Three Brief Poems
by Luxorius (circa A.D. 500s)
translated from Latin by Joseph S. Salemi
11. A Phalaecean poem against a lecher, because he wept that when drunk he could not perform the act of coition.
You swive too often, and too frequently—
You don’t let up, unless you’re very drunk.
You’re crying now, because you’re totally
Clobbered by too much wine to screw your punk.
I ask you this, Lucinus—skip coition.
Either drink incessantly, and weep,
Or maybe make this sundering decision:
Don’t screw at all—get poison, and drink deep.
25. Against a drunkard who eats nothing, but only drinks.
By yourself you drink more wine than all
The other men, and yet you always are
Unsatisfied, and every hour you call
For refilled cups. Your thoughts are very far
From bread, the gift that comes from mother Ceres—
For you all food’s a useless thing that wearies.
Nerfa, you’re no man—the whole world knows
You’re just a deep wide cup that overflows.
43. Against a man who loved ugly females.
Myrro is hot for ugly, misshaped chicks—
If he should see a pretty face, he’s cowed.
Your judgment, Myrro, really needs a fix.
Pontic girls don’t please you, but a crowd
Of Garamantic ladies are your picks.
But now I know why your tastes are low-class:
Those are the only girls who’ll give you ass.
A Brief Introduction
Luxorius (we have only that single name for him, and no more) was a Roman poet living in the North African city Carthage, after the fall of the Roman Empire. He seems to have been active in the period between about A.D. 490 and 550.
At that time the area was under the control of barbarian Vandalic kings, who had sailed from Spain to settle in Tunisia and Libya, and who later established a major kingdom along the North African littoral.
Luxorius writes in good Latin (he was highly influenced by the satiric poetry of Catullus and Martial), but good Latin at that time was more of a schoolbook accomplishment than a living tongue. By the year 500 Latin was morphing into Proto-Romance among the mostly illiterate populace. But a well-educated Roman like Luxorius was able to compose in standard classical Latin, and probably conversed in it among his learned colleagues and friends. In the streets one would probably have heard a mélange of Vulgar Latin, koine Greek, Punic, Vandalic German, and Berber dialects.
Luxorius was a satirist, in the harsh and biting style of Martial. His poems are short, and to the point. Each poem goes after a target, and skewers it either with invective or deeply sarcastic comment. You won’t find any sentiment, or hearts-and-flowers niceties in his work. The basic structure of these epigrammatic poems is to describe a person or a situation in the bulk of the poem, and then use the last or last two lines to deliver a savage “sting” or “slap” with an insulting or contemptuous remark.
An excellent edition of Luxorius was published in 1961 by Morris Rosenblum at Columbia University Press. It includes the original Latin texts of all poems, along with a brief prose translation of each one. There is also detailed commentary on the wider context of Vandalic North Africa, and the style and language of Luxorius. The numbers of these three poems are taken from Rosenblum’s edition.
Latin Original
11. Phalaecium in moechum quod debriatus plorabat cum coitum implere non
posset.
Saepius futuis nimisque semper,
Nec parcis, nisi forte debriatus
Effundis lacrimas quod esse moechus
Multo non valeas mero subactus.
Plura ne futuas, peto, Lucine,
Aut semper bibe taediumque plange,
Aut, numquam ut futuas, venena sume.
25. In ebriosum nihil comedentem sed solum bibentem.
Dum bibis solus pateras quot omnes,
Saepe nec totis satiaris horis
Et tibi munus Cereris resordet
Ac nihil curas nisi ferre Bacchum,
Nerfa, iam te non hominem vocabo,
Sed nimis plenam et patulam lagonam.
43. In eum qui foedas amabat.
Diligit informes et foedas Myrro puellas.
Quas aliter pulcro viderit ore, timet.
Iudicium hoc quale est oculorum, Myrro, fatere,
Ut tibi non placeat Pontica, sed Garamas.
Iam tamen agnosco cur tales quaeris amicas.
Pulcra tibi numquam, se dare foeda potest.
Translation Notes
The Latin explanatory prose titles of these poems are probably additions to the text, placed before each poem by an ancient copyist. After A.D. 500, classical Latin was being replaced in common speech by Vulgar Latin and Proto-Romance, and poems in the older language may have needed a short, simple introduction to allow readers to get the gist of what was being said.
Lucinus, Nerfa, and Myrro: the satiric target of these three poems. They might represent real persons, but might just as well have been fictive characters created as a type, as was often the case in satire.
Phalaecean poem: a poem in the hendecasyllabic line favored by Catullus and Martial in their satiric pieces. Poems 11 and 25 are both Phalaecean.
mother Ceres: the Roman goddess of fertility and vegetation, known by the Greeks as “Demeter” (earth-mother). Ceres was closely associated with the growing of grain such as wheat or spelt, and her name came to be used as a synonym for bread, just as the god’s name “Bacchus” stood for wine.
Pontic girls: Greek women from the southern shore of the Black Sea in Pontus (Asia Minor) had a reputation for great beauty. This poem (43) is in elegiac couplets.
Garamantic ladies: women from a Saharan Berber-Tuareg tribe in Roman North Africa. They were barbarians, and not considered attractive by Graeco-Roman standards of female beauty.
Joseph S. Salemi has published five books of poetry, and his poems, translations and scholarly articles have appeared in over one hundred publications world-wide. He is the editor of the literary magazine TRINACRIA and writes for Expansive Poetry On-line. He teaches in the Department of Humanities at New York University and in the Department of Classical Languages at Hunter College.
