Sunday, September 10, 2023

Oh, Give It Up

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Asclepiades, The Greek Anthology, v, 85.

You, virgin still? Oh, why?
Small dam against a torrent,
frail barricade defying love,
why grudge it when a line
of suitors would un-Sphinx
your riddles and reduce
your silly girl talk to a sigh
of most sweet surrender?

If I may be so rude:
Just think on Hades, dear,
and its loveless eternity.
There, no one will give you
a second glance. In Acheron,
upon its acid river shore,
one lies not down for love
but to lament, in ash and dust,
the bygone days one wasted.

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