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@ 27.055 MHz: Ad Astra; On A Day Of Clear Weather, Good For Travel [XLIX]

Celadus the Thracian, three years short of a

full two score, was recently manumitted,

and has departed on a ship headed to

Ostia; from there, he will go on to Rome

(for the sightseeing).


Despite objections of old prudes and haters,

with him has come Alexei, not quite nineteen 

years old, long-haired, slender and agile (you know

what I mean) who likes to wear sheer silk stockings

during Love at night.


Celadus and Alexei are like Eros

and Ganymede, whom Eros (not Jupiter---

not as the well informed tell it) brought from Troy's

lofty towers as their own lofters engorged

(yes, Love at first sight).


At the ship's long rail, starboard, where they have been

kissing tenderly (a tight embrace) they see---

on the distant horizon---a huge smoke plume

rising to the sky; and Alexei asks, "Is

"that Vesuvius?" 



J-Called

Author's Notes/Comments: 

Celadus was a gladiator in Herculaneum.  They tell me that Alexei, whose grandfather owned Celadus, was instrumental in effecting his release after he and Celadus had fallen in Love; a situation contoured similarly to Vergil''s Second Eclogue, but with a happier development.


The garment called "stockings" is said to have been designed by Cleopatra, penultimate monarch of Ptolemaic Egypt, as an aid to the seduction of the Proconsul, Mark Antony.  At least two males, Cleopatra's son, Kaisarion, and, in this poem, Alexei are known to have worn sheer stockings during intimacy with their boyfriends.

 

I am grateful to the scholar, Taphless Gibler, who directed me to a prose version of this poem which I have, here, reversified.

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last updated 24 October 2024 - 6:11pm
©23 October 2024 - 1:39pm — J-C4113D