Poems about Eros and CupidA Poem by Michael R. Burch Poems about Eros and Cupid POEMS ABOUT EROS AND CUPID ...These are translations of ancient Greek poems about Eros. Eros was the Greek counterpart of the Roman god Cupid. While today we tend to think of Cupid as an angelic cherub shooting arrows and making people fall in love, the ancient Greek and Roman poets often portrayed Cupid/Eros as a heartless troublemaker who was driving them mad with uncontrollable desires! Sappho, fragment 42
Sappho, fragment 54
Sappho, fragment 22
Around the same time Sappho was writing in Lesbos, in nearby Greece, circa 564 B.C., we have another poem about the power of Eros: Ibykos Fragment 286
Unfortunately I hate Eros! Why does that gargantuan God dart my heart, rather than wild beasts? What can a God think to gain by inflaming a man? What trophies can he hope to win with my head? Have mercy, dear Phoebus, drawer of the bow, for were you not also wounded by love’s streaking arrows? In Greek mythology, Cupid shoots Phoebus Apollo to make him fall in love with Daphne, then shoots Daphne with an arrow that prevents her from falling in love with her suitor. Matchmaker Love, if you can’t set a couple equally aflame, why not snuff out your torch? I have armed myself with wisdom against Love;
Either put an end to lust, Eros, or else insist on reciprocity: abolish desire or heighten it. Steady your bow, Cypris, and at your leisure select a likelier target ... for I am too full of arrows to take another wound. Cypris was another name for Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love. Here the poet may be suggesting, “Like mother, like son.”
You say I should flee from Love, but it’s hopeless! Many centuries later, poets would still be complaining about the overpoweringness of sexual desire, and/or the unfairness of unrequited love, by which they often meant not getting laid … Fast-forwarding again, we find the great Scottish poet William Dunbar, who was born around 1460: Sweet Rose of Virtue
Le Primtemps (“Spring” or “Springtime”) by Charles d’Orleans (c. 1394-1465) loose translation/interpretation/modernization by Michael R. Burch Young lovers, greeting the spring fling themselves downhill, making cobblestones ring with their wild leaps and arcs, like ecstatic sparks drawn from coal. What is their brazen goal? They grab at whatever passes, so we can only hazard guesses. But they rear like prancing steeds raked by brilliant spurs of need, Young lovers. Ballade: Oft in My Thought by Charles d'Orleans (c. 1394-1465) loose translation/interpretation/modernization by Michael R. Burch So often in my busy mind I sought, Around the advent of the fledgling year, For something pretty that I really ought To give my lady dear; But that sweet thought's been wrested from me, clear, Since death, alas, has sealed her under clay And robbed the world of all that's precious here; God keep her soul, I can no better say. For me to keep my manner and my thought Acceptable, as suits my age's hour? While proving that I never once forgot Her worth? It tests my power! I serve her now with masses and with prayer; For it would be a shame for me to stray Far from my faith, when my time's drawing near; God keep her soul, I can no better say. Now earthly profits fail, since all is lost and the cost of everything became so dear; Therefore, O Lord, who rules the higher host, Take my good deeds, as many as there are, And crown her, Lord, above in your bright sphere, As heaven's truest maid! And may I say: Most good, most fair, most likely to bring cheer; God keep her soul, I can no better say. When I praise her, or hear her praises raised, I recall how recently she brought me pleasure; Then my heart floods like an overflowing bay And makes me wish to dress for my own bier; God keep her soul, I can no better say. Rondel: Your Smiling Mouth by Charles d'Orleans (c. 1394-1465) loose translation/interpretation/modernization by Michael R. Burch Your smiling mouth and laughing eyes, bright gray, Your ample breasts and slender arms’ twin chains, Your hands so smooth, each finger straight and plain, Your little feet: please, what more can I say? It is my fetish when you’re far away To muse on these and thus to soothe my pain: Your smiling mouth and laughing eyes, bright gray, Your ample breasts and slender arms’ twin chains. So would I beg you, if I only may, To see such sights as I before have seen, Because my fetish pleases me. Obscene? I’ll be obsessed until my dying day By your sweet smiling mouth and eyes, bright gray, Your ample breasts and slender arms’ twin chains! Confession of a Stolen Kiss by Charles d’Orleans (c. 1394-1465) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch My ghostly father, I confess, First to God and then to you, That at a window (you know how) I stole a kiss of great sweetness, Which was done out of avidness, But it is done, not undone, now. My ghostly father, I confess, First to God and then to you. But I shall restore it, doubtless, Again, if it may be that I know how; And thus to God I make a vow, And always I ask forgiveness. My ghostly father, I confess, First to God and then to you. My Very Gentle Valentine by Charles d’Orleans (c. 1394-1465) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch My very gentle Valentine, Alas, for me you were born too soon, As I was born too late for you! May God forgive my jailer Who has kept me from you this entire year. I am sick without your love, my dear, My very gentle Valentine. In My Imagined Book by Charles d’Orleans (c. 1394-1465) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch In my imagined Book my heart endeavored to explain its history of grief, and pain, illuminated by the tears that welled to blur those well-loved years of former happiness's gains, in my imagined Book. Alas, where should the reader look beyond these drops of sweat, their stains, all the effort & pain it took & which I recorded night and day in my imagined Book? Crunch by Michael R. Burch A cockroach could live nine months on the dried mucous you scrounge from your nose then fling like seedplants to the slowly greening floor ... You claim to be THE advanced life form, but, mon frere, sometimes as you snatch encrusted kinks of hair from your Leviathan a*s and muse softly on zits, icebergs snap off the Antarctic. You’re an evolutionary quandary, in need of a sacral ganglion to control your enlarged, contradictory hindquarters: surely the brain should migrate closer to its primary source of information, in order to ensure the survival of the species. Cockroaches thrive on eyeboogers and feces; their exoskeletons expand and gleam like burnished armor in the presence of uranium. But your cranium ... is not nearly so adaptable. Hymn to an Art-o-matic Laundromat by Michael R. Burch after Richard Moore’s “Hymn to an Automatic Washer” O, terrible-immaculate ALL-cleansing godly Laundromat, where cleanliness is next to Art �"a bright Kinkade (bought at K-Mart), a Persian rug (made in Taiwan), a Royal Bonn Clock (time zone Guam)�" embrace my a*s in cushioned vinyl, erase all marks: anal, vaginal, penile, inkspot, red wine, dirt. O, sterilize her skirt, my shirt, my skidmarked briefs, her padded bra; suds-away in your white maw all filth, the day’s accumulation. Make us pure by INUNDATION. Published by The Oldie, where it was the winner of a poetry contest. © 2022 Michael R. Burch |
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