(Boylove Documentary Sourcebook) - Pederastic Desire in a Poem by Meleager

Love crowned with roses (1974) by Gaston Goor. Pastel drawing, 17 × 11 cm. Cover for The Exile of Capri (L'exilé de Capri, 1959) by Roger Peyrefitte.

From Homosexuality in Greece and Rome: A Sourcebook of Basic Documents, edited by Thomas K. Hubbard (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003).

6.38 Meleager, AP 12.95 (77 GP)

If the Loves cherish you, Philocles, and myrrh-breathed Seduction
And the Graces who gather flowers of beauty,
May you hold Diodorus in your embrace, may sweet Dorotheus
Sing across from you, and Callicrates sit on your knee.
May Dio give pleasure, stretching out your horn in his hand
(That hits the spot!), and may Uliades retract its tip.
May Philo give you a kiss, Theron chatter,
And may you diddle Eudemus’ nipple under his cloak.
Blessed man, if the god should give you all these delights,
What a mixed grill of boys you would cook!

Erastes and eromenos: The man made the traditional gift of a hare and embraces the boy, who turns to kiss him. Attic red-figure kylix by the Antiphon Painter, c. 490 BC. Tarquinia, Museo Nazionale Tarquiniense, 701.

See also

• Puerilities: Erotic Epigrams of "The Greek Anthology" (book)
• Athenian pederasty
• Cretan pederasty
• Ephebophilia
• Greek love
• Historical boylove relationships in ancient Greece
• Philosophy of ancient Greek pederasty
• Spartan pederasty
• Theban pederasty

External Links

• PURSUIT AND FLIGHT BY SIR KENNETH DOVER (Greek Love Through the Ages)
• DID THE GREEKS PEDICATE THEIR LOVED BOYS? (Greek Love Through the Ages)