Two More Lyrics of Philodemus of Gadara, Translated by Joseph S. Salemi

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Lyrics

by Philodemus of Gadara
translated from Greek by Joseph S. Salemi

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V.13

Charito is past sixty, and yet still
Her lustrous black hair falls in thick cascades;
Still those ungirdled breasts stand firm and white
As marble cones upon her naked chest;
Still that flawless skin of hers breathes forth
Ambrosial inducements, and ten thousand charms.
Lovers who do not flinch from passion’s flame,
Go to her, and forget about her years.

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V.46

Hello there, honey.  And hello to you.
What do they call you?  I’ll ask you that too.
Please—no probing questions.  Fine with me.
Got a date yet?  No, I’m fancy-free.
Come on back to my place?  Sure, you bet.
Fine—what will this cost me?  Don’t pay yet.
That’s a new one!  Once we’ve hit the hay,
Pay me what you think I’m worth.  OK!
Where do you live? I’ll call.  Here’s my address.
When can you come and see me?  Take a guess:
Available all hours, night and day.
I want you right now, honey.  Lead the way.

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Additional Notes on Philodemus

Philodemus of Gadara was a polymathic figure who wrote on dozens of subjects: ethics, rhetoric, politics, music, literature, theology, vices and virtues, and commentary on past and contemporary philosophers. Everything seems to have interested him, and he certainly suffered from what Juvenal called cacoethes scribendi (the maddened impulse to write).

Poetry for an energetic intellectual like Philodemus seems to have been more of a relaxation from serious research, or a temporary amusement. As would be expected of an Epicurean philosopher, his main poetic subjects are the pleasures of eating, drinking, conversation, love-making, and female beauty. Much of it is conventional, just as much Renaissance sonnetry is often predictable and clichéd. There’s nothing wrong with that, since poets have always worked with inherited modes and styles that have proven useful in the hands of their predecessors, and repetition is no bar to excellence.

When I choose a poem for translation, my choice is determined by two things: first, can the poem be put into elegant English idiom without doing severe violence to its meaning; and second, will I be able to maintain the tone and mood of the original, rather than bending those precious things into some cacophonous modernization? But in these two poems, a third issue came to mind. I chose these two poems of Philodemus to translate and place together because they look at sexual desire from two different angles, and reveal something about the poet’s attitudes. Let me explain.

The first poem here, about the older woman Charito, refers to an elderly hetaira who, despite her years, is still sexually voluptuous. Philodemus the Epicurean was not a simple-minded sensualist who looked only for immediate gratification with a youthful female, but someone who knew that pleasure could be found in many places and many objects. A rational, calm and self-possessed Epicurean could satisfy himself in a multiplicity of ways, unlike the hotheaded and lust-driven young man whose bestial needs would drive him blindly. Charito is living proof that sexual desire and allure can be vibrantly alive in a person of any age.

The second poem is markedly different. Like the first piece it is written in elegiac couplets, but the poem is a recorded dialogue between a man and a prostitute meeting in some public area. She is not a high-class courtesan, but a simple streetwalker. This poem was difficult to translate because it had to be cast in the form of a dialogue, and the words of the two speakers sometimes jump the boundaries of a line. My translation is in iambic pentameter rhyming couplets, but it was necessary to add line spaces, italics, and HE and SHE markers, to indicate the conversation.

In this poem we see a strongly aroused man accosting an attractive prostitute who is well aware that she holds the winning hand in this encounter. The man wants her badly. She banters flirtatiously with him for a bit, but it is clear he will do anything to purchase her company, and her rather cavalier attitude about the price is in itself meant to inflame his lust (he will probably

shell out quite a lot for her favors). Unlike the first poem, this one serves as an illustration of an unthinking Epicureanism—one without the calmness, the rationality, or the ataraxia that we saw in the speaker of the first poem.

We have no idea if Philodemus intended to pair these pieces, since the Greek Anthology was gathered and put together by the hands of editors that came centuries later. In fact, it is a good bet that each poem was composed separately by the writer, with no other intention except to express his ideas of the moment in lucid Attic Greek. He may have composed these two poems years apart. But like any competent philosopher, Philodemus could see the same subject from different angles. These two pieces suggest that even within a hedonistic philosophy such as Epicureanism, there were higher and lower levels of sophistication.

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Joseph S. Salemi has published five books of poetry, and his poems, translations and scholarly articles have appeared in over one hundred publications world-wide.  He is the editor of the literary magazine TRINACRIA and writes for Expansive Poetry On-line. He teaches in the Department of Humanities at New York University and in the Department of Classical Languages at Hunter College.