Saturday, August 28, 2021

M/M: A Flower for Antinous, Athenaeus Deipnosophist. 15.21

In his very charming poem, Pancrates states:

"...The thyme, white lily, and scarlet hyacinth,

the white leaves of celandine,

the roses Zephyr-kissed in springtime,

for the earth hadn't yet created a flower for Antinous."


Pancrates vero in illo carmine haud invenuste dixerat: 

Crispum serpillum, candidum lilium, & hyacinthum

purpureum, albi vero [sive, glauci] chelidonii folia,

& rosam vernis hiscentem Zephyris:

nec dum enim Antinoi florem ediderat tellus. 


οὔλην ἕρπυλλον, λευκὸν κρίνον ἠδ᾽ ὑάκινθον

πορφυρέην γλαυκοῦ τε χελιδονίοιο πέτηλα

καὶ ῥόδον εἰαρινοῖσιν ἀνοιγόμενον ζεφύροισιν

οὔπω γὰρ φύεν ἄνθος ἐπώνυμον Ἀντινόοιο.

--Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae XV.xxi; Translated into Latin by Iohannes Schweighaeuser (1805)

 Athenaeus was a scholar who lived in Naucratis (modern Egypt) during the reign of the Antonines. His fifteen volume work, the Deipnosophists, are invaluable for the amount of quotations they preserve of otherwise lost authors, including the poetry of Sappho. 

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