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Archaic Torso of Apollo (Translation 2)
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Poems
We will have no knowledge of his fabled head
in which his eyes ripened as apples. Even so
his trunk, like an antique oil lamp, still radiantly glows
In which now his gaze as though a wick barely fed
Still emanates and glistens. Else,
the curve of the breast could not impress you
nor a turn of the loins a smile, having gone
through that center in which life is borne
Otherwise, this stone a deformed stump
Under the transparent shoulders would fall, and would not
glimmer as a lions mane of fur:
Nor would it burst through all of its boundaries. Its light
brilliant like a star: for there is no place here
that does not see you. You must change your life.
