A poem by Thomas Thornburg from Ancient Letters

1
SWEET Lesbia, would you know the half
of all my pleasure when your husband laughs
delighted at your flyting and the flashing spite
that lights your countenance when we two fight?
watch out, my girl, your fat fool’s treasure,
I may absent myself and rob the only pleasure
he takes in both of us. O, what frustration
should I reave your table of my conversation-
no, no, do not start up so hastily to weep;
this is a lover’s promise not to keep.
but still . . . his pleasure when your latest insult flies
against me, and the room lights from your brilliant eyes
as when I goad you fast between your thighs.

2
OCTAVIA, you bitch, when you deride
me in the taverns, it is time you knew
you build the envious world you hide in,
and every drunkard there suspects the true.
why is it now, fat forty, you should blame
my cold pursuit at something you’d not give
me years ago, now when you wear my best friend’s name?
sweet Mercury, the weird world we live in!
how you condemn me, now I am a poet
who never knew you slim, nor know you fat,
so stop pretending, dear, your friends all know it,
even they know that.

3
FLAVIVS, do you know rising in the Forum,
lisping your meums, tuums, how your colleagues
snicker to one another common knowledge
about your extra-curricular quorums?
could you believe the pupils would not talk you
in their graffiti on the public stalls?
why have you let the praetors and plebeians mock your
courses you offer on the tavern walls?
O tempora, mores! we all know you, dear,
each several senator and charioteer.
4
WHY do you startle, Lesbia, when I tell you,
nights like these when honest matrons keep
their vows, that I should like to sell you?
why do you flush and tremble so and weep?
come, come, girl, you must face a truth as hard
as . . . any, deny it how you will;
why your strange preference for thieves and killers?
why do you threat your poet with the Guard?
only last night you dreamt you fed with panthers,
and asked me here to help you, to explain-
when all my knowledge brings you to is pain-
fetch us some wine; in faith there are no answers.
5
PORTIA, who drinks alone in many taverns,
fist-faced, built like an ugly boy,
has lived a sheaf of years, a grain of joy,
and is known to be a common slattern.
hay-seeds have known her, bankers, and the bloke
at every bar’s end common as a bet
has won her; she will not forget
being the butt of many clever jokes.
what do you think we care about your looks,
Portia and I? we sit and talk of books.

6

FVRIUS, LARTIVS, what have you two been saying
to all your fellows dead drunk, or so near,
they’ve blabbed the word about me that I’m queer?
come at me any night and take your flaying.
the truth is, I’m industrious and chaste
like all true poets, what if my verse is full of sighs
and kisses (thousands) meant for all my readers’ eyes?
well, if it comes to sticking, watch me waste you.
face it, fellows, rough talk and amorous lies won’t hide latent
homosexuality; next time you mistake me for a girl
speak up like men and let’s give it a whirl,
say: take my measure any time and I’ll acquaint you.

7
(VIVAMVS, mea Lesbia, atque amemus)
LIVE, sweet Lesbia, live and love,
nor give a damn for sour old rumors.
the sun in his diurnal course above
will set for us, and blind to all our humors,
rise no more.
give me a thousand kisses, then
another hundred to our store,
and yet a thousand in one breath
ere we lie down, my girl, in death;
confuse these dotards who keep score,
poor fools and cuckolds who shall never
know the sum of it we keep
far from their evil eyes, or sever
us when we have loved us into sleep.

8
LAST afternoon, translating my Catullus
I saw the blue-fly settle on my hand.
It was as though a god had spoken.