Thursday, March 11th, 2010

23 BC / Rome

Winter Moon

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They’re stingier now, the rowdy boys, in pitching stones
that rattle your shuttered windows;
they don’t deprive you of your sleep; and hugging
the threshold, the door stays shut

that used to swing so easily
on its hinges. Less and less do you hear now:
“While I, who am yours, am dying all night long,
you, Lydia, are sleeping?”

You will age, in turn, and, spurned in the lonely alley,
you’ll wail at the arrogance of paramours
while the rising Thracian wind rages
in the dark of the moon.

Then you’ll feel how the blazing heat
and lust that maddens mares
will rage around your ulcered liver,
not without a sob

that excited boys take more delight
in green ivy than drab myrtle,
and dedicate sere leaves to the east wind,
winter’s companion.

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About the Text

Horace, from his Odes. Horace in 46 BC began studying at the Academy in Athens, and between 44 and 42 BC he fought for Brutus in the civil wars in the eastern empire. He published his Satires in Rome in 35 BC; by 17 BC he was the leading poet of the emerging empire, living both in Rome and at his estate in the Sabine Hills. He continued to compose verse until his death in 8 BC.

Can it be true, what is so constantly affirmed, that there is no sex in souls? I doubt it; I doubt it exceedingly.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1827
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Lewis H. Lapham is Editor of Lapham's Quarterly. He also serves as editor emeritus and national correspondent for Harper's magazine.
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