DANCES FOR FLUTE AND THUNDER
Poems, Prayers, and Insults from the Ancient Greeks
translated by Brooks Haxton
A sampling of some 38 poets from over 13 centuries of classical Greek poetry, much of it fragmentary and meant to be sung aloud. An amateur classicist, Haxton translates freely, with deliberate truncations, line shifts, and even some anachronisms. The result is pure pleasure: witty, sexy, nasty, drunken, glorious, affectionate; in short, as fully relevant to modern life as it must have been to the ancient. The formal diversity in so short an anthology suggests the richness of classical verse: Sappho’s stirring erotics weep for Adonis; Erinna sings for a new bride; Bakchylides humbly invites us to drink and sing; Timokreon bitterly remembers Themistokles, while Simonides etches a mean epitaph for Timokreon. Drinking songs, curses, prayers, love lyrics, blessings, lamentations, invitations, fables: This superb introduction to Greek poetry combines immediacy of emotion with intensity of expression. Ancient verse made modern again.