T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
The Sisters
By Aristaenetus (fl. 5th or 6th Century A.D.)(From the Love Epistles; translated by Richard Brinsley Sheridan and Nathaniel Brassey Halhed) |
PHILANIS TO PETALA AS yesterday I went to dine | |
| With Pamphilus, a swain of mine, | |
| I took my sister, little heeding | |
| The net I for myself was spreading; | |
| Though many circumstances led | 5 |
| To prove she’d mischief in her head. | |
| For first her dress in every part | |
| Was studied with the nicest art: | |
| Deck’d out with necklaces and rings, | |
| And twenty other foolish things; | 10 |
| And she had curl’d and bound her hair | |
| With more than ordinary care: | |
| And then, to show her youth the more, | |
| A light, transparent robe she wore— | |
| From head to heel she seem’d t’ admire | 15 |
| In raptures all her fine attire: | |
| And often turn’d aside to view | |
| If others gazed with raptures too.— | |
| At dinner, grown more bold and free, | |
| She parted Pamphilus and me; | 20 |
| For veering round unheard, unseen, | |
| She slyly drew her chair between. | |
| Then with alluring, am’rous smiles, | |
| And nods, and other wanton wiles, | |
| And unsuspecting youth ensnared, | 25 |
| And rivall’d me in his regard.— | |
| Next she affectedly would sip | |
| The liquor that had touch’d his lip. | |
| He, whose whole thoughts to love incline, | |
| And heated with th’ enliv’ning wine, | 30 |
| With interest repaid her glances, | |
| And answered all her kind advances. | |
| Thus sip they from the goblet’s brink | |
| Each other’s kisses while they drink; | |
| Which with the sparkling wine combined, | 35 |
| Quick passage to the heart did find. | |
| Then Pamphilus an apple broke, | |
| And at her bosom aim’d the stroke; | |
| While she the fragment kiss’d and press’d, | |
| And hid it wanton in her breast. | 40 |
| But I, be sure, was in amaze, | |
| To see my sister’s artful ways; | |
| “These are returns,” I said, “quite fit | |
| To me, who nursed you when a chit. | |
| For shame, lay by this envious art;— | 45 |
| In this to act a sister’s part?” | |
| But vain were words, entreaties vain, | |
| The craftly witch secured my swain.— | |
| By heavens, my sister does me wrong | |
| But oh! she shall not triumph long; | 50 |
| Well Venus knows I’m not in fault— | |
| ’Twas she who gave the first assault: | |
| And since our peace her treachery broke, | |
| Let me return her stroke for stroke. | |
| She’ll quickly feel, and to her cost, | 55 |
| Not all their fire my eyes have lost— | |
| And soon with grief shall she resign | |
| Six of her swains for one of mine. | |