I wonder if you know a book, well I'm sure many of you must,
a book by Kenneth Rexroth called Poems from the Greek Anthology.
A wonderful book.
Let me read two or three poems from it.
Here are two epigrams by Martial.
This one to his girlfriend, Thais.
Thais, he says, why do you call me old and garrulous?
I am just experienced and smooth tongued.
[LAUGHTER]
Or this, Martial also.
You are a stool pigeon and a slanderer,
a pimp and a cheat, a pederast and a troublemaker.
I can't understand, Vacerra, why you don't have more money.
[LAUGHTER]
Or this wonderful little poem I thought
I'd never heard of before I opened Rexroth's book.
Poet named Palladas, and he writes,
I've sworn ten thousand times to make no more epigrams.
Every ass is my enemy now.
But whenever I look into your face,
the old sickness overcomes me.
[LAUGHTER]
Ausonius.
I used to tell you, "Frances, we grow old.
The years fly away.
Don't be so private with those parts.
A chaste maid is an old maid."
Unnoticed by your disdain, old age crept close to us.
Those days are gone past recall.
And now you come, penitent and crying
over your old lack of courage, over your present lack
of beauty.
It's all right.
Closed in your arms, we'll share our smashed delights.
It's give and take now.
It's what I wanted, if not what I want.