An Epigram on Marcus Aurelius' Meditations

Anthologia Palatina XV.23, author unknown

If you wish to master grief, Open up this blessed book And come to it attentively-- Through it, you may easily see The richest way of thinking about What's to come, what is now, And what is past--how joy and pain Are no whit mightier than smoke.

εἰ λύπης κρατέειν ἐθέλεις, τήνδε μάκαιραν ἀναπτύσσων βίβλον ἐπέρχεο ἐνδυκέως, ἧς ὕπο γνώμην ὀλβίστην ῥεῖά κεν ὄψεαι ἐσσομένων, ὄντων ἠδὲ παροιχομένων, τερπωλὴν τ᾽ ἀνίην τε καπνοῦ μηδὲν ἀρειοτέρην.

Writing love poems without being loved is perhaps one of the toughest things I do as a poet.

“Thaïda Quintus amat.” “Quam Thaïda?” “Thaïda luscam.”

unum oculum Thaïs non habet, ille duos.

Martial, Epigrams, Book III, VIII

I did an English translation of Poem 104 from Book 11 of Martial's Epigrams. I think it's quite good

it is however rather NSFW (like, smuttily so) and therefore may be found under the cut

"Dear Wife" Martial 11.104

Honey, it's my way or the highway: I'm not Curius, Numa, or Tatius. I like nights that stretch into drinking and fun: You’ve had your water, you get mopey and can't wait to leave. You want the dark: I like to play in full view of the lamp And let its rays illuminate my form. Cloths and clothes and modest robes cover you: But a girl can’t get nude enough for me. I adore hot steamy kisses: You give me the kind you’d give your grandma in the morning. You don't deem the deed worthy of moving, or help out by moaning Or fingering yourself; you fuck like you're preparing wine and incense: Trojan servants used to start wanking outside the door Every time Andromache sat on Hector’s cock and rode him, And even while Ulysses snored, faithful Penelope used to Always have her hand on her sweet spot. You won't let me fuck you in the arse: Cornelia let Gracchus, Julia let Pompey, and didn't Portia let you, too, Brutus? Before that particular attendant started mixing sweet wine for him It was Juno who let Jupiter Ganymede her! If you want respectability, you can be Lucretia all day: at night I want Lais.

Uxor, vade foras aut moribus utere nostris: non sum ego nec Curius nec Numa nec Tatius. Me jucunda juvant tractae per pocula noctes: tu properas pota surgere tristis aqua. Tu tenebris gaudes: me ludere teste lucerna et juvat admissa rumpere luce latus. Fascia te tunicaeque obscuraque pallia celant: at mihi nulla satis nuda puella jacet. basia me capiunt blandas imitata columbas: tu mihi das aviae qualia mane soles. Nec motu dignaris opus nec voce juvare nec digitis, tamquam tura merumque pares: masturbabantur Phrygii post ostia servi, Hectoreo quotiens sederat uxor equo, et quamvis Ithaco stertente pudica solebat illic Penelope semper habere manum. Pedicare negas: dabat hoc Cornelia Graccho, Julia Pompeio, Porcia, Brute, tibi; dulcia Dardanio nondum miscente ministro pocula Juno fuit pro Ganymede Jovi. Si te delectat gravitas, Lucretia toto sis licet usque die: Laida nocte volo.

Winging It

Albatross, ovenbird, John Keats’s nightingale, Skylark, a sparrow in Nemerov’s zoo,

Ornithological Poetry murmurates, Raven to darkling thrush, Swan to cuckoo.

--Chris O'Carroll

Epigram in Fannish:

Reader, you complain that I don’t write endings;

You aren’t writing anything yourself; is that your way of completing long fics?

Let’s meet Starbuck

His age and appearance:

He’s only 30, and his skin is as weathered as 

Only some thirty arid summers had he seen; those summers had dried up all his physical superfluousness

His risk management strategies:

Most importantly, stay alive. Don’t take risks with shipmates. Don’t take risks with whales.

“I will have no man in my boat,” said Starbuck, “who is not afraid of a whale.” An utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.

He had no fancy for lowering for whales after sun-down; nor for persisting in fighting a fish that too much persisted in fighting him. For, thought Starbuck, I am here in this critical ocean to kill whales for my living, and not to be killed by them for theirs.

"Stating" - a sestet written 7/14/2023

gong yoo - epigram living in gochang #4 commercial film (2019)

(source)

It’s a fact. 🤘🖤

Death of a Charioteer

Martial, Epigrams X.53

I am the famous Scorpus, glory of the shout-filled Circus, Source of your clapping, Rome, and your brief delight; Envious Lachesis snatched me away at twenty-seven-- Counting my victories, she thought me elderly.

Ille ego sum Scorpus, clamosi gloria Circi, Plausus, Roma, tui deliciaeque breves, Invida quem Lachesis raptum trieteride nona, Dum numerat palmas, credidit esse senem.

Mosaic depicting a charioteer of the albata (White) faction, one of the four factions that dominated Roman chariot racing, with his horse. Artist unknown; 1st half of 3rd cent. CE. From the Villa dei Severi, Baccano; now in the Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, Rome.

Trust me, it's not what you've lost that matters, but what you're losing while lamenting over it.

Shayan Das

Si tua nec Thaïs nec lusca est, Quinte, puella,

cur in te factum δίστιχον esse putas?

sed simile est aliquid. pro Laïde Thaïda dixi?

dic mihi, quid simile est Thaïs et Hermione?

tu tamen es Quintus: mutemus nomen amantis:

si non vult Quintus, Thaïda Sextus amet.

Martial, Epigrams Book III, xi.

They that dally nicely with words may quickly make them wanton.

Viola, Twelfth Night 3.1

On waking up in a strange bed on New Year's Day

stupid Cupid missed again

--Mandy Macdonald

A leaf, treeless, for Bertolt Brecht:  // Paul Celan

A leaf, treeless, for Bertolt Brecht: What times are these when a conversation is nearly a crime, because it includes so much that’s already been said.

(translated from the German by Pierre Joris)