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Home  »  Poetica Erotica  »  To Bassa

T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.

To Bassa

By Sir Charles Sedley (1639–1701)
 
(Works, 1722)

THAT I ne’er saw thee in a coach with man,
  Nor thy chaste name in wanton satyr met;
That from thy sex thy liking never ran,
  So as to suffer a male-servant yet.
I thought thee, the Lucretia of our time:        5
  But, Bassa, thou the while a Tribas wert,
And clashing ——, with a prodigious crime,
  Didst act of man the inimitable part.
What Œdipus this riddle can untie?
Without a male, there was adultery.        10