Virgil / Eclogue 2
     Come to me, beautiful boy;
             see how the nymphs bring you lilies in heaped baskets,

     How for you the fair water-nymph, 
             plucking pale violets and the heads of poppies     
                     mixes narcissus and sweet-smelling fennel-flower; 

     Then, entwining them with cassia and other delicious herbs, 
               she embroiders the delicate hyacinth with the golden marigold.

      I myself will gather quinces pale with down, and chestnuts, which my Amaryllis loved.

   

Archaeologists have discovered most of Egypt's love poetry in Deir el-Medina, a village of tomb builders during the New Kingdom. Here, many skilled artisans worked on the tombs of pharaohs such as Ramses II and Tutankhamun.

Findings indicate that these villagers may have been remarkably literate for their time. The local community—not just the scribes and students—may have contributed to the poetry of Deir el-Medina.

The love poems were likely set to music and used events from daily life and the natural world—growing grain, capturing birds, fishing along the Nile—as metaphors to talk about love.

                         The Crossing (Excerpt)
                         I'll go down to the water with you,
                         and come out to you carrying a red fish,
                         which is just right in my fingers.
                         (Translated by M. Fox) 

Written during Egypt's New Kingdom (1539-1075 B.C.) but likely composed much earlier, these songs are surprisingly direct about love and romance in ancient Egypt, using metaphors, repetition, and other poetic techniques familiar to poetry readers today.


     The Flower Song (Excerpt)
     To hear your voice is pomegranate wine to me:
     I draw life from hearing it.
     Could I see you with every glance,
     It would be better for me
     Than to eat or to drink.
     (Translated by M.V. Fox)

   

Love poem from the Middle Kingdom
The earth trembled as you passed by,
     Turning everything sacred as you walked.

And you set your blue eyes upon me for the first time,
     speaking at me with the depth of the night
          ...like a nightingale who doesn't need its wings to fly.
What a blessing it is to be worthy of your look.

I have seen rain on the desert,
      and all impossible things coming true.

All of my prayers carry your name.
      I wish to be pure so that I can desire you.

Take me as you will.
Your slave...   

Letter from Babylon 2000 B.C.
"Let me be your shield and the skin you wear.
        Like this, you will be always inside me."

   

Ancient Egyptian Love Poetry     
Love, how I'd love to slip down to the pond,
            bathe with you close by on the bank.

     Just for you I'd wear my new Memphis swimsuit,
            Made of sheer linen, fit for a queen--
...
     Come see how it looks in the water!
            Couldn't I coax you to wade in with me?
                   Let the cool creep slowly around us?

     Then I'd dive deep down and come up for you dripping,
            Let you fill your eyes with the little red fish that I'd catch.

   

   

Ancient Egyptian Love Poem
Is there anything sweeter than this hour? 
for I am with you, and you lift up my heart -- 
for is there not embracing and fondling when you visit me 
and we give ourselves up to delights? 

...If you wish to caress my thigh, 
then I will offer you my breast also --  it won't thrust you away! 

Would you leave because you are hungry? 
- are you such a man of your belly? 

Would you leave because you need something to wear? 
- I have a chestful of fine linen! 

Would you leave because you wish something to drink? 
Here, take my breasts! They are full to overflowing, and all for you! 

Glorious is the day of our embracings; 
I treasure it a hundred thousand millions! 

UNKNOWN GREEK POET
      I would like to be the wind,
          So that as you walked along the seashore...
               You could bare your breasts and let me caress you with my breath.

LETTER FROM BABYLON 2000 B.C.
"Two would in the wind free to go, 
     free to fly... 
The wisdom of the earth in a kiss 
     and everything else in your eyes.
... 
How far do you see beloved? 
   I can be everything now... 
      See far, what others call infinity..only one step away" 

(an ancient Egyptian spell from 'The Coffin Texts')
I am the lord of fire who lives on truth, 

The Lord of Eternity, Maker of Joy, Against whom the otherworldly serpents have not rebelled. 

I am the God in his shrine, The Lord of Slaughter, who calms the storm, 
... 
Who drives off the serpents, the many-named one who comes forth from his shrine, 

The Lord of the Winds who foretells the Northwind, 

Many-named in the Mouth of the Ennead, 

Lord of the Horizon, Creator of Light, 

Who illumines heaven with his own beauty 

I am He! Make way for me . . . 

                        Sweet Apple 
                       (B93 &B94) 
                   I 
                 ...You’re 
                            Just like the sweet apple reddening at the highest branch 
                                        and missed by the apple pickers - 
                     No, 
                            They did not miss you! 
                                       They just couldn’t reach so high. 
                   II 
                      And, 
                            You’re just like the mountain Hyacinth, 
                                        trodden by the shepherds 
                                                     next to the purple blossoms 

                                                                                 --  Sappho

   

Sappho /  fragment 16            
   Some say that the most beautiful thing on this dark earth is a host of horsemen,
                                others that it is an army of foot-soldiers,  
                                                           and others that it is a fleet of ships;             
   But I say it is what you love. 

Catullus / poem 48
                 Iuventius, if I was allowed to kiss those honey eyes of yours 
                               As much as I'd like to,                 
                 I'd kiss them three hundred thousand times, 
                               And still not have my fill, 
                 Not even if that kissing was planted thicker 
                              Than curved corn husks in a field.

for the god, Agathos Daimon 

Jan Assmann, Ägypten, Theologie und Frömmigkeit einer frühen Hochkultur, p.281 
Re, the Sungod, Greek Helios 

                 Thou, whose indefatigable eyes are sun and moon 
                       whose head is the heaven, 
                            whose body is the air, 
                                 whose feet are the earth, 
                                        the water surrounding thee is the ocean: 
                ...He who creates all good and nourishes and multiplies 
                 The whole inhabited earth and the whole cosmos.

Euripides / Hippolytos 

From an old song by the chorus on the play's central theme: 
the deadly dangers of ignoring the power of Aphrodite. 

Goddess of Love, you hold sway over 
The unbending hearts of Gods and mortals, 

And with you soars Eros, enfolding them all 
In his swift and dappled wings. 

He flies over the earth 
...And over the melodious brine-filled sea. 

And he spreads his enchantment, 
Setting fires in maddened hearts 

With his flickering golden wing...

Addressed to the Sumerian king Shu-Sin, is the oldest love poem we know: 

Bridegroom, dear to my heart, Goodly is your beauty, honeysweet, Lion, dear to my heart, Goodly is your beauty, honeysweet. You have captivated me, Let me stand tremblingly before you. Bridegroom, I would be taken by you to the bedchamber.  You have captivated me.  Let me stand tremblingly before you.  Lion I would be taken by you  to the bedchamber. Bridegroom, let me caress you, My precious caress is more savory than honey, In the bedchamber, honey-filled, Let me enjoy your goodly beauty, Lion, let me caress you, My precious caress is more savory than honey. Bridegroom, you have taken your pleasure of me, Tell my mother, she will give you delicacies, My father, he will give you gifts. Your spirit, I know where to cheer your spirit, Bridegroom, sleep in our house until dawn, Your heart, I know where to gladden your heart, Lion, sleep in our house until dawn. You, because you love me, Give me pray of your caresses... 

...SAPPHO 

YOUR BODY IS ALL GRACE 

YOUR EYES.....HONEY, 

THE LOVE FLOWS INTO 

YOUR LONGED-FOR FACE.

Theokritos, Idyll XII 
"I run to you as the traveller runs towards
shade when scorched by the sun"

20TH DYNASTY, NEW KINGDOM EGYPT
Her necklace is made of buds.     
Her bones are delicate reeds. 
She wears a signet ring 
   and has a lotus in her hand. 
... 
I kiss her before everyone 
  that they all may see my love. 
She enraptures my heart, 
      and when she sees me, 
             I am refreshed. 

LOVE POEM FROM ANCIENT EGYPT 
Extract from a 3,000 year-old papyrus.

She is one girl, there is no one like her. 
She is more beautiful than any other. 
Look, she is like a star goddess arising at the beginning of a happy new year; 
brilliantly white, bright skinned; with beautiful eyes for looking, with sweet lips for speaking; 
she has not one phrase too many. 
With a long neck and white breast, 
her hair of genuine lapis lazuli; 
her arm more brilliant than gold; 
her fingers like lotus flowers, 
with heavy buttocks and girt waist. 
Her thighs offer her beauty, 
with a brisk step she treads on ground. 
She has captured my heart in her embrace. 
She makes all men turn their necks to look at her. 
One looks at her passing by, 
this one, the unique one.

Dido to Aeneas (Virgil, Aeneid IV)

"Even when I’m gone,
   I shall pursue you with dark fires, 
And when cold death    tears my soul from my body, 
Wherever you are, 
     My ghost will be there too." 

   

THE ANAKREONTEA
It is a joy to walk   
   Where meadows are in bloom, 

Where gentle Zephyros exhales his sweet breath, 
   To look on the vines of Backchos, 
... 
And then to enter under the blanket of their leaves, 
   In your arms a silky girl, 

Every inch of her redolent 
   Of the essences of Kypris. 

Love /Sappho (6th Century B.C.) 

I live here miserable and broken with desire, 
Pierced through, to the bones, 
By bitterness of this god given painful love. 
O friends, this passion makes my limbs limp 
And tramples over me. 

Meleager / The Greek Anthology V.96 

Your kiss is laced with birdlime, 
And your eyes,timarion,with fire. 
Look at me, and i burn, 
Touch me and I am caught. 

   

Eros /Meleagros (140-70 B.C.)
From all the offspring 
Of the Earth and Heaven 
Love is most precious

- Meleager The Greek Anthology XII, 106            
       I know only one utterly beautiful thing,            
       My ravenous eye knows only one thing:             
       ...That is to at Mysikos.             
       To everything else, I am blind. 

The Anakreontea / Poem 26
          It was not the cavalry,     
              Or the infantry,        
                 ...   Or even the navy,    
          But another strange kind of army 
                   That destroyed me, 

         Striking me down with her eyes. 

-- Homer / Odyssey VI 
From the speech of Odysseus, delivered dressed only in an improvised loin-cloth, to 
the beautiful Nausicaa, daughter of King Alcinous. 

I come to you on bended knee, Queen.  
Are you god or mortal? 
....
If you are one of the immortals who hold sway over the immense Heavens, 
I think that in beauty, stature and nature, 
You are most like Artemis, daughter of mighty Zeus. 
But, if you are one of the mortals who live on the earth, 
Three-times-blessed are your father and your revered mother, 
Three-times-blessed are your brothers and sisters. 
Their hearts must always warm with happiness, 
When they watch you, their rosebud just opening, enter the dance. 
But blessed beyond all others is the man who courts you 
With nuptial gifts and leads you to his home. 
Never have I set my eyes upon such beauty, in either man or woman. 
I look at you and I am bedazzled... 

Dating from about 1160 B.C., this poem was found on the tomb of Inherkhau, 
a supervisor of workers at the royal burial ground in the ancient city of Thebes:

     The Harper's Song for Inherkhau 
     (Excerpt)

     So seize the day! hold holiday!
     Be unwearied, unceasing, alive
     you and your own true love;
     Let not the heart be troubled during your sojourn on Earth,
     but seize the day as it passes!     (Translated by J.L. Foster)

Love poem from the Middle Kingdom

Tonight I will hold you my beloved.
Finally I will drink life from your lips
and wake up from this ever lasting sleep
yes finally my hands will hold yours.
And forgive me if I never let go again.
...
I wish I was a bird to fly to your shoulder and
sing all the words I never said to you.
But do we need words? Do we need a sound?

Touch my breast beloved I have been waiting for you.
Waiting to lay down over my destiny.

In the deepest light you shall know my name
And the Fire between us will tell me yours. All things will remain
But tonight we will be born again.

   

thehornet@themagentahornet.com