest, if this name is acceptable, hear us, O Shadowy-Haired, +Queen sterile and unsmiling.</p> + +<p>“Kokhlis, daughter of Thrasymakos, is ill, and dangerously. Do not +call her yet. Thou knowest she cannot escape thee; one day, very +late, thou shalt take her.</p> + +<p>“But drag her not away so soon, O Dominatress invisible! For she +weeps because of her virginity, she supplicates through our +prayers, and we will give, for her deliverance, three black unshorn +ewes.”</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_29">{29}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XXVII"></a>XXVII<br><br> +THE GAME OF DICE</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span>S we both loved him, we played with the dice. It was a great +moment. Many of the young girls looked on.</p> + +<p>She threw at first the cast of Kyklopes and I the cast of Solon. +But she the Kallibolos and I, feeling that I lost, I prayed to the +goddess.</p> + +<p>I played, I had the Epiphenon, she the terrible cast of Kios, I the +Antiteukos, she the Trikias, and I the cast of Aphrodite which won +the disputed lover.</p> + +<p>But, seeing her pale, I threw my arm about her neck and said, close +to her ear (so that she alone heard me): “Do not weep, little +friend, we will let him choose between us.”</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_30">{30}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XXVIII"></a>XXVIII<br><br> +THE DISTAFF</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span>LL the day, my mother has kept me in the gynæceum with my sisters +whom I do not love and who talk among themselves in low voices. I, +in a little corner, I spin my distaff.</p> + +<p>Distaff, because I am alone with thee, it is to thee I will talk. +With thy wig of white wool thou art like an old woman. Listen to +me.</p> + +<p>If I could go, I would not be here, seated in the shadow of the +wall and spinning wearily. I would be sleeping with the violets +upon the slopes of Tauros.</p> + +<p>Because he is so much poorer than I, my mother will not espouse me. +However, I say to thee: either I will have no wedding day or it is +he who will lead me over the threshold.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_31">{31}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XXIX"></a>XXIX<br><br> +THE FLUTE</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">F</span>OR the day of Hyacinthus he gave me a syrinx made of carefully cut +reeds united with white wax which was sweet as honey to my lips.</p> + +<p>He taught me to play, seated upon his knees; but I trembled a +little. He played after me; so softly that I could scarcely hear +him.</p> + +<p>We had nothing to say to each other, so near we were, one to the +other; but our songs replied to each other and, by turns, our lips +touched the flute.</p> + +<p>It has grown late, there is the song of the green frogs who begin +with the night. My mother will never believe that I have stayed so +long searching for my lost girdle.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_32">{32}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XXX"></a>XXX<br><br> +THE HAIR</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">H</span>E said to me: “Last night I dreamed. I had thy hair about my neck. +I had thy locks like a black collar about my neck and over my +breast.</p> + +<p>“I caressed them; and they were mine; and we were bound thus +forever, by the same locks, mouth upon mouth, like two laurels with +but one root.</p> + +<p>“And, little by little, it seemed to me that our limbs were +mingled; that I became thyself and that thou didst enter into me +like my dream.”</p> + +<p>When he had finished he softly laid his hands upon my shoulders and +looked at me with so tender a regard that I lowered my eyes, +shivering.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_33">{33}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XXXI"></a>XXXI<br><br> +THE CUP</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">L</span>YKAS saw me come to him clad only in a light scarf, for the days +had become overwhelming; he wished to mould my breast which +remained uncovered.</p> + +<p>He took fine clay, kneaded in the fresh, clear water. When he laid +it upon my skin I thought I should faint, for the earth was very +cold.</p> + +<p>From my moulded breast, he made a cup, round and umbilicated. He +placed it in the sun to dry and tinted it with purple and ochre by +pressing flowers all around it.</p> + +<p>Then we went to the fountain which is consecrated to the nymphs and +threw the cup into the current with stalks of gillyflowers.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_34">{34}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XXXII"></a>XXXII<br><br> +ROSES IN THE NIGHT</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">W</span>HEN the night mounts into the sky, the world belongs to us and to +the gods. We go over the fields to the spring, the dark wood to the +glades, wherever our naked feet lead us.</p> + +<p>The little stars shine enough for such little shadows as we are. +Sometimes, beneath the branches, we find sleeping hinds.</p> + +<p>But more charming than all else, in the night, is a place known +only to ourselves which attracts us across the forest: a thicket of +mysterious roses.</p> + +<p>For nothing in the world is so divine as the perfume of roses in +the night. How is it that, in the time when I was alone, I never +felt their intoxication?</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_35">{35}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XXXIII"></a>XXXIII<br><br> +REMORSE</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span>T first I did not reply; shame flushed upon my cheeks, and the +beatings of my heart hurt my breasts.</p> + +<p>Then I resisted, I said: “No. No.” I turned away my head and the +kiss did not open my lips, nor love my fast closed knees.</p> + +<p>Then he begged my forgiveness, he kissed my hair, I felt his +burning breath, and he departed.... Now, I am alone.</p> + +<p>I regard the empty place, the deserted wood, the trampled earth. +And I bite my fingers until they bleed and smother my cries in the +grass.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_36">{36}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XXXIV"></a>XXXIV<br><br> +THE INTERRUPTED SLEEP</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span>LL alone I fell asleep like a partridge in the heather.... The +light wind, the murmuring of the waters, the sweetness of the +night, all held me there.</p> + +<p>Imprudently I slept and awakened with a cry, and I struggled, and I +wept. But already it was too late. What can the hands of a child +do?</p> + +<p>He would not leave me. Rather, with greater tenderness, he pressed +me closer to him, and I saw in all the world neither the earth nor +the trees but only the light in his eyes....</p> + +<p>To thee, Cypris victorious, I consecrate these offerings still +moist with the dew, vestiges of the pains of virginity, witnesses +of my sleep and of my resistance.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_37">{37}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XXXV"></a>XXXV<br><br> +THE WASH-WOMEN</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">W</span>ASH-women, say not that you have seen me! I confide in you; do not +repeat it! Between my tunic and my breasts, I bring you something.</p> + +<p>I am like a little frightened hen.... I know not whether I dare +tell you.... My heart beats as though I would die.... It is a veil +that I bring you.</p> + +<p>A veil and the ribbons from my legs. You see: there is blood upon +them. By Apollo, it was in spite of me! I defended myself well; but +the man who loves is stronger than we.</p> + +<p>Wash them well; spare neither the salt nor the chalk. I will place +four oboli for you at the feet of Aphrodite; even a drachma of +silver.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_38">{38}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XXXVI"></a>XXXVI<br><br> +SONG</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">W</span>HEN he returned, I hid my face with my two hands. He said to me: +“Fear nothing. Who has seen our kissing?—Who has seen us? the +night and the moon.”</p> + +<p>“—And the stars and the first dawn. The moon has mirrored herself +in the lake and has told it to the water under the willows. The +water of the lake has told it to the oar.</p> + +<p>“And the oar has told it to the boat and the boat has told it to +the fisher. Alas; alas! if that were all! But the fisher has told +it to a woman.</p> + +<p>“The fisher has told it to a woman: my father and my mother and my +sisters and all Hellas will know it.”</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_39">{39}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XXXVII"></a>XXXVII<br><br> +BILITIS</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">O</span>NE woman may envelop herself in white wool. Another may clothe +herself in silk and gold. Another cover herself with flowers, with +green leaves and grapes.</p> + +<p>Me, I enjoy life only when naked. My lover, take me as I am: +without robes or jewels or sandals. Here is Bilitis, quite alone.</p> + +<p>My hair is black with its own blackness and my lips red of their +own color. My locks float about me, free and round, like feathers.</p> + +<p>Take me as my mother made me in a night of love long past, and if I +please thee so, forget not to tell me.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_40">{40}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XXXVIII"></a>XXXVIII<br><br> +THE LITTLE HOUSE</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE little house where he has his bed is the prettiest in the +world. It is made from the branches of trees, four walls of dried +earth and a roof of thatch.</p> + +<p>I love it, for there we have slept since the nights have grown +cold; and as the nights become still colder, they become longer +also. When the day comes, I am very weary.</p> + +<p>The mattress lies upon the ground; two covers of black wool shut in +our bodies which warm each other. His chest presses against my +breasts. My heart throbs....</p> + +<p>He clasps me so vigorously that he bruises me, poor little girl +that I am; but when he is within me I know nothing more of the +world, and one could cut off my limbs without awakening me from my +delight.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_41">{41}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XXXIX"></a>XXXIX<br><br> +THE LOST LETTER</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span>LAS for me! I have lost his letter. I had placed it between my +skin and my strophion, under the warmth of my breast I ran; it must +have fallen.</p> + +<p>I will return on my steps: if someone has found it they will read +it to my mother and I shall be whipped before my jeering sisters.</p> + +<p>If it is a man who has found it he will give it to me; or even if +he wishes to talk to me in secret, I have the means to charm it +from him.</p> + +<p>If it is a woman who has read it, O Guardian Zeus protect me! for +she will tell it to all the world or she will take my lover from +me.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_42">{42}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XL"></a>XL<br><br> +SONG</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">“T</span>HE night is so profound that it penetrates my eyes.—Thou seest +not the road. Thou wilt lose thyself in the forest.</p> + +<p>“The noise of falling waters fills my ears.—Thou wouldst not hear +the voice of thy lover though he were not twenty steps away.</p> + +<p>“The perfume of the flowers is so powerful that I grow faint and I +shall fall.—Thou wouldst not know even if he crossed thy path.</p> + +<p>“Ah! he is very far from here, on the other side of the mountain; +but I see him and I hear him and I feel him as though he touched +me.”</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_43">{43}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XLI"></a>XLI<br><br> +THE OATH</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">“W</span>HEN the water of the river remounts to the snow-hidden summits: +when barley and wheat is sown in the moving furrows of the sea:</p> + +<p>“When the pines grow from the lakes and the water-lilies from the +rocks: when the sun becomes black, when the moon falls upon the +grass:</p> + +<p>“Then, but only then, I will take another woman and I will forget +thee, Bilitis, soul of my life, heart of my heart.”</p> + +<p>He has said that to me, he has said that to me! What matters the +rest of the world; where art thou, boundless happiness which can +compare with my happiness!</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_44">{44}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XLII"></a>XLII<br><br> +THE NIGHT</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span>T is now I who search for him. Each night, very softly, I leave +the house and I go by a long path, to his meadow, to see him +sleeping.</p> + +<p>Sometimes I rest for a long time without speaking, happy merely in +seeing him, and I approach my lips to his and kiss only his breath.</p> + +<p>Then suddenly I cast myself upon him. He awakens in my arms, and he +cannot raise himself, for I struggle. He gives up, and laughs, and +clasps me. Thus we play in the night.</p> + +<p>... First dawn, O wicked light, thou already! In what ever-darkened +cave, on what subterranean meadow, can we love so long that we may +lose remembrance of thee....</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_45">{45}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XLIII"></a>XLIII<br><br> +CRADLE-SONG</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">S</span>LEEP: I have sent to Sardis for thy toys, and for thy raiment to +Babylon. Sleep, thou art the daughter of Bilitis and a king of the +rising sun.</p> + +<p>The wood is the palace which was built for thee alone and which I +have given to thee. The trunks of the pines are the columns; the +high branches are the arches.</p> + +<p>Sleep. That he may not awaken thee, I will sell the sun to the sea. +The breeze from the wings of a dove is less light than thy breath.</p> + +<p>Daughter of mine, flesh of my flesh, when thou openest thine eyes, +say whether thou wishest the plain or the city or the mountain or +the moon or the white cortège of the gods.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_46">{46}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XLIV"></a>XLIV<br><br> +THE TOMB OF THE NAIADS</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HROUGH the woods covered with hoarfrost, I walked; my hair before +my mouth glistened with little icicles, and my sandals were heavy +with clinging and heaped-up snow.</p> + +<p>He said to me: “What seekest thou?—I follow the tracks of a satyr. +His little cloven steps alternate like holes in a white mantle.” He +said to me: “The satyrs are dead.</p> + +<p>“The satyrs and the nymphs also. For thirty years there has been no +winter so terrible. The track thou seest is that of a buck. But let +us rest here, where their tomb is.”</p> + +<p>And with the iron of his hoe, he broke the ice of the spring where +once laughed the naiads. He lifted the great cold masses and, +raising them toward the pale sky, he gazed about him.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_47">{47}</a></span> + +<h2><a id="ELEGIACS_AT_MYTILENE"></a>ELEGIACS AT MYTILENE</h2> + +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Εὐμορφοτέρα Μνασιδίκα τᾶς ἁπαλᾶς Γυριννῶς.<br></span> +<span class="i16"><span class="smcap">Sappho.</span><br></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Mnasidika is more shapely than the tender Gyrinno.”<br></span> +<span class="i16">(F. 76. Wharton.)<br></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_48">{48}</a></span>  </p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_49">{49}</a></span>  </p> + +<h2><a id="XLV"></a>XLV<br><br> +TO THE VESSEL</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">B</span>EAUTIFUL ship that has brought me here, along the shores of Ionia, +I abandon thee to the glistening waves, and, with a light foot, I +leap upon the beach.</p> + +<p>Thou wilt return to the country where the virgin is the friend of +the nymphs. Forget not to thank those invisible counsellors, and +carry them, as an offering, this branch plucked by my hands.</p> + +<p>Thou wert once a pine, and, on the mountains, the vast hot Notos +shook thy branches with their squirrels and birds.</p> + +<p>Let Boreos be now thy guide and push thee softly toward the port, +black ship, escorted by dolphins, at the will of the kindly sea.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_50">{50}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XLVI"></a>XLVI<br><br> +PSAPPHA</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span> RUB my eyes.... Is it already day, I wonder. Ah! who is this near +me?... a woman?... By Paphia, I had forgotten.... O Charites; how I +am shamed.</p> + +<p>To what country am I come, and what is this island where one learns +thus of love? If I were not all wearied, I would believe it a +dream.... Is it possible that this is the Psappha?</p> + +<p>She sleeps.... She is certainly beautiful, although her hair is cut +like that of an athlete. But this astonishing countenance, this +virile breast, and these narrow hips....</p> + +<p>I would like to go before she awakens. Alas! I am against the wall. +I must step over her. I am afraid lest I touch her hip and that she +will take me as I pass.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_51">{51}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XLVII"></a>XLVII<br><br> +THE DANCE OF GLOTTIS AND KYSE</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>WO little girls carried me away to their house and, with the door +firmly closed, they lighted the wick of a lamp and wished to dance +for me.</p> + +<p>Their cheeks were not painted and were brown as their little +bellies. They pulled each other by the arms and talked at the same +time in an agony of gaiety.</p> + +<p>Seated on a mattress raised upon two trestles, Glottis sang in a +sharp voice and struck the measures with her sonorous little palms.</p> + +<p>Kyse danced shakily, then stopped, suffocated with laughter, took +her sister by the breasts, bit her on the shoulder and threw her +down like a goat that wishes to play.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_52">{52}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XLVIII"></a>XLVIII<br><br> +COUNSELS</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HEN Syllikmas entered and, seeing us so familiar, seated herself +upon the bench. She took Glottis upon one knee, Kyse on the other, +and said:</p> + +<p>“Come here, little one.” But I remained away. She resumed: “Art +thou afraid of us? Approach, thou: these children love thee. They +will teach thee something thou knowest not: the honey of the +caresses of a woman.</p> + +<p>“Man is violent and lazy. Doubtless thou knowest this. Avoid him. +He has a flat chest, a rough skin, short hair, shaggy arms. But +women are altogether beautiful.</p> + +<p>“Women alone know how to love; stay with us, Bilitis, stay. And if +thou hast an ardent soul, thou wilt see thy beauty, as in a mirror, +upon the bodies of women, thy lovers.”</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_53">{53}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XLIX"></a>XLIX<br><br> +UNCERTAINTY</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span> KNOW not whether I should espouse Glottis or Kyse. As they are +not like each other, one would not console me for the other, and I +fear lest I choose badly.</p> + +<p>They each hold one of my hands and one of my breasts also. But to +which shall I give my mouth? to which shall I give my heart and all +that one cannot divide?</p> + +<p>It is shameful to remain thus, all three in one house. They talk of +it in Mytilene. Yesterday, before the temple of Ares, a woman who +passed did not greet me.</p> + +<p>It is Glottis whom I prefer; but I cannot reject Kyse. What would +become of her, all alone? Shall I leave them as they were, and take +for myself another friend?</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_54">{54}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="L"></a>L<br><br> +THE MEETING</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span> HAVE found her like a treasure, in a field, under a bush of +myrtle, enveloped from throat to feet in a yellow peplos broidered +with blue.</p> + +<p>“I have no friend,” she said; “for the nearest city is forty stadia +from here. I live alone with my mother who is a widow and always +sad. If thou wishest, I will follow thee.</p> + +<p>“I will follow thee to thy house, were it at the other side of the +island, and I will live with thee until thou sendest me away. Thy +hand is soft and thine eyes are blue.</p> + +<p>“Let us go. I carry nothing with me but this little naked Astarte +which hangs from my necklace. We will put it near thine and we will +give them roses in recompense for each night.”</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_55">{55}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LI"></a>LI<br><br> +THE LITTLE TERRA COTTA ASTARTE</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE little guardian Astarte which protects Mnasidika was modeled at +Camiros by a skilful potter. It is large as a thumb and of fine +yellow earth.</p> + +<p>Its hair falls back and curls upon its narrow shoulders. Its eyes +are cut very long and its mouth is very small. For it is the +Most-Beautiful.</p> + +<p>With its right hand it points to its delta which is worked with +little holes on the lower belly and along the groins. For it is the +Most-Amorous-One.</p> + +<p>With the left arm it supports its heavy, round breasts. Between its +wide hips protrudes a fecund belly. For it is the +Mother-Of-All-Things.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_56">{56}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LII"></a>LII<br><br> +DESIRE</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">S</span>HE entered and passionately, her eyes half closed, she united her +lips with mine and our tongues touched each other.... Never was +there in my life a kiss like that one.</p> + +<p>She stood against me, all love and contentment. One of my knees, +little by little, mounted between her hot thighs which gave way as +though for a lover.</p> + +<p>My hand wandered over her tunic seeking to divine the hidden body +which, by turns, undulated, yielding itself, or, arching, stiffened +itself with shiverings of the skin.</p> + +<p>With her eyes in delirium, she pointed toward the bed; but we had +not the right to love before the ceremony of wedding, and we +separated brusquely.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_57">{57}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LIII"></a>LIII<br><br> +THE WEDDING</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span>N the morning they had the wedding-feast in the house of +Acalanthis whom she had adopted for a mother. Mnasidika wore the +white veil and I the male tunic.</p> + +<p>Then, amidst twenty women, she put on her robes of festival. +Perfumed with Bakkaris, sifted with powder of gold, her cool and +animated skin attracted furtive hands.</p> + +<p>In her chamber filled with foliage, she waited for me like a +spouse. And I carried her away on a chariot between myself and the +nymphagogue. One of her little breasts burned in my hand.</p> + +<p>They chanted the nuptial song; the flutes played also. I carried +Mnasidika under the shoulders and under the knees and we passed +over the threshold covered with roses.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_58">{58}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LIV"></a>LIV<br><br> +THE PAST WHICH SURVIVES</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span> WILL leave the bed as she has left it, unmade and rumpled, the +covers mingled, in order that the form of her body may remain +impressed beside mine.</p> + +<p>Until tomorrow I will not go to the bath, I I will not wear any +garments, I will not comb my hair, for fear lest I efface her +caresses.</p> + +<p>This morning, I will not eat, nor this evening, and upon my lips I +will place neither rouge nor powder, in order that her kiss may +remain.</p> + +<p>I will leave the shutters closed and I will not open the door for +fear lest the remembrance which she has left fly out upon the wind.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_59">{59}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LV"></a>LV<br><br> +METAMORPHOSIS</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">F</span>ORMERLY I was amorous of the beauty of young men, and the +remembrance of their words kept me awake.</p> + +<p>I remember having graven a name in the bark of a plane-tree. I +remember having left a strip of my tunic in a path where someone +would pass.</p> + +<p>I remember having loved.... O Pannychis, my babe, in what hands +have I left thee? how, O unfortunate one, have I abandoned thee?</p> + +<p>Today, and forever, Mnasidika alone possesses me. What she receives +as a sacrifice is the happiness of those whom I have deserted for +her.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_60">{60}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LVI"></a>LVI<br><br> +THE NAMELESS TOMB</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">M</span>NASIDIKA took me by the hand and led me outside the gates of the +city to a little uncultivated field where there was a marble stèle. +And she said: “This was the lover of my mother.”</p> + +<p>Then I felt a great shiver and still holding her hand, I leaned on +her shoulder in order to read the four lines between the broken cup +and the serpent:</p> + +<p>“It is not death which has carried me away, but the Nymphs of the +fountains. I rest here under the light earth with the severed hair +of Xantho. Let her alone weep for me. I tell not my name.”</p> + +<p>For a long time we remained standing, and we did not pour a +libation. For how could we call an unknown soul from the throngs of +Hades?</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_61">{61}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LVII"></a>LVII<br><br> +THE THREE BEAUTIES OF MNASIDIKA</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">S</span>O that Mnasidika may be protected by the gods, I have sacrificed +to the Aphrodite-who-loves-the-smiles, two male hares and two +doves.</p> + +<p>And I have sacrificed to Ares two cocks armed for fighting, and to +sinister Hecate two dogs that howled under the knife.</p> + +<p>And it is not without reason that I have implored these three +immortals, for Mnasidika carries on her countenance the reflection +of their triple divinity.</p> + +<p>Her lips are red like copper, her hair bluish like iron and her +eyes black like silver.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_62">{62}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LVIII"></a>LVIII<br><br> +THE CAVE OF THE NYMPHS</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HY feet are more delicate than those of silvery Thetis. Between +thy crossed arms thou unitest thy breasts, cradling them softly +like the bodies of two fair doves.</p> + +<p>Beneath thy hair thou dissemblest thy moist eyes, thy trembling +mouth and the pink flowers of thine ears; but nothing stops my +regard nor the warm breath of my kiss.</p> + +<p>For, in the secret of thy body, it is thou, Mnasidika, beloved, who +hidest the cave of the nymphs of which old Homer spoke, the place +where the naiads weave their purple linens.</p> + +<p>The place where glide, drop by drop, the inexhaustible springs and +where the gate of the North lets men descend and the gate of the +South lets immortals enter.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_63">{63}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LIX"></a>LIX<br><br> +MNASIDIKA’S BREASTS</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">C</span>AREFULLY, with one hand, she opened her tunic and offered me her +warm, sweet breasts, as one would offer to the goddess a pair of +living turtle-doves.</p> + +<p>“Love them well,” she said to me; “I love them so much! They are +dear, the little babes. I busy myself with them when I am alone. I +play with them; I give them pleasure.</p> + +<p>“I douche them with milk. I powder them with flowers. My soft hair +which drys them is dear to their little points. I caress them, and +shiver. I enfold them in wool.</p> + +<p>“Because I shall never have children, be their nursling, my love, +and because they are so far from my mouth, give them kisses for +me.”</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_64">{64}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LX"></a>LX<br><br> +THE DOLL</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span> HAVE given her a doll, a doll of wax with cheeks of roses. Its +arms are attached by little pegs and its legs can be moved.</p> + +<p>When we are together, she couches it between us, and it is our +child. In the evening she cradles it and gives it the breast before +putting it to sleep.</p> + +<p>She has woven it three little tunics and we gave it jewels on the +day of the Aphrodisian Festival; jewels and flowers also.</p> + +<p>She watches over its virtue, and will not let it go out without +her; not in the sun, above all, for the little doll would melt into +drops of wax.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_65">{65}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LXI"></a>LXI<br><br> +TENDERNESSES</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">S</span>WEETLY close thine arms, like a girdle about me. O touch, touch my +skin thus! Neither water nor the breeze of noon-tide are so soft as +thy hand.</p> + +<p>Today, endear me, little sister, it is thy turn. Remember thou the +tendernesses which I taught thee in the night past, and kneel thou +silently near me, for I am wearied.</p> + +<p>Thy lips descend upon my lips. All thine unbound hair follows them +like a caress after a kiss. It glides over my left breast, it hides +thine eyes from me.</p> + +<p>Give me thy hand, it is hot! Press mine; hold it always. Hands +better than the mouths unite, and their passion is equalled by +nothing.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_66">{66}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LXII"></a>LXII<br><br> +GAMES</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">M</span>ORE than her balls or her doll, I am for her a game. With all +parts of my body, she amuses herself like a child, through the long +hours, without speaking.</p> + +<p>She loosens my hair and reforms it according to her caprice, +knotting it under my chin like a thick cloth, or twisting it upon +the nape of my neck, or braiding it to the end.</p> + +<p>She regards with astonishment the color of my lashes, the folds of +my neck. Sometimes she makes me kneel and place my hands upon the +bed:</p> + +<p>Then (it is one of her games) she slips her little head underneath +and imitates the trembling kid which sucks from the belly of its +mother.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_67">{67}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LXIII"></a>LXIII<br><br> +PENUMBRA</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">U</span>NDER the cover of transparent wool, we slipped, she and I. Even +our heads were covered, and the lamp shone through the cloth above +us.</p> + +<p>Thus I saw her dear body in a mysterious light. We were very near, +one to the other, more free, more intimate, more naked. “In the +same shift,” she said.</p> + +<p>We had left our hair bound up in order to be still more uncovered, +and in the close air of the bed, the odors of two women ascended, +of two natural cassolets.</p> + +<p>Nothing in the world, not even the lamp, saw us that night. Which +of us was loved, she alone, and I, could say. But the men know +nothing of it.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_68">{68}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LXIV"></a>LXIV<br><br> +THE SLEEPER</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">S</span>HE sleeps in her unbound hair, her hands joined behind her neck. +Does she dream? Her mouth is open; she breathes gently.</p> + +<p>With a bit of white swan, I dry off the perspiration of her arms, +the fever of her cheeks, but without awakening her. Her closed +eyelids are two blue flowers.</p> + +<p>Very softly, I will raise myself; I will go · to draw water, to +milk the cow and ask fire of the neighbors. I would arrange my hair +and dress before she opens her eyes.</p> + +<p>Sleep, dwell for long between her fair, curved eyelids, and +continue the happy night with a dream of good augury.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_69">{69}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LXV"></a>LXV<br><br> +THE KISS</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span> WILL kiss, from one end to the other, the long dark wings +spreading from thy neck, O sweet bird, captive dove, whose heart +bounds beneath my hand.</p> + +<p>I will take thy lips within my lips as an infant takes the breast +of its mother. Shudder!... for the kiss penetrates profoundly and +is sufficient to thy love.</p> + +<p>I will move my tongue lightly along thine arms, and upon thy neck; +and I will wind along thy sensitive sides the lengthening caress of +my nails.</p> + +<p>Hear, roaring in thine ears, all the rumor of the sea.... +Mnasidika! thy look makes me suffer. Like thy lips, I would close +thy burning eyelids with my kiss.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_70">{70}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LXVI"></a>LXVI<br><br> +JEALOUS CARE</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">D</span>O not arrange thy hair, for fear lest the over-heated iron burn +thy neck or thy locks. Leave it upon thy shoulders and spread over +thine arms.</p> + +<p>Do not dress thyself, for fear lest the girdle redden the slender +folds of thy hips. Remain naked like a little girl.</p> + +<p>Do not even rise, for fear lest thy fragile feet be injured in +walking. Repose in the bed, O victim of Eros, and I will dress thy +poor wound.</p> + +<p>For I would not see upon thy body other marks, Mnasidika, than the +blemish of an over-long kiss, the scratch of a sharp nail, or the +reddening bar of my embrace.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_71">{71}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LXVII"></a>LXVII<br><br> +THE DESPAIRING EMBRACE</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">L</span>OVE me, not with smiles, flutes, or plaited flowers, but with thy +heart and thy tears, as I love thee with my breast and my +lamentations.</p> + +<p>When thy breasts alternate with my breasts, when I feel thy life +touching my life, when thy knees stand up behind me, then my +panting mouth knows not how more to unite with thine.</p> + +<p>Clasp me as I clasp thee! See, the lamp has died out, we turn and +twist in the night; but I press thy moving body and I hear thy +perpetual plaint....</p> + +<p>Moan! moan! moan! O woman! Eros leads us in sorrow. Thou wilt +suffer less on the bed in bringing a child into the world than when +giving birth to thy love.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_72">{72}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LXVIII"></a>LXVIII<br><br> +THE HEART</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">B</span>REATHLESS, I take her hand and apply it forcibly to the moist skin +of my left breast. And I turn my head here and there and I move my +lips without speaking.</p> + +<p>My excited heart, abrupt and hard, beats and beats in my breast as +an imprisoned satyr would knock, imprisoned in a leathern bottle. +She says to me: “Thy heart makes thee ill....”</p> + +<p>“O Mnasidika,” I respond, “the heart of a woman is not there. That +is only a poor bird, a dove which stirs its feeble wings. The heart +of a woman is more terrible.</p> + +<p>“Like a little myrtle berry, it burns with a red flame and under an +abundant foam. It is there that I feel myself bitten by voracious +Aphrodite.”</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_73">{73}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LXIX"></a>LXIX<br><br> +WORDS IN THE NIGHT</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">W</span>E rest, our eyes closed, the silence is deep about our couch. +Ineffable Nights of summer! But she, believing me asleep, lays her +warm hand upon my arm.</p> + +<p>She murmurs: “Bilitis, thou sleepest?” My heart throbs, but, +without response, I respire regularly like a woman couched in +dreams. Then she begins to speak:</p> + +<p>“Because thou hearest me not,” she says, “ah! how I love thee!” And +she repeats my name: “Bilitis.... Bilitis....” And she touches me +with the tips of her trembling fingers.</p> + +<p>“It is mine, this mouth! mine alone! Is there another so beautiful +in the world? Ah! my happiness, my happiness! Mine are these naked +arms, this neck and hair....”</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_74">{74}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LXX"></a>LXX<br><br> +ABSENCE</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">S</span>HE has gone out, she is far away, but I see her, for all things in +this chamber are full of her, all are related to her, and I, like +the rest.</p> + +<p>This bed still warm, over which I pass my mouth, is impressed with +the form of her body. On this soft pillow has lain her little head +enveloped in her hair.</p> + +<p>There is the basin in which she has bathed, the comb which has +penetrated the knots of her tangled hair. These slippers long for +her naked feet. The pockets of gauze enclosed her breasts.</p> + +<p>But that which I dare not touch with my finger is the mirror in +which she viewed her hot bruises and in which, perhaps, still +exists the reflection of her moist lips.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_75">{75}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LXXI"></a>LXXI<br><br> +LOVE</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span>LAS! if I think of her, my throat becomes dry, my head droops, my +breasts grow hard and pain me, I shiver and I weep as I walk.</p> + +<p>If I see her, my heart stops, my hands tremble, my feet grow cold, +the crimson of fire mounts to my cheeks, my temples throb +grievously.</p> + +<p>If I touch her, I become mad, my arms weaken, my knees swoon. I +fall before her and lie like a woman about to die.</p> + +<p>Always, whenever she speaks to me, I feel myself wounded. Her love +is torture and the passers-by hear my plaints.... Alas! How can I +call her Well-Beloved?</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_76">{76}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LXXII"></a>LXXII<br><br> +PURIFICATION</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HOU art there! Take off thy bandelets and thy clasps and thy +tunic. Remove even thy sandals, even the ribbons of thy legs, even +the band of thy breast.</p> + +<p>Wash the black from thine eyebrows and the red from thy lips. +Efface the white of thy shoulders and uncurl thy hair in the water.</p> + +<p>For I would have thee all pure as thou wert born upon the bed at +the feet of thy fecund mother and before thy proud father.</p> + +<p>So chaste that my hand in thy hand will make thee redden even to +thy lips and one word of mine in thine ear will fill, with an +excess of love, thy wandering eyes.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_77">{77}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LXXIII"></a>LXXIII<br><br> +THE CRADLE OF MNASIDIKA</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">M</span>Y little child, so few years have I had only thee: I love thee, +not as a lover but as though thou hadst come forth from my laboring +entrails.</p> + +<p>When, stretched upon my knees, thy two frail arms about me, thou +seekest my breast, thy mouth clinging, and press my nipples softly +between thy palpitating lips:</p> + +<p>Then I dream that, at some time, I have truly nursed this delicate +mouth, supple and moist, this vase of crimson myrrhine in which the +happiness of Bilitis is mysteriously enclosed.</p> + +<p>Sleep. I will cradle thee with one hand upon my knee which rocks +thee. Sleep so. I will sing for thee little mournful songs which +bring sleep to the newly-born.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_78">{78}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LXXIV"></a>LXXIV<br><br> +A PROMENADE BY THE SEA</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span>S we were walking on the seashore, without speaking, and enveloped +to the chin in our robes of sombre wool, joyous young girls passed +by.</p> + +<p>“Ah! it is Bilitis and Mnasidika! See, the pretty little squirrel +we have caught: it is soft as a bird and timid as a rabbit.</p> + +<p>“At Lydia’s house we will put it in a cage, give it plenty of milk +with lettuce leaves. It is a female, she will live a long time.”</p> + +<p>And the mad ones set out, running. As for us, without speaking, we +seated ourselves, I on a rock, she upon the sand, and we gazed at +the sea.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_79">{79}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LXXV"></a>LXXV<br><br> +THE OBJECT</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">G</span>REETING, Bilitis, Mnasidika, greeting.—Be seated. How is thy +husband?—Too well. Do not tell him that you have seen me. He would +slay me if he knew I had been here.—Have no fear.</p> + +<p>“And this is your chamber? and this your bed? Pardon me. I am +curious.—Thou knowest, however, the bed of Myrrhina.—So +little.—It is said to be pretty.—And lascivious, O my dear! let +us not speak of it.</p> + +<p>“What wishest thou of me?—That thou lend me....—Speak.—I dare +not name the object.—We do not have one.—Truly?—Mnasidika is a +virgin.—Then, where can one buy it?—From the harness-maker, +Drakon.</p> + +<p>“Tell also, where thou buyest thy thread for embroidery? Mine +breaks if one looks<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_80">{80}</a></span> at it.—I make mine myself, but that which +Nais sells is excellent.—At what price?—Three oboli.—It is dear. +And the object?—Two drachmæ.—Farewell.”</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_81">{81}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LXXVI"></a>LXXVI<br><br> +EVENING NEAR THE FIRE</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE winter is hard, Mnasidika. All is frozen, except our bed. But +rise and come with me, for I have lit a great fire with dead twigs +and broken wood.</p> + +<p>We will warm ourselves, crouching quite naked, our hair upon our +backs, and we will drink milk from the same cup and we will eat +cakes with honey.</p> + +<p>How gay and noisy the flame is! Art thou not too near? Thy skin +reddens. Let me kiss it wherever the fire has burned it.</p> + +<p>Amidst the ardent firebrands, I will heat the iron and I will dress +thy hair here. With dead coals I will write thy name upon the wall.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_82">{82}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LXXVII"></a>LXXVII<br><br> +SUPPLICATIONS</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">W</span>HAT dost thou wish? If it must be, I will sell my last jewels so +that an attentive slave may wait upon the desire of thine eyes, and +every thirst of thy lips.</p> + +<p>If the milk of our goats seems insipid to thee, I will hire for +thee, as for an infant, a nurse with swollen breasts who will +suckle thee each morning.</p> + +<p>If our bed seems rough to thee, I will buy thee all the soft +cushions, all the coverlets of silk, all the cloths, soft with +feathers, of the Amathusian merchants.</p> + +<p>All. But I should suffice thee, and though we sleep upon the earth, +thou shouldst find it softer than the warm bed of a stranger.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_83">{83}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LXXVIII"></a>LXXVIII<br><br> +THE EYES</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">G</span>REAT eyes of Mnasidika, how happy you make me when love darkens +your lids and quickens you and shadows you with tears:</p> + +<p>But how maddened, when you turn elsewhere, distracted by a woman +who passes or by a remembrance which is not mine.</p> + +<p>Then my cheeks hollow themselves, my hands tremble and I suffer.... +It seems to me from all parts, and before you, my life goes away.</p> + +<p>Great eyes of Mnasidika, cease not to regard me! or I will stab you +with my needle and then you will see only the terrible night.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_84">{84}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LXXIX"></a>LXXIX<br><br> +FARDS</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span>LL, all my life, and my world, and the men, all that is not of +her, is nothing. All that is not of her, I give to thee, passer-by.</p> + +<p>Does she know the labor I have accomplished to be fair to her eyes, +with my hair and with my fards, with my robes and my perfumes?</p> + +<p>As long a time I would turn a millstone, I would wield the oar or +labor in the earth, if it were a necessary price to retain her +here.</p> + +<p>But perhaps she will never know, Goddesses who watch over us. The +day she learns that I love her, she will seek another woman.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_85">{85}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LXXX"></a>LXXX<br><br> +THE SILENCE OF MNASIDIKA</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">S</span>HE had laughed all the day, and she even had mocked me a little. +She had refused to obey me before many strange women.</p> + +<p>When we returned, I affected not to speak to her, and, as she cast +herself upon my neck, saying: “Thou art offended?” I said to her:</p> + +<p>“Ah! thou art not as formerly, thou art not as on the first day. I +no longer recognize thee, Mnasidika.” She did not respond to me.</p> + +<p>But she put on all the jewels which she had not worn for a long +time, and the same yellow robe, broidered with blue, as on the day +of our meeting.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_86">{86}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LXXXI"></a>LXXXI<br><br> +SCENE</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">“W</span>HERE wast thou?—At the flower merchant’s. I have bought some +very beautiful irises. Here they are, I have brought them to +thee.—In so long a time thou hast bought four flowers?—The +flower-woman detained me.</p> + +<p>“Thy cheeks are pale and thine eyes brilliant.—It is fatigue from +the walk.—Thy hair is moist and tangled.—It is the heat and the +wind which almost blew down my hair.</p> + +<p>“Someone has untied thy girdle. I made the knot myself, looser than +this one.—So loose that it became undone; a slave who passed +retied it for me.</p> + +<p>“There is a spot upon thy robe.—It is water which has fallen from +the flowers.—Mnasidika, my little soul, thine irises are fairer +than any in all Mytilene.—That I know well, that I know well.”</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_87">{87}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LXXXII"></a>LXXXII<br><br> +WAITING</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE sun has passed all the night among the dead while I have +waited, seated upon my bed, weary from watching. The wick of the +exhausted lamp has burned to the end.</p> + +<p>She will never return: there is the last star. I know well that she +will never return. I know even the name that I hate. Nevertheless, +I still wait.</p> + +<p>That she would come now! yes, that she would come, her hair +disordered and without roses, her robe soiled, spotted, rumpled, +her tongue dry and her eyelids black!</p> + +<p>When she opened the door, I would say to her.... But here she +is.... It is her robe that I touch, her hands, her hair, her skin! +I kiss her with distracted lips, and I weep.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_88">{88}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LXXXIII"></a>LXXXIII<br><br> +SOLITUDE</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">F</span>OR whom, now, shall I paint my lips? For whom shall I polish my +nails? For whom shall I perfume my hair?</p> + +<p>For whom are my breasts powdered with rouge, if they no longer +tempt her? For whom are my arms laved with milk, if they may never +more embrace her?</p> + +<p>How can I sleep? How can I lay myself upon the bed? In the evening +my hand, in all my bed, could not find her warm hand.</p> + +<p>I dare not return to my house, to the chamber so frightfully empty. +I dare not reopen the door. I dare not even reopen mine eyes.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_89">{89}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LXXXIV"></a>LXXXIV<br><br> +A LETTER</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HAT is impossible, impossible. I supplicate thee upon my knees, +with tears, all the tears I have wept over this horrible letter, +not to abandon me thus.</p> + +<p>Consider thou how terrible it is to lose thee forever for a second +time, after having had the great joy of hoping to reconquer thee. +Ah! my love! thou knowest not to what point I have adored thee!</p> + +<p>Listen to me. Consent to see me one time more. Wilt thou be, +tomorrow, at sundown, before thy door? Tomorrow, or the day +following. I will come to take thee. Do not refuse me that.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the last time, so, but still for this once, for this one +time! I demand it of thee, I beg it of thee, and know that, upon +thy reply, the rest of my life depends.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_90">{90}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LXXXV"></a>LXXXV<br><br> +THE ATTEMPT</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HOU wast jealous of us, Gyrinno, too ardent girl. How many +garlands didst thou suspend from the knocker of our door! Thou +didst wait for us in the passage, and thou didst follow us in the +street.</p> + +<p>Now thou art, according to thy vows, extended upon the loved place +and thy head is upon the pillow about which floats the odor of +another woman. Thou art larger then she was. Thy different body +startles me.</p> + +<p>See! I have yielded at last. Yes, it is I. Thou mayest play with my +breasts, caress my belly, open my knees. My entire body is +delivered to thy tireless lips—alas!</p> + +<p>Ah! Gyrinno! with love my tears also overflow! Wipe them with thy +hair; do not kiss them, my dear; and enlace me yet closer to subdue +my tremblings.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_91">{91}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LXXXVI"></a>LXXXVI<br><br> +THE EFFORT</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span>GAIN! enough of sighs and stretching arms! Recommence! Thinkest +thou, then, that love is a recreation? Gyrinno, it is a task, and +of all the most rude.</p> + +<p>Awaken, thou! Thou shall not sleep! What to me are thy blue eyelids +and the bar of pain which burns thy thin legs. Astarte seethes in +my loins.</p> + +<p>We entered our couch with the twilight. Behold already the wicked +dawn; but I am not wearied with so little. I will not sleep before +the second evening.</p> + +<p>I will not sleep; neither shalt thou sleep. Oh! how bitter is the +taste of morning! Gyrinno, realize it. The embraces are more +difficult, but stranger and softer.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_92">{92}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LXXXVII"></a>LXXXVII<br><br> +GYRINNO</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HINK not that I have loved thee. I have eaten thee like a ripe +fig, I have drunk thee like an ardent water, I have carried thee +about me like a girdle of skin.</p> + +<p>I have amused myself with thy body, because thou hast short hair, +pointed breasts upon thy lean chest, and nipples black like two +little dates.</p> + +<p>Like water and fruits, a woman is also necessary, but already I +have forgotten thy name, thou who hast passed through my arms like +the shadow of another adored one.</p> + +<p>Between thy flesh and mine, a burning dream has possessed me. I +pressed thee upon me as upon a wound and I cried: Mnasidika! +Mnasidika! Mnasidika!</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_93">{93}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LXXXVIII"></a>LXXXVIII<br><br> +THE LAST ESSAY</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">“W</span>HAT wishest thou, old woman?—To console thee.—It is useless +trouble.—They have told me that since thy parting thou goest from +love to love without finding forgetfulness or peace. I have come to +offer thee someone.</p> + +<p>“Speak.—It is a young slave, born at Sardis. She has no equal in +the world for she is at the same time man and woman, although her +chest and her long hair and her clear voice produce the illusion.</p> + +<p>“Her age?—Sixteen years.—Her form?—Large. She has known no one +here except Psappha who loves her desperately and would buy her of +me for twenty minæ. If thou wouldst hire her, she is thine.—And +what will I do with her?<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_94">{94}</a></span></p> + +<p>“Behold, for twenty two nights I have essayed in vain to escape my +memories.... Done, I take this one more, but warn the poor little +one that she be not frightened if I sob in her arms.”</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_95">{95}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LXXXIX"></a>LXXXIX<br><br> +THE WOUNDING MEMORY</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span> REMEMBER ... (at what hour of the day is it not before my eyes!) +I remember the manner in which She lifted her hair with her slender +fingers so pale.</p> + +<p>I remember one night which she passed, her cheek upon my breast, so +softly that happiness held me awake, and the day following she had +upon her face the mark of my rounded nipple.</p> + +<p>I see her holding her cup of milk and regarding me sideways, with a +smile. I see her, powdered, her hair dressed, opening her great +eyes before her mirror and retouching with her finger the red of +her lips.</p> + +<p>And, above all, if my despair is a perpetual torture, it is because +I know, moment by moment, how she swoons in the arms of another, +and what she demands of her and what she gives.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_96">{96}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XC"></a>XC<br><br> +TO THE WAX DOLL</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">D</span>OLL of wax, dear plaything which she called her child, she has +wearied of thee also and she has forgotten thee like myself, who, +with her, was thy father or thy mother, I know not which.</p> + +<p>The pressure of her lips has discolored thy little cheeks; and on +thy left hand see the broken finger which made her weep so much. +This little cyclas which thou wearest, it was she who broidered it +for thee.</p> + +<p>She said thou couldst already read. Nevertheless thou wert not +weaned, and in the evening, bending over thee, she opened her tunic +and gave thee the breast, “so that thou wouldst not cry,” she said.</p> + +<p>Doll, if I wished to see her again, I would give thee to Aphrodite, +as the dearest of my gifts. But I would rather think that she is +wholly dead.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_97">{97}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XCI"></a>XCI<br><br> +FUNERAL CHANT</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">S</span>ING a funeral chant, muses of Mytilene, sing! The earth is sombre +like a vestment of mourning and the yellow trees shiver like shaken +hair.</p> + +<p>Heraios! O sweet and sorrowful month! the leaves fall gently like +snow, the sun penetrates deeply into the thinning forest.... I hear +nothing more, save the silence.</p> + +<p>Behold, they have carried Pittakos, laden with years, to the tomb. +Many are dead of those I knew. And she who lives is to me as though +she were no longer.</p> + +<p>This is the tenth autumn I have seen dying upon this plain. It is +time that I also vanished away. Weep for me, muses of Mytilene, +weep upon my steps!</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_99">{99}</a></span></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_98">{98}</a></span> + +<h2><a id="EPIGRAMS_IN_THE_ISLAND_OF_CYPROS"></a>EPIGRAMS IN THE ISLAND OF CYPROS</h2> + +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Αλλά με ναρκισσοις ἀναδήσατε, καὶ πλαγιαύλων γεύσατε<br></span> +<span class="i3">καὶ κροκίνοις χρίσατε γυἰα μύροις.<br></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Καὶ Μυτιληναίῳ τόν πνεύμονα τέγξατε βάκχῳ καὶ συζεύξατε<br></span> +<span class="i3">μοι φωλάδα παρθενικήν.<br></span> +<span class="i13"><span class="smcap">Philodemos.</span><br></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">“—Bind my head with narcissus and let me<br></span> +<span class="i0">taste the crooked flute. Anoint my limbs with<br></span> +<span class="i0">saffron ointment, wet my gullet with wine of<br></span> +<span class="i0">Mytilene and mate me with a virgin who will love<br></span> +<span class="i0">her nest.”<br></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i9">(Anth. Pal. XI-34. Paton.)<br></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_100">{100}</a></span>  </p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_101">{101}</a></span>  </p> + +<h2><a id="XCII"></a>XCII<br><br> +HYMN TO THE ASTARTE</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">M</span>OTHER inexhaustible, incorruptible, creatrix, first-born, +self-engendered, self-created, issue of thyself alone and delight +of thyself, Astarte!</p> + +<p>O perpetually fecund, O virgin and nurse of all, chaste and +lascivious, pure and fruitive, ineffable, nocturnal, soft, breather +of fire, foam of the sea!</p> + +<p>Thou who accordest favors in secret, thou who unitest, thou who +lovest, thou who graspest the multiple races of savage beasts in +furious desire and joinest the sexes in the forests!</p> + +<p>O Astarte, irresistible, hear me, take me, possess me, O moon, and, +thirteen times each year, draw from my entrails the libation of my +blood!</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_102">{102}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XCIII"></a>XCIII.<br><br> +HYMN TO THE NIGHT</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE black masses of the trees are immovable as the mountains. The +stars fill the immense sky. A warm breeze like a human breath +caresses my eyes and my cheeks.</p> + +<p>O Night, who givest birth to the Gods! how sweet thou art upon my +lips! how warm thou art in my hair! how thou enterest into me now, +and how I feel myself pregnant with all thy springtime!</p> + +<p>The flowers that shall blossom shall all be born of me. The wind +that respires is my breath. The perfume that passes is my desire. +All the stars are in my eyes.</p> + +<p>Thy voice, is it the roar of the sea? Is it the silence of the +plain? Thy voice; I comprehend it not, but it bends my head to my +feet, and my tears lave my two hands.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_103">{103}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XCIV"></a>XCIV<br><br> +THE MENADES</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HROUGH the forests that dominate the sea, the Menades are rushing. +Maskale, with hot breasts, shrieks, brandishing the phallos of +sycamore smeared with vermilion.</p> + +<p>All, under their bassaris skins and their crowns of vine branches, +run and cry and leap, the crotales clapping in their hands, and the +thyrses cracking the skins of the resounding drums.</p> + +<p>With wetted hair, agile legs, reddened and pushing breasts, +sweating cheeks, foaming lips, O Dionysos, they offer thee, in +return, the love thou hast cast within them.</p> + +<p>And the wind of the sea lifts toward the sky the ruddy hair of +Helikomis, twisting it like a furious flame upon a torch of white +wax.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_104">{104}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XCV"></a>XCV<br><br> +THE SEA OF CYPRIS</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">U</span>PON the highest promontory, I stretched myself out. The sea was +black like a field of violets. The milky-way gushed out from the +great divine breast.</p> + +<p>A thousand Menades slept about me in the mangled flowers. The long +grasses mingled with their hair. And then, behold, the sun was born +from the waters of the east.</p> + +<p>They were the same waters and the same shores that, one day, saw +appear the white body of Aphrodite.... Suddenly, I hid my eyes in +my hands.</p> + +<p>For I saw, trembling upon the water, a thousand tiny lips of light: +the pure sex or the smile of Cypris Philommeïdes.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_105">{105}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XCVI"></a>XCVI<br><br> +THE PRIESTESSES OF ASTARTE</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE priestesses of Astarte make love at the rising of the moon; +then they arise and bathe in a vast basin with a marge of silver.</p> + +<p>With their curved fingers, they comb their hair, and their hands, +tinted with crimson, blended with their black curls, seem like +branches of coral in a sombre and wavering sea.</p> + +<p>They never depilate themselves, so that the triangle of die goddess +is marked on their belly as on a temple; but they paint themselves +with brushes and perfume themselves deeply.</p> + +<p>The priestesses of Astarte make love at the setting of the moon; +then, in a carpeted hall where burns a tall lamp of gold, they lie +down at random.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_106">{106}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XCVII"></a>XCVII<br><br> +THE MYSTERIES</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">W</span>ITHIN the enclosure thrice mysterious, where the men never enter, +we have made a festival for thee, Astarte of the Night, Mother of +the World, Fountain of the Life of the Gods!</p> + +<p>I will reveal something, but not more than is permitted. About a +phallos crowned, an hundred women rocked, shrieking. The initiates +wore the habits of men, the others the divided tunics.</p> + +<p>The smoke of perfumes, the fumes of torches, wavered between us +like clouds. I wept burning tears. All, at the feet of the Berbeia; +we cast ourselves upon our backs.</p> + +<p>At last when the religious Act was consummated, and when, in the +Unique Triangle, had been plunged the crimson phallos, the mystery +commenced; but I will tell no more.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_107">{107}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XCVIII"></a>XCVIII<br><br> +THE EGYPTIAN COURTESANS</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span> HAVE been, with Plango, among the Egyptian courtesans, at the +highest part of the old city. They have amphoras of earth, plates +of copper and yellow matting where they squat without strain.</p> + +<p>Their chambers are silent, without angles and without corners, so +much their successive couches of blue limestone have blunted the +pillars and rounded the base of the walls.</p> + +<p>They sit immobile, their hands resting upon their knees. When they +offer pudding they murmur: “Happiness.” And when one thanks them, +they say: “Grace to thee.”</p> + +<p>They understand Hellene and feign to speak it badly so as to laugh +at us in their own tongue; but we, a tooth for a tooth, we speak +Lydian and they are suddenly uneasy.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_108">{108}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="XCIX"></a>XCIX<br><br> +I SING OF MY FLESH AND MY LIFE</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">S</span>URELY I will not sing of celebrated past lovers. If they are no +more, why speak of them? Am I not like them? Have I not enough to +think of in myself?</p> + +<p>I will forget thee, Pasiphae, although thy passion was extreme. I +will not praise thee, Syrinx, nor thee, Byblis, nor thee, by the +goddess chosen before all, Helene of the white arms!</p> + +<p>If someone has suffered, I feel not the pain. If someone has loved, +I have loved more. I sing of my flesh and my life, and not of the +sterile shadow of buried loves.</p> + +<p>Rest upon the bed, O my body, according to thy voluptuous mission! +Taste thy daily enjoyments and the passions without a tomorrow. +Leave not a joy unknown to be regretted upon the day of thy death.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_109">{109}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="C"></a>C<br><br> +THE PERFUMES</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span> WILL perfume all my skin in order to attract lovers. Upon my fair +legs, in a basin of silver, I will pour the spikenard of Tarsos and +the metopion of Egypt.</p> + +<p>Upon my arms, crushed mint; upon my lashes and upon my eyes +sweet-marjoram of Kôs. Slave, loosen my hair and fill it with the +smoke of incense.</p> + +<p>Here is oinanthe from the mountains of Cypros; I will let it slip +between my breasts; the liquor of roses which comes from Phaselis +shall perfume my neck and my cheeks.</p> + +<p>And now, pour upon my loins the irresistible bakkaris. It is +better, for a courtesan, to know the perfumes of Lydia than the +ways of the Peloponnesus.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_110">{110}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CI"></a>CI<br><br> +CONVERSATION</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">“G</span>OOD morning.—Good morning also.—Thou art in a great +hurry.—Perhaps less than thou thinkest.—Thou art a pretty +girl.—Perhaps more so than thou believest.</p> + +<p>“What is thy charming name?—I tell it not so quickly.—Thou hast +someone this evening?—Always there is my lover.—And how dost thou +love him?—As he wishes.</p> + +<p>“Let us sup together.—If thou desirest. But what givest +thou?—This.—Five drachmæ? It is for my slave. And for me?—Say it +thyself.—An hundred.</p> + +<p>“Where livest thou?—In this blue house.—At what hour may I send +to seek thee?—At once, if thou wishest.—At once.—Go before.”</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_111">{111}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CII"></a>CII<br><br> +THE TORN ROBE</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">“H</span>OLLA! by the two goddesses, who is the insolent one who has put +his foot upon my robe?—It is a lover.—It is a blockhead.—I have +been awkward, pardon me.</p> + +<p>“Imbecile! my yellow robe is all torn in the back, and if I walk +thus in the street, they will take me for a poor girl who serves +Cypris inversely.</p> + +<p>“Wilt thou not stop?—I believe that he speaks to me again!—Why +dost thou leave me, thus angered?... Thou respondest not? Alas! I +dare speak no more.</p> + +<p>“I certainly must return to my house to change my robe.—And may I +not follow thee? Who is thy father?—He is the rich captain +Nikias.—Thou hast fair eyes, I pardon thee.”</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_112">{112}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CIII"></a>CIII<br><br> +THE JEWELS</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span> DIADEM of fretted gold crowns my straight, white forehead. Five +chains of gold that follow the curve of my cheeks and chin, are +suspended from my hair by two large clasps.</p> + +<p>Upon my arms, which Iris would envy, thirteen silver bracelets +twine. How heavy they are! But they are weapons; and I know one +enemy who has suffered from them.</p> + +<p>I am truly all covered with gold. My breasts are cuirassed with two +pectorals of gold. The images of the gods have not more riches than +I have.</p> + +<p>And I wear upon my heavy robe, a girdle of silver plates. There +thou canst read this verse: “Love me eternally; but be not +afflicted if I deceive thee three times each day.”</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_113">{113}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CIV"></a>CIV<br><br> +THE INDIFFERENT ONE</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">S</span>INCE he has entered my chamber, whoever he may be (that is his +concern): “See,” I say to my slave, “what a handsome man! and +should not a courtesan be happy?”</p> + +<p>I declare he is Adonis, Ares or Herakles, according to his +countenance, or the Old Man of the Sea if his hair is pale silver. +And then, what disdain for trifling youth!</p> + +<p>“Ah!” I say, “if I had not to pay my florist and my goldsmith +tomorrow, how I would love to say to thee: I do not wish thy gold! +I am thy passionate servant!”</p> + +<p>Then, when he has closed his arms under my shoulders, I see a +boatman of the port pass like a divine image over the starry sky of +my transparent lids.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_114">{114}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CV"></a>CV<br><br> +PURE WATER OF THE BASIN</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">“P</span>URE water of the basin, immobile mirror, tell me of my +beauty.—Bilitis, or whoever thou art, Tethys perhaps, or +Amphitrite, thou art beautiful, thou knowest.</p> + +<p>“Thy face inclines beneath thy thick hair, which is heavy with +flowers and perfumes. Thy soft eyelids scarcely open, and thy +flanks are weary from the movements of love.</p> + +<p>“Thy body, fatigued with the weight of thy breasts, carries the +fine marks of nails and the blue stains of the kiss. Thine arms are +reddened by the embrace. Each line of thy skin was loved.”</p> + +<p>“Clear water of the basin, thy freshness brings repose. Receive me, +who am truly wearied. Take away the fard of my cheeks and the sweat +of my body and the remembrance of the night.”</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_115">{115}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CVI"></a>CVI<br><br> +VOLUPTUOUSNESS</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">U</span>PON a white terrace, in the night, they abandoned us, swooning +among the roses. The warm perspiration slipped away like tears from +our armpits over our breasts. Overwhelming voluptuousness purpled +our thrownback heads.</p> + +<p>Four captive doves, bathed in four perfumes, fluttered above us in +the silence. From their wings, drops of perfume fell upon the naked +women. I was covered with the essence of iris.</p> + +<p>O lassitude! I rested my cheek upon the belly of a young girl who +enveloped herself in the cool of my moist hair. The perfume of her +saffroned skin intoxicated my opened mouth. She closed her thighs +about my neck.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_116">{116}</a></span></p> + +<p>I slept, but an exhausting dream awakened me: the inyx, bird of +nocturnal desires, sang distractedly from afar. I coughed with a +shiver. Little by little, a languishing arm like a flower raised +itself in the air toward the moon.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_117">{117}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CVII"></a>CVII<br><br> +THE INN</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span>NNKEEPER, we are four. Give us a chamber and two beds. It is now +too late to return to the city and the rain has broken the road.</p> + +<p>Bring a basket of figs, some cheese, and dark wine; but first +remove my sandals and lave my feet, for the mud tickles me.</p> + +<p>Have brought into the chamber, two basins with water, a full lamp, +a crater and kylix. Shake thou the covers and beat the cushions.</p> + +<p>But let the beds be of good maple, and the planks noiseless! +Tomorrow thou needst not awaken us.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_118">{118}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CVIII"></a>CVIII<br><br> +THE SERVANTS</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">F</span>OUR slaves guard my house: two robust Thracians at my door, a +Sicilian in my kitchen and a docile and silent Phrygian woman for +the service of my bed.</p> + +<p>The two Thracians are handsome men. Each has a staff in his hand to +chase away poor lovers and a hammer to nail upon the wall the +wreaths which are sent me.</p> + +<p>The Sicilian is a rare cook; I paid twelve minæ for her. No other +knows as she does how to prepare fried croquettes and cakes of +poppy.</p> + +<p>The Phrygian bathes me, dresses my hair and depilates me. She +sleeps in the morning in my chamber, and three nights each month, +she takes my place with my lovers.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_119">{119}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CIX"></a>CIX<br><br> +THE BATH</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">C</span>HILD, guard well the door, and let no passer-by enter, for I and +six girls with beautiful arms would bathe ourselves in secret in +the warm water of the basin.</p> + +<p>We would only laugh and swim. Let the lovers stay in the street. We +will dip our legs in the water and, seated on the marble brink, we +will play with dice.</p> + +<p>We will play also with the ball. Let no lovers enter; our hair is +too wet; our throats are all goose-flesh and the ends of our +fingers are wrinkled.</p> + +<p>Moreover, he would repent it, who surprised us naked! Bilitis is +not Athena, but she shows herself only at her hours and chastises +too ardent eyes.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_120">{120}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CX"></a>CX<br><br> +TO HER BREASTS</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">F</span>LOWERS of flesh, O my breasts! how rich in voluptuousness you are! +My breasts in my hands, how soft you are, how gently warm, how +youthfully perfumed!</p> + +<p>Formerly, you were frozen like the breast of a statue and hard as +the insensible marble. Since you have softened, I cherish you more, +you who have been so loved.</p> + +<p>Your sleek, rounded forms are the honor of my brown torso. When I +imprison you in bands of gold or when I deliver you all naked, you +precede me with your splendor.</p> + +<p>Therefore be happy, this night. If my fingers give forth caresses, +you alone will know them until tomorrow morning; for, this night, +Bilitis has paid Bilitis.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_121">{121}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CXI"></a>CXI<br><br> +MYDZOURIS</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">M</span>YDZOURIS, little filth, weep not. Thou art my friend. If the women +insult thee again, it is I who will answer them. Come into my arms +and dry thine eyes.</p> + +<p>Yes, I know thou art a horrible child and that thy mother taught +thee early to prove thy courage in all things. But thou art young +and therefore thou canst do nothing that is not charming.</p> + +<p>The mouth of a girl of fifteen remains pure in spite of all. The +lips of a gray-headed woman, although virgin, are degraded; for the +only disgrace is to grow old and we are blemished only when we +become wrinkled.</p> + +<p>Mydzouris, I admire thy frank eyes, thine impudent and bold name, +thy laughing voice and thy light body. Come to my house, thou shalt +be my aid, and when we go out together, the women shall say to +thee: Greeting.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_122">{122}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CXII"></a>CXII<br><br> +THE TRIUMPH OF BILITIS</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span>N the procession they have carried me in triumph, me, Bilitis, all +naked upon a shell-like car upon which slaves, during the night, +had placed ten thousand roses.</p> + +<p>I reclined, my hands under my neck, my feet alone clad in gold, and +my body outstretched softly upon the bed of my warm hair mingled +with the cool petals.</p> + +<p>Twelve children, with wingèd shoulders, served me as a goddess; one +of them held a shade, the others showered me with perfume or burned +incense in the prow.</p> + +<p>And about me I heard rustling the ardent murmur of the multitude, +whilst the breath of desire floated about my nudity, in the blue +mist of the aromatics.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_123">{123}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CXIII"></a>CXIII<br><br> +TO THE GOD OF THE WOODS</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">O</span> VENERABLE Priapos, god of the woods, whom I have fastened in the +marble border of my bath, it is not without reason, guardian of the +orchards, that thou shouldst watch here over the courtesans.</p> + +<p>God, we have not bought thee to sacrifice our virginities to thee. +No one can give that which is no more, and the zealots of Pallas +run not the streets of Amathus.</p> + +<p>No. Formerly thou didst watch over the leafy hair of the trees, +over the wet flowers, over the heavy and savory fruits. It is for +that we have chosen thee.</p> + +<p>Guard thou today our blond heads, the opened poppies of our lips +and the violets of our eyes. Guard the firm fruit of our breasts +and give us lovers who resemble thee.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_124">{124}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CXIV"></a>CXIV<br><br> +THE DANCING-GIRL WITH CROTALES</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HOU attachest to thy light hands the resounding crotales, +Myrrhinidion my dear, and, almost naked from thy robe, thou +extendest thy nervous limbs. How pretty thou art, thine arms in the +air, thy loins arched and thy breasts reddened!</p> + +<p>Thou commencest: thy feet, one before the other, pose, hesitate, +and glide softly. Thy body bends like a scarf, thou caressest thy +shivering skin, and voluptuousness inundates thy long, swooning +eyes.</p> + +<p>Suddenly thou strikest the crotales! Arch thyself, erect upon thy +feet, shake thy loins, advance thy legs and let thy hands, filled +with noise, call all the desires in a band about thy turning body.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_125">{125}</a></span></p> + +<p>We, we applaud with great cries, whether, smiling over thy +shoulder, thou agitatest with a shiver thy convulsed muscular +croup, or whether thou undulatest, almost extended, to the rhythm +of thy memories.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_126">{126}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CXV"></a>CXV<br><br> +THE FLUTE-PLAYER</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">M</span>ELIXO, thy legs joined, thy body inclined, thine arms forward, +thou slippest thy light double-flute between thy lips moist with +wine, and thou playest about the couch where Teleas still embraces +me.</p> + +<p>Am I not most imprudent, I who hire so young a girl to distract my +hours of labor? I who show her thus naked to the curious looks of +my lovers, am I not careless?</p> + +<p>No, Melixo, little musician, thou art an honest friend. Yesterday +thou didst not refuse to change thy flute for another when I +despaired of accomplishing a love full of difficulties. But thou +art safe.</p> + +<p>For I know well of what thou thinkest. Thou awaitest the end of +this night of excesses which animates thee cruelly and in<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_127">{127}</a></span> vain, +and, at the first dawn, thou wilt run in the street, with thine +only friend Psyllos, to thy little broken mattress.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_128">{128}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CXVI"></a>CXVI<br><br> +THE WARM GIRDLE</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">“T</span>HOU thinkest thou lovest me no longer, Teleas, and since a month +thou hast passed thy nights at the table, as though the fruits, the +wines, the honey, could make thee forget my lips. Thou thinkest +that thou lovest me no longer, poor fool!”</p> + +<p>Saying that, I loosened my moist girdle and I rolled it about his +head. It was still quite warm with the heat of my body; the perfume +of my skin issued from its fine meshes.</p> + +<p>He breathed it deeply, his eyes closed, then I felt that he +returned to me and I even saw very clearly his reawakening desires +that he hid not from me, but, as a ruse, I resisted him.</p> + +<p>“No, my friend. This evening, Lysippos possesses me. Farewell!” And +I added, as<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_129">{129}</a></span> I fled: “O gormand of fruits and greens! the little +garden of Bilitis has only one fig, but it is good.”</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_130">{130}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CXVII"></a>CXVII<br><br> +TO A HAPPY HUSBAND</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span> ENVY thee, Agorakrites, for having a wife so zealous. It is she +herself who attends to the stable, and in the morning, in place of +making love, she gives drink to the cattle.</p> + +<p>Thou shouldst rejoice in her. How many others, wouldst thou say, +dream of base pleasures, waking the night, sleeping the day, and +yet demanding from adultery a criminal satiety?</p> + +<p>Yes; thy wife labors in the stable. They say even that she has a +thousand tendernesses for the youngest of thine asses. Ah! Ha! +there is a good animal. He has a black spot over his eyes.</p> + +<p>They say that she plays between his hoofs, under his soft gray +belly.... But those who say that are slanderers. If thine ass +pleases her, Agorakrites, it is without doubt that she recalls thy +look in his.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_131">{131}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CXVIII"></a>CXVIII<br><br> +TO A WANDERER</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE love of women is the most beautiful of all that mortals +experience, and thou wouldst think so, Kleo, if thou hadst a truly +voluptuous soul; but thou dreamest only vanities.</p> + +<p>Thou losest thy nights in cherishing youths who are ungrateful to +us. Therefore regard them! How ugly they are! Compare to their +round heads, our thick hair; seek our white breasts upon their +chests.</p> + +<p>Beside their narrow flanks, consider our luxuriant hips, broad, +hollowed couches for lovers. Say, above all, what human lips, +except hers who wishes it, can elaborate the pleasures?</p> + +<p>Thou art sick, O Kleo, but a woman can cure thee. Go to young +Satyra, the daughter<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_132">{132}</a></span> of my neighbor Gorgo. Her croup is a rose of +the sun, and she will not refuse thee the pleasure she herself +prefers.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_133">{133}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CXIX"></a>CXIX<br><br> +INTIMACIES</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">W</span>HY I have become Lesbian, O Bilitis, thou askest? But what player +of the flute is not, a little? I am poor; I have no bed; I lie with +her who wishes me and I thank her with what I have.</p> + +<p>While yet small, we dance naked; those dances, thou knowest them, +my dear: the twelve desires of Aphrodite. We regard each other, we +compare our nudities and we find them so pretty.</p> + +<p>During the long night, we inflame ourselves for the pleasure of the +spectators; but our ardor is not feigned and we feel it so much +that sometimes, behind the doors one of us may animate her +companion who consents.</p> + +<p>How then can we love a man who is rough with us? He seizes us as +girls and leaves us<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_134">{134}</a></span> before the delight. Thou, thou art a woman, +thou knowest what I mean. Thou canst take it as for thyself.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_135">{135}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CXX"></a>CXX<br><br> +THE COMMAND</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">“O</span>LD woman, hear me. I give a festival in three days. It is to +divert me. Thou wilt lend me all thy girls. How many hast thou, and +what can they do?”</p> + +<p>“I have seven. Three dance the Kordax with the scarf and the +phallos. Nephele of the sleek armpits will mimic the love of doves +between her rosy breasts.</p> + +<p>“One singer in a broidered peplos will chant the songs of Rhodes, +accompanied by two auletrides who will have garlands of myrtle +rolled about their brown legs.”</p> + +<p>“It is well. See that they be freshly depilated, laved and perfumed +from head to foot, ready for other games if they are demanded. Go +give the orders. Farewell.”</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_136">{136}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CXXI"></a>CXXI<br><br> +THE FIGURE OF PASIPHAE</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span>N a debauch that two young men and some courtesans made at my +house, where love gushed out like wine, Damalis, in honor of her +name, danced the Figure of Pasiphae.</p> + +<p>She had caused to be made at Kition two masks of a cow and of a +bull, for herself and for Karmantidea. She wore terrible horns, and +a hairy tail upon her croup.</p> + +<p>The other women, led by me, held the flowers and the torches, and +we turned about ourselves with cries and we caressed Damalis with +the tips of our pendent tresses.</p> + +<p>Their lowings and our songs and the dancing of our loins lasted +longer than the night. The empty chamber is still warm. I regard my +reddened knees and the canthares of Kôs where the roses float.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_137">{137}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CXXII"></a>CXXII<br><br> +THE JUGGLER</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">W</span>HEN the first dawn blended with the feeble glimmer of the torches, +I sent into the orgie a flute-player, vicious and agile, who +trembled a little, being cold.</p> + +<p>Praise the little girl of the blue lids, of the short hair, of the +sharp breasts, clad only in a girdle from which hung yellow ribbons +and the stems of black iris.</p> + +<p>Praise her! for she was adroit and performed difficult tricks. She +juggled with hoops, without breaking anything in the room, she +glided through them like a grasshopper.</p> + +<p>Sometimes she made a wheel, bending upon her hands and feet. Or, +with her two legs in the air and her knees apart, she curved +herself backward and touched the ground, laughing.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_138">{138}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CXXIII"></a>CXXIII<br><br> +THE DANCE OF THE FLOWERS</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span>NTHIS, dancing-girl of Lydia, has seven veils about her. She +unrolls the yellow veil, her black hair spreads out. The rosy veil +slips from her mouth. The white veil falls, revealing her naked +arms.</p> + +<p>She releases her little breasts from the red veil that unties +itself. She lets fall the green veil from her double, rounded +croup. She draws the blue veil from her shoulders, but she presses +upon her puberty the last transparent veil.</p> + +<p>The young men supplicate her; she tosses her head backward. Only at +the sound of the flutes, she tears it a little, then, suddenly, and +with the gestures of the dance, she culls the flowers of her body.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_139">{139}</a></span></p> + +<p>Singing: “Where are my roses? where are my perfumed violets! Where +are my tufts of parsley!—Behold my roses, I give them to you. +Behold my violets, will you have them? Behold my fair curled +parsley.”</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_140">{140}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CXXIV"></a>CXXIV<br><br> +VIOLENCE</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">N</span>O, thou shalt not take me by force, count not on that, Lamprias. +If thou hast heard it said that someone violated Parthenis, know +that she gave herself, for one plays not with us without being +invited.</p> + +<p>Oh! do thy best, make efforts. See: it is a failure. I scarcely +defend myself, yet. I will not call for help. And I do not even +struggle; but I stir. Poor friend, it is a failure again.</p> + +<p>Continue. This little game amuses me. The more as I am sure to +conquer. Again an unhappy essay, and perhaps thou wilt be less +disposed to show me thine extinguished desires.</p> + +<p>Butcher, what doest thou! Cur! thou wilt break my wrists! and this +knee, this knee<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_141">{141}</a></span> which opens me! Ah! go, now, it is a fine victory, +that of ravishing a young girl, in tears, upon the ground.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_142">{142}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CXXV"></a>CXXV<br><br> +SONG</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE first gave me a collar, a collar of pearls, worth a city with +its palaces and its temples, and its treasures and its slaves.</p> + +<p>The second made verses for me. He said that my tresses were black +as those of the night and my eyes blue as those of the morning.</p> + +<p>The third was so beautiful that his mother could not embrace him +without reddening. He put his hands upon my knees and his lips upon +my naked foot.</p> + +<p>Thou, thou hast told me nothing, thou hast given me nothing, for +thou art poor. And thou art not beautiful, but it is thee I love.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_143">{143}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CXXVI"></a>CXXVI<br><br> +ADVICE TO A LOVER</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span>F thou wouldst be loved by a woman, O young friend, whoever she +may be, tell her not that thou wishest her, but have her see thee +every day; then disappear, to return.</p> + +<p>If she address her speech to thee, be amorous without eagerness. +She, of herself, will come to thee. But thou must take her by +force, the day when she intends to give herself.</p> + +<p>When thou receivest her in thy bed neglect thine own pleasure. The +hands of an amorous woman are trembling and without caresses. +Excuse them from being zealous.</p> + +<p>But thou, take no repose. Prolong thy kisses to breathlessness. +Allow her no sleep, even though she beg it of thee. Kiss always the +part of her body toward which she turns her eyes.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_144">{144}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CXXVII"></a>CXXVII<br><br> +FRIENDS AT DINNER</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">M</span>YROMERIS and Maskale, my friends, come with me, for I have no +lover this evening and, lying upon beds of byssus, we will converse +over our dinner.</p> + +<p>A night of repose will do you good; you shall sleep in my bed, even +without fards and with unkempt hair. Wear a simple tunic of wool +and leave your jewels in their box.</p> + +<p>No one shall make you dance to admire your legs and the heavy +movements of your loins. No one shall demand the Sacred Figures to +judge whether you are amorous.</p> + +<p>And I have not commanded for us two flute-players with fair mouths, +but two pans of browned peas, cakes of honey, fried croquettes, and +my last leathern bottle of Kôs.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_145">{145}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CXXVIII"></a>CXXVIII<br><br> +THE TOMB OF A YOUNG COURTESAN</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">H</span>ERE lies the delicate body of Lydé, little dove, the most joyous +of all the courtesans, who more than all others loved orgies and +floating hair, soft dances and tunics of hyacinth.</p> + +<p>More than all others she loved the savory glottisms, the caresses +upon her cheek, games that only the lamp saw, and love which +bruised the limbs. And now she is a little shadow.</p> + +<p>But before putting her in the tomb, they have arranged her hair +marvelously and laid her in roses; even the stone which covers her +is all impregnated with essences and perfumes.</p> + +<p>Sacred earth, nurse of all, receive gently the poor dead, let her +sleep in thine arms, O Mother! and make to grow about the stèle, +not nettles and briers, but tender white violets.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_146">{146}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CXXIX"></a>CXXIX<br><br> +THE LITTLE ROSE MERCHANT</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">Y</span>ESTERDAY, Nais said to me, I was in the market when a little girl +in red tatters passed, carrying roses, before a group of young men. +And this is what I heard:</p> + +<p>“Buy something from me.—Explain thyself, little one, for we know +not what thou sellest; thyself? thy roses or all at once?—If you +will buy from me all these flowers, you may have mine for nothing.</p> + +<p>“And how much wishest thou for thy roses?—I must have six oboli +for my mother, else I shall be beaten like a bitch.—Follow us. +Thou shalt have a drachma.—Then, shall I seek my little sister?”</p> + +<p>And both followed those men. They had no breasts, Bilitis. They +knew not even how to smile. They trotted along like two kids which +one leads to the butcher.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_147">{147}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CXXX"></a>CXXX<br><br> +THE DISPUTE</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span>H! by Aphrodite, behold thee! bloody head! rottenness! infection! +sterile one! carcanet! clumsy one! good for nothing! evil sow! Do +not try to escape me; come yet nearer.</p> + +<p>Behold this woman of the sailors, who knows not even how to fold +her garment upon the shoulder and who puts on the fard so badly +that the black of her brows runs over her cheek in floods of ink.</p> + +<p>Thou art Phœnician: lie with those of thy race. As for me, my +father was Hellene: I have right over all those who wear the +petasus. And even over the others if it pleases me so.</p> + +<p>Stop not in my street or I will send thee to Hades to make love +with Karon and I will say very justly: “Let the earth cover thee +lightly,” so that the dogs may dig thee out.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_148">{148}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CXXXI"></a>CXXXI<br><br> +MELANCHOLY</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span> SHIVER; the night is cool, and the forest all wet. Why hast thou +led me here? is my great bed not softer than this moss strewn with +stones?</p> + +<p>My flowery robe will be spotted with verdure; my hair will be +tangled with twigs; my neck; look at my neck, already soiled with +the damp earth.</p> + +<p>Formerly, I followed into the woods he who.... Ah! leave me for a +time. I am sad, this evening. Leave me, without speaking, my hand +over my eyes.</p> + +<p>In truth, canst thou not wait! are we beasts to take each other so! +Leave me. Thou shalt not open my knees nor my lips. Even my eyes +shall stay closed, lest they weep.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_149">{149}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CXXXII"></a>CXXXII<br><br> +THE LITTLE PHANION</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">S</span>TRANGER, pause; see who is signing to thee: it is little Phanion +of Kôs, she merits that thou shouldst choose her.</p> + +<p>See, her hair is curled like parsley, her skin is smooth as the +down of a bird. She is small and brown. She speaks nicely.</p> + +<p>If thou wouldst follow her, she would not demand of thee all the +money from thy voyage: no, only a drachma or a pair of slippers.</p> + +<p>Thou wilt find that she has a good bed, fresh figs, milk, wine, +and, if it be cold, there will be a fire.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_150">{150}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CXXXIII"></a>CXXXIII<br><br> +INDICATIONS</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">P</span>ASSER-by who pauses, if thou wishest slender thighs and nervous +loins, a firm throat, knees that clasp, go to Plango; she is my +friend.</p> + +<p>If thou seekest a laughing girl, with exuberant breasts, delicately +shaped, the croup plump and the loins hollowed, go to the corner of +this street, where Spidhorodellis dwells.</p> + +<p>But if long tranquil hours in the arms of a courtesan, soft skin, +the warmth of the body and the fragrance of the hair please thee, +seek Milto; and thou wilt be content.</p> + +<p>Expect not too much from love; but profit from its experience. One +may demand all from a woman when she is naked, when it is night, +and when the hundred drachmæ are upon the hearth.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_151">{151}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CXXXIV"></a>CXXXIV<br><br> +THE MERCHANT OF WOMEN</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">“W</span>HO is there?—I am the merchant of women. Open the door, +Sostrata, I offer thee two opportunities. This is the first. +Approach, Anasyrtolis, and strip thyself.—She is a trifle large.—</p> + +<p>“She is a beauty. Besides, she dances the Kordax and she knows +eighty songs.—Turn thyself. Raise the arms. Lift the hair. Give me +thy foot. Smile. It is good.—</p> + +<p>“Now this one.—She is too young!—Not at all, she was twelve years +old the day before yesterday and thou wilt teach her +nothing.—Remove thy tunic. Let me see? No, she is thin.—</p> + +<p>“I demand but one mina.—And the first?—Two minæ, thirty.—Three +minæ for the two?—It is said.—Enter here and bathe yourselves. +And thou, farewell.”</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_152">{152}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CXXXV"></a>CXXXV<br><br> +THE STRANGER</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">S</span>TRANGER, go not farther into the city. Thou wilt not find +elsewhere than with me girls younger or more expert. I am Sostrata, +celebrated even beyond the sea.</p> + +<p>See this one whose eyes are green as water in the grass. Thou +wouldst not have her? Here are other eyes which are black as +violets, and hair three cubits long.</p> + +<p>I have better still. Xantho, open thy cyclas. Stranger, these +breasts are hard as quinces; touch them. And her fair belly, thou +seest, carries the three folds of Cypris.</p> + +<p>I bought her with her sister who is not yet of the age for love, +but who will second her usefully. By the two goddesses! thou art of +a noble race. Phyllis and Xantho, follow the illustrious one!</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_153">{153}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CXXXVI"></a>CXXXVI<br><br> +THE REMEMBRANCE OF MNASIDIKA</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HEY danced, one before the other, with rapid, flying movements; +they seemed always wishing to entangle, and yet touched not at all, +unless with the tips of their lips.</p> + +<p>When they turned their backs in dancing, they looked at each other, +the head upon the shoulder, the perspiration gleaming upon their +lifted arms, and their fine hair passing over their breasts.</p> + +<p>The languor of their eyes, the fire of their cheeks, the gravity of +their faces, were three ardent songs. They grazed each other +furtively, they bent their bodies upon their hips.</p> + +<p>And suddenly they fell, to finish the soft dance upon the earth.... +Remembrance of Mnasidika, it was then thou camest to me, and all, +except thy dear image, troubled me.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_154">{154}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CXXXVII"></a>CXXXVII<br><br> +THE YOUNG MOTHER</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">B</span>ELIEVE not, Myromeris, that, in becoming a mother, thou hast +lessened thy beauty. See how thy body, beneath thy robe, has +drowned its slim form in a voluptuous softness.</p> + +<p>Thy breasts are two vast flowers, reversed upon thy chest, whose +cut stems give out a milky sap. Thy softened belly swoons beneath +the hand.</p> + +<p>And now consider the tiny babe born of a quiver which thou didst +feel, one evening, in the arms of a passer-by whose name thou dost +not even know. Dream of her distant destiny.</p> + +<p>Her eyes which now scarcely open will one day be elongated by a +line of black fard, and they will sow among men sorrow or joy by +one movement of their lashes.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_155">{155}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CXXXVIII"></a>CXXXVIII<br><br> +THE UNKNOWN</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">H</span>E sleeps. I know him not. He horrifies me. Nevertheless, his purse +is filled with gold and he gave four drachmæ to the slave on +entering. I expect a mina for myself.</p> + +<p>But I told the Phrygian to enter the bed in my place. He was drunk +and took her for me. I would rather die in torment than stretch +myself out near this man.</p> + +<p>Alas! I dream of the meadows of Tauros.... I was a little +virgin.... Then I had a light heart, and I was so mad with amorous +envy that I hated my married sisters.</p> + +<p>What would I not have done to obtain that which I have refused this +night! Today, my breasts are pliant and in my worn heart, Eros +slumbers from lassitude.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_156">{156}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CXXXIX"></a>CXXXIX<br><br> +THE CHEAT</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span> AWAKEN.... Is he then gone! He has left something! No: two empty +amphoras and some soiled flowers. All the rug is red with wine.</p> + +<p>I have slept, but I am still drunk.... With whom, then, did I +return?... At least, we lay down together. The bed is still steeped +with sweat.</p> + +<p>Perhaps there were several; the bed is so disordered. I know no +more.... But someone saw them! There is my Phrygian. She still +sleeps across the door.</p> + +<p>I give her a kick in the breast and I cry: “Bitch, thou couldst +not....” I am so hoarse that I can say no more.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_157">{157}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CXL"></a>CXL<br><br> +THE LAST LOVER</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">C</span>HILD, do not pass without loving me, I am still beautiful in the +night; thou shalt see how much warmer my autumn is than the +springtime of another.</p> + +<p>Seek not for love from virgins. Love is a difficult art in which +young girls are little versed. I have prepared it all my life to +give it to my last lover.</p> + +<p>My last lover shall be thou; I know it. Behold my mouth, for which +a nation has paled with desire. Behold my hair, the same hair that +Psappha the Great has sung.</p> + +<p>I will gather for thee all that remains of my lost youth. I will +burn even the memories. I will give thee the flute of Lykas, the +girdle of Mnasidika.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_158">{158}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CXLI"></a>CXLI<br><br> +THE DOVE</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">F</span>OR a long time I have been beautiful; the day comes when I shall +no longer be a woman. And then I will know heart-rendering +memories, burning solitary envy and tears in my hands.</p> + +<p>If life is a long dream, of what good to resist? Now, four and five +times a night, I demand amorous enjoyment, and when my loins are +exhausted, I sink asleep wherever my body falls.</p> + +<p>In the morning, I open my eyelids and I shiver in my hair. A dove +is upon my window; I ask of her, in what month we are. She says to +me: “It is the month when women are in love.”</p> + +<p>Ah! whatever be the month, the dove speaks truly, Cypris. And I +throw my two arms<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_159">{159}</a></span> about my lover, and with great tremblings, I +stretch my still benumbed legs to the foot of the bed.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_160">{160}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CXLII"></a>CXLII<br><br> +THE RAIN OF THE MORNING</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE night has worn away. The stars are far away. See, the last +courtesans have returned with their lovers. And I, in the rain of +morning, I write this verse upon the sand.</p> + +<p>The leaves are laden with brilliant water. The rivulets across the +paths drag along the earth and the dead leaves. The rain, drop by +drop, makes holes in my song.</p> + +<p>Oh! how sad and alone I am here! The young regard me not; the old +have forgotten me. It is well. They will learn my verses, and the +children of their children.</p> + +<p>That is what neither Myrtale nor Thais nor Glykera may say, the day +when their fair cheeks deepen with wrinkles. Those who shall love +after me, will sing my strophes together.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_161">{161}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="CXLIII"></a>CXLIII<br><br> +THE TRUE DEATH</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span>PHRODITE; merciless goddess, thou hast willed that, for me also, +the happy youth of beautiful hair shall disappear in a few days. +Why am I not dead now!</p> + +<p>I have regarded myself in my mirror: I have no longer smiles or +tears. O sweet face that loved Mnasidika, I cannot believe that +thou wast mine.</p> + +<p>Can it be that all is ended! I have not yet lived five times eight +years; it seems to me that I was born only yesterday, and now, +behold, I must say: No one will love me more.</p> + +<p>All my cut hair, I have twisted into a girdle, and I offer it to +thee, Cypris eternal! I will never cease to adore thee. This is the +last verse of the pious Bilitis.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_163">{163}</a></span></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_162">{162}</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_164">{164}</a></span></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_165">{165}</a></span></p> +<h2><a id="THE_TOMB_OF_BILITIS"></a>THE TOMB OF BILITIS</h2> + +<h2><a id="FIRST_EPITAPH"></a>FIRST EPITAPH</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span>N the country where the springs rise from the sea, and where the +bed of flowers is made of leaves of rock, I, Bilitis, was born.</p> + +<p>My mother was Phœnician; my father, Damophylos, Hellene. My mother +taught me the songs of Byblos, sad as the first dawn.</p> + +<p>I have adored Astarte at Cypros. I have known Psappha at Lesbos. I +have sung as I have loved. If I have loved well, Passer-by, tell it +to thy daughter.</p> + +<p>And sacrifice not for me a black goat; but in soft libation, press +her teats above my tomb.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_166">{166}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="SECOND_EPITAPH"></a>SECOND EPITAPH</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">U</span>PON the sombre banks of Melos, at Tamassos of Pamphylia, I, +daughter of Damophylos, Bilitis, was born. I repose far from my +native land, thou seest.</p> + +<p>Even as a child, I learned the loves of Adonis and of Astarte, the +mysteries of the holy Serfs, and the death and return to +Her-of-the-rounded-eyes.</p> + +<p>If I have been a courtesan, what is the harm? Was it not my duty as +a woman? Stranger, the Mother-of-all-things guides us. To forget +her is not prudent.</p> + +<p>In gratitude to thee who hast paused, I wish thee this destiny: +Mayest thou be loved, but never love. Farewell; remember thou, in +thine old age, that thou hast seen my tomb.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_167">{167}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="LAST_EPITAPH"></a>LAST EPITAPH</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="nind"><span class="letra">U</span>NDER the black leaves of the laurels, under the amorous blooms of +the roses, it is here that I lie, I who have known how to braid +line with line, and exalt the kiss.</p> + +<p>I grew in the land of the nymphs; I lived in the isle of lovers; I +died in the isle of Cypros. It is for this that my name is +illustrious and my stèle cleaned with oil.</p> + +<p>Weep not for me, thou who pausest; they made me fair funeral rites; +the weepers bruised their cheeks; they have laid in my tomb my +mirrors and my necklaces.</p> + +<p>And now, over the pale meadows of asphodel, I walk, an impalpable +shadow, and the remembrance of my earthly life is the joy of my +life in the underworld.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_169">{169}</a></span></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_168">{168}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="BIBLIOGRAPHY"></a>BIBLIOGRAPHY</h2> + +<p>I. Bilitis’ saemmtliche Lieder zum ersten Male herausgegeben und mit +einem Woerterbuche versehen, von G. Heim.—Leipzig. 1894.</p> + +<p>II. Les Chansons de Bilitis, traduites du Grec pour la première fois par +P. L. Paris. 1895.</p> + +<p>III. Six Chansons de Bilitis, traduites en vers par Mme. Jean +Bertheroy.—Revue pour les jeunes filles. Paris. Armand Colin. 1896.</p> + +<p>IV. Vingt-six Chansons de Bilitis, traduites en allemand par Richard +Dehmel.—Die Gesellschaft. Zeitung. 1896.</p> + +<p>V. Vingt Chansons de Bilitis, traduites en allemand par le Dr. Paul +Goldmann. Frankfurter Zeitung. 1896.</p> + +<p>VI. Les Chansons de Bilitis, par le Pr. von +Willamovitz-Moellendorf.—Goettingsche Gelehrte—Goettingen. 1896.</p> + +<p>VII. Huit Chansons de Bilitis, traduites en tcheque par Alexandre +Backovsky.—Prague. 1897.</p> + +<p>VIII. Quatre Chansons de Bilitis, traduites en suédois par Gustav +Uddgren.—Nordisk Revy.—Stockholm. 1897.</p> + +<p>IX. Trois Chansons de Bilitis, mises en musique par Claude +Debussy.—Paris. Fromont. 1898.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_171">{171}</a></span><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_170">{170}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a id="NOTES_AND_COMMENT"></a>NOTES AND COMMENT</h2> + +<p class="nind">“Translated from the Greek.”</p> + +<p>The antique sketches here rendered in English, some of which possess +great beauty, appeared first, in French, in 1894, bearing the legend +“Translated from the Greek.” This feeling of translation the Author +attempted to strengthen by recording, in his Index, certain “songs” +marked “not translated” which, as a matter of fact, never existed. It is +extremely doubtful, however, whether anyone really acquainted with the +Greek Poets was misled, even for a moment. Internal evidence often +points to modern thought and ideas; and a number of the pieces, if not +exactly “translated” are at least adapted from epigrams by various +writers of established place in the Greek Anthology. These would at once +indicate “Bilitis” as an imaginary personage.</p> + +<p>In the following notes, some of the more important of the direct +translations and paraphrases from antique writers have been indicated, +with an occasional comment, for the convenience and interest of the +reader.</p> + +<p>The English translation itself is complete and has been kept in close +parallel with the French<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_172">{172}</a></span> text, except for a few changes in tense which +seemed advisable.</p> + +<p class="r"> +M. S. B.<br> +</p> + +<h2>LIFE OF BILITIS</h2> + +<p class="nind"> +“Psappha.”<br> +</p> + +<p>No authority is evident for the statement that Sappho was known at +Lesbos under the name of “Psappha.”</p> + +<p>It seems likely, from Pierre Louÿs’ general attitude toward the +“Poetess” and his description of her in XLVI, that at the time he wrote +the Songs of Bilitis he was either indifferently acquainted with the +known facts of Sappho’s life or deliberately chose, with some other +modern writers, to disregard or misunderstand them. Dr. Horace +Manchester Brown, in the Preface to his translation of the present work +(Aldus Society. 1904) remarks that “the translator has felt that such a +protest (in defense of Sappho by a professor of Göttingen) and such a +defense were unnecessary and has believed that the beauty of the +pictures presented by many of the songs is sufficient excuse for their +existence....” A few words on the subject of Sappho seem desirable, +however, since it cannot be assumed that all the readers of this volume +are familiar with the facts of Sappho’s life.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_173">{173}</a></span></p> + +<p>On the testimony of many writers of antiquity—who, at least, had more +on which to base an opinion than we have—the description in XLVI of “ +... her hair cut like that of an athlete ... virile breast ... narrow +hips,” and, as assumed, ready to prey lasciviously upon any passer-by, +becomes ridiculous and defamatory. Sappho’s brother, Larichus, was +public cup-bearer at Mytilene, an office held only by young men of noble +birth. She herself, “violet-weaving, pure, soft-smiling” as Alcæus says, +although “small and dark” according to Maximus Tyrius, was, according to +her own words, “of a quiet temper” and in all probability was married +and mother of a daughter named Cleis whom she mentions in an extant +fragment (72), which, considering the personal tone of so many of her +poems, may be taken as something more than a poetic fancy; “I have a +fair daughter with a form like a golden flower, Cleis the beloved, above +whom I prize nor all Lydia nor lovely Lesbos.” (Wharton.) Philoxemus +describes her as “sweet-voiced.” Damocharis, in the Anthology (Plan. +App. XVI-310) describes her picture in glowing terms: “Her eyes overflow +with brilliance, showing a fancy rich in happy images. Her skin, smooth +and not too reddened, shows simplicity; and the blended gaiety and +gravity of her features proclaims the union, in her, of the Muse and +Cypris.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_174">{174}</a></span>”</p> + +<p>That she gathered about her a society of maidens to whom she taught the +art of poetry, is well known; the names of many of her pupils and +friends have been preserved in fragments of her verse. How much farther +her friendships were carried, as indicated in the poems, will always be +a matter for speculation; but that she was a charming, lovely woman, +sufficiently reserved, of perfect maturity and free from petty or +promiscuous vice seems undeniable. Otherwise, we may be sure the writers +of antiquity would have treated her with far less veneration and +respect.</p> + +<p>  </p> + +<p>“A verse of Sappho.”</p> + +<p>This is the verse placed by Pierre Louÿs at the beginning of “Elegiacs +in Mytilene.”</p> + +<p>  </p> + +<p>“Phryne.”</p> + +<p>The crime of which Phryne was accused, and for which she was tried +before the Areopagos at Athens, was of profaning the Eleusinian +Mysteries—a crime even more serious than Pierre Louÿs’ “murder.”</p> + +<p>  </p> + +<p>“Apelles revealed his Anadyomene.”</p> + +<p>Pierre Louÿs writes “entrevit la forme.” Apelles was a painter.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_175">{175}</a></span></p> + +<p>  </p> + +<p>XIV “Melissa.”</p> + +<p>That is: “bee.” Marcus Argentarius has an epigram in the Anthology using +the word (Anth. Pal. V-32): “Melissa is thy name and truly so, as my +heart bears witness. Thy soft lips sweeten thy kisses with honey, but +thou also piercest with a cruel sting.”</p> + +<h3>BUCOLICS IN PAMPHYLIA</h3> + +<p>XVI “Like a cup with two handles.”</p> + +<p>The “amphora kiss,” as though one drank the kiss from a beaker.</p> + +<p>  </p> + +<p>XXXVI “My father.”</p> + +<p>An oversight, as Pierre Louÿs says in the “Life of Bilitis,” she seems +never to have known her father for he is not mentioned ...” See also the +First and Second Epitaphs.</p> + +<p>  </p> + +<p>XLII “First dawn.”</p> + +<p>Execrations of the morning light were popular among the Greek amatory +poets. See Meleager (Anth. Pal. V-172): “Star of Morning, enemy of +lovers, why shinest thou so quickly upon the couch where, a moment +since, I lay warm with Demo?...”</p> + +<p>  </p> + +<p>XLIII “The trunks of the pines.”</p> + +<p>The same thought in the “Song of Songs” (Song<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_176">{176}</a></span> of Solomon) I-17: “The +beams of our house are of cedar and our rafters of fir.”</p> + +<h2>ELEGIACS AT MYTILENE</h2> + +<p>John Addington Symonds in his “Problem in Greek Ethics” (London. 1901. +pp 71-72) remarks: “Lesbian passion, as the Greeks called it, never +obtained the same social sanction as boy-love. It is significant that +Greek Mythology offers no legends of the goddesses parallel to those +which consecrated paederastia among the male deities. Again, we have no +recorded example, so far as I can remember, of noble friendships between +women rising into political and historical prominence.... The Greeks, +while tolerating, regarded it rather as an eccentricity of nature, or a +vice, than as an honourable and socially useful emotion.... There is an +important passage in the ‘Amores’ of Lucian which proves that the Greeks +felt an abhorrence of sexual inversion among women similar to that which +moderns feel for its manifestation among men.... And ... while the love +of males for males in Greece obtained moralisation, and reached the high +position of a recognized social function, the love of female for female +remained undeveloped and unhonoured,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_177">{177}</a></span> on the same level as both forms of +homosexual passion in the modern European world are.”</p> + +<p>The exposition, perhaps beyond decorum, of Lesbian love in this section +of the Songs of Bilitis has no parallel in all Greek literature where +references to the subject are very few.</p> + +<p>  </p> + +<p>LXXI “My throat becomes dry.”</p> + +<p>See Sappho, Frag. 2. (Wharton): “ ... For when I see thee but a little, +I have no utterance left, my tongue is broken down, and straightway a +subtle fire has run under my skin. With my eyes I have no sight, my ears +ring, sweat pours down, and a trembling seizes all my body; I am paler +than grass, and seem in my madness little better than one dead....”</p> + +<p>  </p> + +<p>LXXV “The object.”</p> + +<p>See the sixth mime of Herondas (too long to reproduce here) translated +in Symonds’ “Studies of the Greek Poets” (Third edition. 1893. II-237). +This mime describes a visit between two women in reference to the same +sort of object sought by Bilitis’ friend. One of Herondas’ ladies +remarks, about her leather worker, “He works at his own house and sells +on the sly ... but the things he makes, they’re like Athene’s handiwork +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_178">{178}</a></span>... a cobbler more kindly disposed toward the female sex you would not +find....” The price was “fourpence.”</p> + +<p>  </p> + +<p>LXXXI “Thy hair is moist.”</p> + +<p>See Meleager (Anth. Pal. V-175): “Truly, thou betrayest thyself; thy +locks, still moist with perfumes, denounce thy dissolute life; thine +eyes, heavy with fatigue, show well how thy night has been passed; this +coronal upon thy forehead reveals the festival; this disordered hair +shows the path of amorous hands; and all thy body staggers under the +vapors of the wine....”</p> + +<p>  </p> + +<p>LXXXIII “For whom, now, shall I paint my lips?”</p> + +<p>See Paulus Silentiarius (Anth. Pal. V-228): “For whom shall I curl my +hair? for whom trim my nails? for whom perfume my hands? To what end +this purple-banded cloak, since I go not to beautiful Rhodopis?...”</p> + +<h3>EPIGRAMS IN THE ISLAND OF CYPROS</h3> + +<p>XCIV “Thyrses.”</p> + +<p>These were long rods, often surmounted by a pine cone, carried by +votaries of Dionysos. Too long to be used as drum-sticks.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_179">{179}</a></span></p> + +<p>  </p> + +<p>CI “Conversation.”</p> + +<p>See Philodemos (Anth. Pal. V-46): “I salute thee.—I salute thee +also.—What is thy name?—And thine? Thou mayest know mine later.—Thou +art in a hurry?—And thou art not?—Hast thou someone?—I have always my +lover.—Wilt thou eat dinner with me to-day?—If thou wishest.—Good. +What shall I give thee?—Give me nothing in advance.—That is +strange.—But when the night is over, give what thou wishest.—Thou art +a just girl. Where is thy dwelling? I will send for thee.—I will show +thee.—And when wilt thou come?—At once, if thou wishest—At once, +then.—Lead the way.”</p> + +<p>  </p> + +<p>CIII “A girdle of silver plates.”</p> + +<p>See Asclepiades (Anth. Pal. V-158): “Upon a day, I played with facile +Hermione. Like the Goddess, she wore a girdle broidered with flowers; +and on it I read, in letters of gold: Love me, but grieve not if I give +myself to another.”</p> + +<p>  </p> + +<p>CIX “Athena.”</p> + +<p>Artemis was more likely to be seen bathing, with disastrous results to +the spectator, as noted in the legend of Actæon.</p> + +<p>  </p> + +<p>CXXIX “The little Rose Merchant.”</p> + +<p>See Dionysius (Anth. Pal. V-81): “Little vendor<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_180">{180}</a></span> of roses, thou art fair +as thine own flowers. But what sellest thou? thyself? or thy roses? or +both together?”</p> + +<p>  </p> + +<p>CXXXII “She has a good bed.”</p> + +<p>See Antipater (Anth. Pal. V-109): “For a drachma one may have Europa the +Athenian, without fear of rivals or refusals. She has a soft bed and, if +the night is cold, a fire. Surely, O Zeus, there was no need for thee to +make thyself a bull!”</p> + +<p>  </p> + +<p>CXL “My autumn.”</p> + +<p>See Paulus Silentiarius (Anth. Pal. V-258): “Philinna, thy wrinkles are +preferable to the fresh tints of young girls. I love less in my hands +their straight, hard breasts than thine which incline like full-blown +roses. Thine autumn is fairer than their springtime; their summer is +colder than thy time of snows.”</p> + +<p>  </p> + +<p>CXLIII “The True Death.”</p> + +<p>Compare Rufinus (Anth. Pal. V-76): “Once I had soft skin, firm breasts +and pretty feet; my body was supple, mine eyebrows arched, my hair +undulating. Time has changed all. Not one treasure of my youth +remains....”</p> + +<p>For the theme developed, see François Villon’s “Les regrets de la belle +Heaulmière.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_181">{181}</a></span>”</p> + +<h2><a id="INDEX"></a>INDEX</h2> + +<table> +<tr><th colspan="3">BUCOLICS IN PAMPHYLIA</th></tr> +<tr><td></td><td><a href="#LIFE_OF_BILITIS">Life of Bilitis</a></td><td class="rt"><a href="#LIFE_OF_BILITIS">iii</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#I">I.</a></td><td> The Tree</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_3">3</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#II">II.</a></td><td> Pastoral Song</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_4">4</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#III">III.</a></td><td> Maternal Advice</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_5">5</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#IV">IV.</a></td><td> The Naked Feet</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_6">6</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#V">V.</a></td><td> The Old Man and the Nymphs</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_7">7</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#VI">VI.</a></td><td> Song</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_8">8</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#VII">VII.</a></td><td> The Passer-By</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_9">9</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#VIII">VIII.</a></td><td> The Awakening</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_10">10</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#IX">IX.</a></td><td> The Rain</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_11">11</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#X">X.</a></td><td> The Flowers</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_12">12</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XI">XI.</a></td><td> Impatience</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_13">13</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XII">XII.</a></td><td> Comparisons</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_14">14</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XIII">XIII.</a></td><td> The Forest River</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_15">15</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XIV">XIV.</a></td><td> Come, Melissa</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_16">16</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XV">XV.</a></td><td> The Symbolic Ring</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_17">17</a> + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_182">{182}</a></span></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XVI">XVI.</a></td><td> Dances by Moonlight</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_18">18</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XVII">XVII.</a></td><td> The Little Children</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_19">19</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XVIII">XVIII.</a></td><td> The Stories</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_20">20</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XIX">XIX.</a></td><td> The Married Friend</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_21">21</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XX">XX.</a></td><td> Confidences</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_22">22</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XXI">XXI.</a></td><td> The Moon with Eyes of Blue</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_23">23</a></td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td><span style="margin-left: .25em;">* Reflections (not translated)</span></td><td>  </td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XXII">XXII.</a></td><td> Song</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_24">24</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XXIII">XXIII.</a></td><td> Lykas</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_25">25</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XXIV">XXIV.</a></td><td> The Offering to the Goddess</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_26">26</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XXV">XXV.</a></td><td> The Complaisant Friend</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_27">27</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XXVI">XXVI.</a></td><td> A Prayer to Persephone</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_28">28</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XXVII">XXVII.</a></td><td> The Game of Dice</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_29">29</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XXVIII">XXVIII.</a></td><td> The Distaff</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_30">30</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XXIX">XXIX.</a></td><td> The Flute</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_31">31</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XXX">XXX.</a></td><td> The Hair</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_32">32</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XXXI">XXXI.</a></td><td> The Cup</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_33">33</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XXXII">XXXII.</a></td><td> Roses in the Night</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_34">34</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XXXIII">XXXIII.</a></td><td> Remorse</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_35">35</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XXXIV">XXXIV.</a></td><td> The Interrupted Sleep</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_36">36</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XXXV">XXXV.</a></td><td> The Wash-woman</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_37">37</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XXXVI">XXXVI.</a></td><td> Song</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_38">38</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XXXVII">XXXVII.</a></td><td> Bilitis</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_39">39</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XXXVIII">XXXVIII.</a></td><td> The Little House</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_40">40</a></td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td><span style="margin-left: .25em;">* Pleasure (not translated)</span></td><td>  </td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XXXIX">XXXIX.</a></td><td> The Lost Letter</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_41">41</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XL">XL.</a></td><td> Song</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_42">42</a> + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_183">{183}</a></span></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XLI">XLI.</a></td><td> The Oath</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_43">43</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XLII">XLII.</a></td><td> The Night</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_44">44</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XLIII">XLIII.</a></td><td> Cradle-Song</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_45">45</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XLIV">XLIV.</a></td><td> The Tomb of the Naiads</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_46">46</a></td></tr> + +<tr><th colspan="3">ELEGIACS AT MYTILENE</th></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XLV">XLV.</a></td><td> To the Vessel</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_49">49</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XLVI">XLVI.</a></td><td> Psappha</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_50">50</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XLVII">XLVII.</a></td><td> The Dance of Glottis and Kyse</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_51">51</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XLVIII">XLVIII.</a></td><td> Counsels</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_52">52</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XLIX">XLIX.</a></td><td> Uncertainty</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_53">53</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#L">L.</a></td><td> The Meeting</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_54">54</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LI">LI.</a></td><td> The Little Terra Cotta Astarte</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_55">55</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LII">LII.</a></td><td> Desire</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_56">56</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LIII">LIII.</a></td><td> The Wedding</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_57">57</a></td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td><span style="margin-left: .25em;">* The Bed (not translated)</span></td><td>  </td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LIV">LIV.</a></td><td> The Past Which Survives</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_58">58</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LV">LV.</a></td><td> Metamorphosis</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_59">59</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LVI">LVI.</a></td><td> The Nameless Tomb</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_60">60</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LVII">LVII.</a></td><td> The Three Beauties of Mnasidika</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_61">61</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LVIII">LVIII.</a></td><td> The Cave of the Nymphs</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_62">62</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LIX">LIX.</a></td><td> Mnasidika’s Breasts</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_63">63</a></td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td><span style="margin-left: .25em;">* Contemplation (not translated)</span></td><td>  </td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LX">LX.</a></td><td> The Doll</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_64">64</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LXI">LXI.</a></td><td> Tendernesses</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_65">65</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LXII">LXII.</a></td><td> Games</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_66">66</a></td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td><span style="margin-left: .25em;">* Episode (not translated)</span></td><td>  +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_184">{184}</a></span> </td></tr> + +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LXIII">LXIII.</a></td><td> Penumbra</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_67">67</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LXIV">LXIV.</a></td><td> The Sleeper</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_68">68</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LXV">LXV.</a></td><td> The Kiss</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_69">69</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LXVI">LXVI.</a></td><td> Jealous Care</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_70">70</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LXVII">LXVII.</a></td><td> The Despairing Embrace</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_71">71</a></td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td><span style="margin-left: .25em;">* Recovery (not translated)</span></td><td>  </td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LXVIII">LXVIII.</a></td><td> The Heart</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_72">72</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LXIX">LXIX.</a></td><td> Words in the Night</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_73">73</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LXX">LXX.</a></td><td> Absence</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_74">74</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LXXI">LXXI.</a></td><td> Love</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_75">75</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LXXII">LXXII.</a></td><td> Purification</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_76">76</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LXXIII">LXXIII.</a></td><td> The Cradle of Mnasidika</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_77">77</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LXXIV">LXXIV.</a></td><td> A Promenade by the Sea</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_78">78</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LXXV">LXXV.</a></td><td> The Object</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_79">79</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LXXVI">LXXVI.</a></td><td> Evening Near the Fire</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_81">81</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LXXVII">LXXVII.</a></td><td> Supplications</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_82">82</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LXXVIII">LXXVIII.</a></td><td> The Eyes</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_83">83</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LXXIX">LXXIX.</a></td><td> Fards</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_84">84</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LXXX">LXXX.</a></td><td> The Silence of Mnasidika</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_85">85</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LXXXI">LXXXI.</a></td><td> Scene</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_86">86</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LXXXII">LXXXII.</a></td><td> Waiting</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_87">87</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LXXXIII">LXXXIII.</a></td><td> Solitude</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_88">88</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LXXXIV">LXXXIV.</a></td><td> A Letter</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_89">89</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LXXXV">LXXXV.</a></td><td> The Attempt</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_90">90</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LXXXVI">LXXXVI.</a></td><td> The Effort</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_91">91</a></td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td><span style="margin-left: .25em;">* Myrrhine (not translated)</span></td><td>  </td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LXXXVII">LXXXVII.</a></td><td> Gyrinno</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_92">92</a> + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_185">{185}</a></span></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LXXXVIII">LXXXVIII.</a></td><td> The Last Essay</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_93">93</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#LXXXIX">LXXXIX.</a></td><td> The Wounding Memory</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_95">95</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XC">XC.</a></td><td> To the Wax Doll</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_96">96</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XCI">XCI.</a></td><td> Funeral Chant</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_97">97</a></td></tr> + +<tr><th colspan="3">EPIGRAMS IN THE ISLAND OF CYPROS</th></tr> + +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XCII">XCII.</a></td><td> Hymn to the Astarte</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_101">101</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XCIII">XCIII.</a></td><td> Hymn to the Night</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_102">102</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XCIV">XCIV.</a></td><td> The Menades</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_103">103</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XCV">XCV.</a></td><td> The Sea of Cypris</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_104">104</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XCVI">XCVI.</a></td><td> The Priestesses of Astarte</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_105">105</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XCVII">XCVII.</a></td><td> The Mysteries</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_106">106</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XCVIII">XCVIII.</a></td><td> The Egyptian Courtesans</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_107">107</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XCIX">XCIX.</a></td><td> I Sing of My Flesh and My Life</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_108">108</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#C">C.</a></td><td> The Perfumes</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_109">109</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CI">CI.</a></td><td> Conversation</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_110">110</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CII">CII.</a></td><td> The Torn Robe</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_111">111</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CIII">CIII.</a></td><td> The Jewels</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_112">112</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CIV">CIV.</a></td><td> The Indifferent One</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_113">113</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CV">CV.</a></td><td> Pure Water of the Basin</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_114">114</a></td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td><span style="margin-left: .25em;">* Nocturnal Festival (not translated)</span></td><td>  </td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CVI">CVI.</a></td><td> Voluptuousness</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_115">115</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CVII">CVII.</a></td><td> The Inn</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_117">117</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CVIII">CVIII.</a></td><td> The Servants</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_118">118</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CIX">CIX.</a></td><td> The Bath</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_119">119</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CX">CX.</a></td><td> To Her Breasts</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_120">120</a> + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_186">{186}</a></span></td></tr> + +<tr><td></td><td><span style="margin-left: .25em;">* Liberty (not translated)</span></td><td>  </td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CXI">CXI.</a></td><td> Mydzouris</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_121">121</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CXII">CXII.</a></td><td> The Triumph of Bilitis</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_122">122</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CXIII">CXIII.</a></td><td> To the God of the Woods</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_123">123</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CXIV">CXIV.</a></td><td> The Dancing-Girl with Crotales</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_124">124</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CXV">CXV.</a></td><td> The Flute-Player</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_126">126</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CXVI">CXVI.</a></td><td> The Warm Girdle</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_128">128</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CXVII">CXVII.</a></td><td> To a Happy Husband</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_130">130</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CXVIII">CXVIII.</a></td><td> To a Wanderer</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_131">131</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CXIX">CXIX.</a></td><td> Intimacies</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_133">133</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CXX">CXX.</a></td><td> The Command</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_135">135</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CXXI">CXXI.</a></td><td> The Figure of Pasiphae</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_136">136</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CXXII">CXXII.</a></td><td> The Juggler</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_137">137</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CXXIII">CXXIII.</a></td><td> The Dance of the Flowers</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_138">138</a></td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td><span style="margin-left: .25em;">* The Dance of Satyra (not translated)</span></td><td>  </td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td><span style="margin-left: .25em;">* Mudzouris Crowned (not translated)</span></td><td>  </td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CXXIV">CXXIV.</a></td><td> Violence</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_140">140</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CXXV">CXXV.</a></td><td> Song</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_142">142</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CXXVI">CXXVI.</a></td><td> Advice to a Lover</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_143">143</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CXXVII">CXXVII.</a></td><td> Friends at Dinner</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_144">144</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CXXVIII">CXXVIII.</a></td><td> The Tomb of a Young Courtesan</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_145">145</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CXXIX">CXXIX.</a></td><td> The Little Rose Merchant</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_146">146</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CXXX">CXXX.</a></td><td> The Dispute</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_147">147</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CXXXI">CXXXI.</a></td><td> Melancholy</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_148">148</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CXXXII">CXXXII.</a></td><td> The Little Phanion</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_149">149</a> + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_187">{187}</a></span></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CXXXIII">CXXXIII.</a></td><td> Indications</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_150">150</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CXXXIV">CXXXIV.</a></td><td> The Merchant of Women</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_151">151</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CXXXV">CXXXV.</a></td><td> The Stranger</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_152">152</a></td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td><span style="margin-left: .25em;">* Phyllis (not translated)</span></td><td>  </td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CXXXVI">CXXXVI.</a></td><td> The Remembrance of Mnasidika</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_153">153</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CXXXVII">CXXXVII.</a></td><td> The Young Mother</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_154">154</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CXXXVIII">CXXXVIII.</a></td><td> The Unknown</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_155">155</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CXXXIX">CXXXIX.</a></td><td> The Cheat</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_156">156</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CXL">CXL.</a></td><td> The Last Lover</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_157">157</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CXLI">CXLI.</a></td><td> The Dove</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_158">158</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CXLII">CXLII.</a></td><td> The Rain of the Morning</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_160">160</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CXLIII">CXLIII.</a></td><td> The True Death</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_161">161</a></td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td>The Tomb of Bilitis</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_163">163</a></td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td>First Epitaph</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_165">165</a></td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td>Second Epitaph</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_166">166</a></td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td>Third Epitaph</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_167">167</a></td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td>Bibliography</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_169">169</a></td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td>Notes and Comment</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_171">171</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>Note: The Songs marked * are marked in the French index, “not +translated,” and do not appear in the French text.</p> + +<p class="r"> +M. S. B.<br> +</p> + +<hr class="full"> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76646 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + diff --git a/76646-h/images/colophon.png b/76646-h/images/colophon.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b04e1d3 --- /dev/null +++ b/76646-h/images/colophon.png diff --git a/76646-h/images/cover.jpg b/76646-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5bc9200 --- /dev/null +++ b/76646-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/76646-h/images/frontispiece.png b/76646-h/images/frontispiece.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..45ba001 --- /dev/null +++ b/76646-h/images/frontispiece.png |
