The Song of Eros: Ancient Greek Love Poems

In new translations, these eighty poems offer a thought-provoking reminder of the vagaries of love as captured through the wit and insight of the poets of Greek antiquity. All the emotions and experiences associated with love - rejection, infatuation, ecstasy, desperation, loneliness - are rendered accessible to contemporary readers through lively translations into modern English of works dating from the seventh century B.C. to the sixth century A.D. Featured are selections from the more than 4,000 epigrams that make up the Greek Anthology, a collection compiled in the tenth century by the Byzantine scholar Kephalas. Also included are works by the early iambic and elegiac poet Archilochos and the lyric poems of Sappho and Anakreon. Illustrations accompany the poetry, capturing both the flavor of the age and the theme of the texts. --jacket.