Idyll 23

23. The Lover A man much given to love loved a cruel youth,

fair in form, but no longer like it in his ways.

He hated the one who loved him and had no gentleness at all,

and did not know what a god Love was, how great a bow

he holds in his hands, how bitter the shafts he drives into the heart;

and in all his words and meetings he was unyielding.

There was no comfort for the flames, no flash

of the lip, no bright gleam of the eyes, no rosy cheek,

no word, no kiss, that might lighten the love.

But as a beast of the wood looks askance at the hunters,

so he did everything toward his lover; savage were his

lips, and his eyes had a dreadful look; for he was full of pride;

and his face changed color with his anger, and the bloom fled from his skin,

clothed about with the insolence of his wrath. Yet even so

he was fair; by his anger the lover was the more inflamed.

At last he could not bear so great a flame of the Cytherean,

but came and wept before the gloomy house,

and kissed the doorpost, and lifted up his voice thus:

Savage and gloomy boy, nursling of an evil lioness,

stony boy and unworthy of love, I have come to bring you

these last gifts, my noose; no longer, boy, do I wish

to vex you, angered as I am with grief, but I go

where you have condemned me, where they say is the common

path for all, where for lovers is the drug of forgetfulness.

But even if I take it all and drain it to my lip,

not even so shall I quench my pain. Now I bid

farewell to your doorway. I know what is to come.

The rose too is fair, and time withers it;

the violet too is fair in spring, and quickly grows old;

white is the lily, and it withers when it falls;

and the snow is white, and it melts when it is spread out.

And a boy's beauty is fair, but lives a little while.

That hour will come when you too shall love,

when you shall weep salt tears, your heart on fire.

But you, boy, do at the last this one sweet thing:

when, coming out, you see the wretched man hung

at your doorway, do not pass me by,

but stand and weep a little, and, pouring out a tear,

loose me from the rope, and put about me from your own limbs

your clothes, and hide me; and once more, at the last, kiss me,

and grant your lips even to the dead. Do not fear me;

I cannot grieve you; you will reconcile me by a kiss.

And heap me a mound of earth that will hide my love.

And as you go, cry this over me three times: Friend, you lie dead.

And, if you will, this also: My fair comrade is lost.

And write this writing too, which I will scratch upon your walls:

This man Love killed. Wayfarer, do not pass by,

but stand and say this: He had a cruel comrade.

So speaking, he set a stone, and leaning against the wall

up to the middle of the threshold, he fastened from it the dread stone,

the slender cord, and threw the noose about his neck,

and rolled the seat out from under his foot, and hung there

dead. And the youth opened the doors and saw the dead man

hanging from his own courtyard, and was not bent

in his soul, nor wept the fresh slaying, but on the corpse

he defiled all his clothes, and went to the youths' contests

of the wrestling-schools, and sought eagerly his beloved baths,

and came to the god whom he had outraged; and from the stone

base he stepped into the water; and from above

the statue too leapt upon him, and slew the evil youth;

and the stream was reddened; and the boy's voice came up from the water.

Rejoice, you lovers; for the hater was slain.

And love, you haters; for the god knows how to judge.