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

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Two Lyrics

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

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V.124

Summertime has not yet cast off her buds
Nor has the grape bunch turned to purple for you,
The one near bursting with its maiden bloom.

Already the young Cupids are at work
Whetting swift arrows, dear Lysidice.
Unseen fire is alight and smouldering.

We who are sick with love have cause to flee
While the deadly shafts are still unnocked,
For I prophesy a sudden conflagration.

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XI.34

No more white flowers, no, nor tuneful songs,
Nor Chian wines and myrrh from Syria.
Away with revels and the tipsy whores—
I hate the things that lead the way to frenzy.

But bind my brow with plain narcissus wreaths,
Give me a small taste of the curving flutes,
Anoint my limbs with saffron-tinted unguents,
Let me swig the Mytilenean wine,
And pair me with a bashful virgin girl
Ensconced at home, and dwelling there content.

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Translator’s Note

Philodemus of Gadara (circa 110 – 30 B.C.) has a reputation as an important late Epicurean philosopher, but he also left a small body of highly accomplished Greek poetry in the epigrammatic style. By this it is meant that his poems are short, precise, highly polished, and emotionally intense. He can be comic, playful, and erotic as well.

Philodemus was born in Gadara, in his day a significant center of Hellenistic culture and learning. The city had been founded by Macedonian Greek soldiers from the army of Alexander the Great, and was a crucial strategic fortification and a major mercantile location, with membership in the Decapolis league of Hellenistic cities. Today it is just a small town on the Jordanian-Syrian border.

He was something of a celebrity in his time, and was said to have had a major influence on both Vergil and Horace, perhaps as a teacher. He spoke Latin, and was a friend of the orator Cicero and the politician L. Calpurnius Piso. Philodemus lived in Rome, and at different times in other Italian cities, including Herculaneum. In fact, the Villa of Papyri in Herculaneum is thought by some scholars to have been his home, since the partially carbonized library of papyrus scrolls found there is made up largely of his philosophical writings, a number of which have been painstakingly preserved and published. Unfortunately, no poems of Philodemus have been found among these burnt papyrus scrolls.

Philodemus lived at a time when the Hellenistic culture of the Mediterranean world, with its intense learning, literary excellence, and highly developed culture, was having a major effect on Roman thinking and attitudes. The great Library of Alexandria, with its massive collection of Greek texts in literature, history, and philosophy, had been established by the Greek-speaking Ptolemaic Pharaohs of Egypt more than a century before Philodemus’s birth. It was one of the major intellectual centers of that time, and can be seen as symbolic of the milieu of Philodemus—a world of well-read scholarly poets, editors, and researchers writing in the purest Attic Greek, and being conversant with the entire range of surviving written texts.

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Young Cupids: these are early forms of the Renaissance Italian putti, small boy-child figures with wings representing the god Eros in his capacity as the promoter of desire.

Lysidice: the name of several women in Greek mythology. Here it is simply the name of the female addressee, either the speaker’s lover or a woman he wishes to seduce.

Chian wine: an extremely expensive wine from the island of Chios, associated with luxury and extravagance.

Mytilenean wine: a sweet wine from the island of Lesbos, also expensive.

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Original Greek text:

V.124

οὔπω σοι καλύκων γυμνὸν θέρος, οὐδὲ μελαίνε
βότρυς ὁ παρθενίους πρωτοβολῶν χάριτας:
ἀλλ’ ἤδη θοὰ τόξα νέοι θήγουσιν Ἔρωτες,
Λυσιδίκη, καὶ πῦρ τύφεται ἐγκρυφιον.
φεύγωμεν, δυσέρωτες, ἓως βέλος οὐκ ἐπὶ νευρῇ:
μάντις ἐγὼ μεγάλης αὐτίκα πυρκαϊῆς.

XI.34

Λευκοῒνους πάλι δή καὶ ψάλματα καὶ πάλι Χίους
οἴνους, καὶ πάλι δή σμύρναν ἒχειν Συρίην,
καὶ πάλι κωμάζειν, καὶ ἒχειν πάλι διψάδα πόρνην
οὐκ ἐθέλω: μισῶ ταὺτα τὰ πρòς μανίην.
ἀλλά με ναρκίσσοις ἀναδήσατε, καὶ πλαγιαύλων
γεύσατε, καὶ κροκίνοις χρίσατε γυῖα μύροις,
καὶ Μυτιληναίῳ τὸν πνεύμονα τέγξατε Βάκχῳ,
καὶ συζεύξατέ μοι φωλάδα παρθενικήν.

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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.