THE EPIGRAMS OF MARTIAL
BOOK TEN
Marcus Valerius Martialis (AD 38/41-102/4) was a Roman poet born in Bilbilis in Hispania Tarraconensis (Tarragonese Spain) of Spanish stock. He lived in Rome from 64 to ca. 100, then returned home. His Epigrams, much his most celebrated and substantial work, were published in Rome in twelve books, and have since been very highly valued for both their wit and what they reveal about life in Rome. Presented here are all references to Greek love in Book X, first published in 95, but of which the revised, second and only surviving edition was published in 98.
The translation, the first in English to include frank translation of passages considered obscene by modern people, is by D. R. Shackleton Bailey for the Loeb Classical Library volumes 95, published by the Harvard University Press in 1993. Older translations either omitted the sexually most interesting epigrams or, much worse, misled as to their content by omitting or distorting critical phrases. The webpage editor would like to draw attention to the footnotes as being particularly important for this article, at least for readers not deeply familiar with Roman customs.
X 4
| You that read of Oedipus and Thyestes in the dark and Colchian dames and Scyllas, of what do you read but monstrosities?[1] What good will ravished Hylas be to you, or Parthenopaeus and Attis, or Endymion the sleeper, or the boy who was stripped of his dropping wings, or Hermaphroditus, who hates the amorous waters?[2] What pleasure do you find in the empty sham of a wretched sheet? Read this, of which life can say: “It’s mine.” You won’t find Centaurs here or Gorgons or Harpies: my page smacks of humanity. But you don’t want to recognize your own behavior, Mamurra, or to know yourself: you should read the Origins of Callimachus.[3] | Qui legis Oedipoden caligantemque Thyesten, Colchidas et Scyllas, quid nisi monstra legis? quid tibi raptus Hylas, quid Parthenopaeus et Attis, quid tibi dormitor proderit Endymion, exutusve puer pinnis labentibus, aut qui odit amatrices Hermaphroditus aquas? quid te vana iuvant miserae ludibria chartae? hoc lege, quod possit dicere vita ‘meum est.’ non hic Centauros, non Gorgonas Harpyiasque invenies: hominem pagina nostra sapit. sed non vis, Mamurra, tuos cognoscere mores nec te scire: legas Aetia Callimachi. |
X 42
| Your beard is so dubious, so soft that a breath, or sunshine, or a light breeze wears it away. It is like the down that hides ripening quinces, which shine when plucked by a maiden’s thumb. Whenever I give you give rather vigorous kisses, Dindymus, I get a beard from your lips. | Tam dubia est lanugo tibi, tam mollis ut illam halitus et soles et levis aura terat. celantur simili ventura Cydonea lana, pollice virgineo quae spoliata nitent. fortius impressi quotiens tibi basia quinque, barbatus labris, Dindyme, fio tuis |
X 80
| Eros weeps whenever he inspects cups of speckled murrine or boys or a particularly fine citrus tabletop, and groans from the bottom of his chest because he cannot buy the whole Enclosure and carry it home, poor fellow. How many there are who do as Eros does, but do it dry-eyed! Most people laugh at his tears and weep internally. | Plorat Eros, quotiens maculosae pocula murrae inspicit aut pueros nobiliusve citrum, et gemitus imo ducit de pectore quod non tota miser coemat Saepta feratque domum. quam multi faciunt quod Eros, sed lumine sicco! pars maior lacrimas ridet et intus habet. |
X 98
| When a page more willowy than Ida’s catamite[4] pours me Caecuban,[5] groomed as smart as your daughter or your wife or your mother or your sister reclining at the table, do you want me to gaze instead at your lamps or your antique citrus wood or your Indian tusks? However, so that I am not suspect at your board, provide me with pages from the crew on your squalid farm, the close-cropped, frowzy, clownish, undersized sons of a goat-scented swineherd. This jealousy of yours will be your undoing, Publius.[6] You cannot have such a disposition and such a staff. | Addat cum mihi Caecubum minister Idaeo resolutior cinaedo, quo nec filia cultior nec uxor nec mater tua nec soror recumbit, vis spectem potius tuas lucernas aut citrum vetus Indicosque dentes? suspectus tibi ne tamen recumbam, praesta de grege sordidaque villa tonsos, horridulos, rudes, pusillos hircosi mihi filios subulci. perdet te dolor hic: habere, Publi, mores non potes hos et hos ministros. |
Continue to Book XI
[1] These are all horror stories from Greek mythology. Oidipos unknowingly killed his father and married his mother. Thyestes was tricked by his brother Atreus King of Mykenai into eating his own sons and was “in the dark” because of the eclipse that ensued. Colchian dames refers to the notorious Colchian princess Medea. [Website footnote]
[2] Of the mythological stories alluded to here, two account for the epigram’s only slight Greek love interest, while all involve boys. Hylas was the paidika of the hero Herakles, abducted from his distraught lover by amorous nymphs. The Arcadian mythical hero Parthenopaios was one of the “Seven Against Thebes”; young and exceptionally beautiful, it is claimed in Martial’s epigram IX 56 that he was never hurt when fighting naked, implicitly because when his would-be killers saw his full beauty, they fell in love with him; he was finally killed when wearing his armour. Attis and Endymion were beautiful youths with whom goddesses fell in love. “The boy who was stripped of his dropping wings” was Ikaros, who fell from the sky and drowned after the wax which attached his wings to his body melted because he ignored a warning not to fly too close to the sun. The fifteen-year-old boy Hermaphroditos was transformed into a hermaphrodite following a nymph’s attempt to rape him in a pool. [Website footnote]
[3] A poem on the legendary origins of names, customs, etc., full of recondite lore. Considerable fragments survive. [Translator’s footnote]
This epigram is a defence of epigrams in comparison with mythological poetry. [Website footnote]
[4] Ida’s catamite was Ganymede, who tended sheep on Mount Ida in his father’s kingdom of Troy until abducted by Jupiter to become his catamite. [Website footnote]
[5] Caecuban was an “exceedingly good wine” (Strabon, Geography V.3.6) from a small plain in Latium. [Website footnote]
[6] “There is no reason to believe that this is a fictional character, since the ultimate aim of the poem is to praise the good taste of his friend through the beauty of his slaves. The teasing tone could easily be explained by their close friendship.” (Rosario Moreno Soldevila, Alberto Marina Castillo and Juan Fernández Valverde, A Prosopography to Martial’s Epigrams, 2019, p. 514)
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