On this wine bowl of pure silver—
destined for the home of Heracleides,
where discerning taste and elegance reside—
I've engraved flowers, streams and thyme,
and in their midst a handsome youth,
naked and erotic, dangling his leg
in the water still. I prayed, memory,
that I'd find in you an ally strong enough to render
the face of this youth, whom I loved, just as it once was.
It will not be easy, as it has been
some fifteen years from the day he fell,
a soldier, in the battle of Magnesia.
~C.P. Cavafy
Picture found here.
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