Not everyone welcomed the Paris of the boulevards that we so admire today when in the nineteenth century swathes of a much-loved, ancient city were swept away to make way for it. Today’s poem uses the classical motif of Andromache, widow of Troy’s greatest warrior, Hector, and the image of a trapped and desperate swan to express Baudelaire’s vision of Paris changed for ever and the anguish of all those who long for something irretrievably lost. Hear the poem in the original French and follow in English here.
Today’s poem is W B Yeats’s powerful sonnet on Leda and the swan, showing that he could be inspired by classical, as well as celtic, myth. Read the poem here.
We have revised our translation of perhaps Catullus’s most famous poem, “Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus” – Lesbia, let’s live and love. Hear it in the original Latin and follow in English by following the link to the poem page here.
Today’s new selection of poems on prospering love includes poems by Catullus, Ovid, Horace, Propertius and Virgil. You will find the links to follow here.
In this second selection of poems on a theme, love is not going so smoothly. Dido is being consumed by a passion for Aeneas which as yet is unrequited: Dido Continue Reading
This is the first of a new series of Pantheon Poets Latin medleys – a selection of Latin poems which share a common theme. The first is love, and specifically Continue Reading
Pyrrha the femme fatale has a new lover, who has yet to find out that the experience is not destined to be all calm weather and plain sailing. Horace speaks as someone who has survived shipwreck in Pyrrha’s stormy waters, and in gratitude for his escape has hung his wet clothes on the temple wall as a thank-offering to the God of the sea (Neptune, or Cupid?)
In the illustration a more famous siren, Cleopatra, awaits a visit from Mark Antony.
Hear Horace’s Latin and follow in English here.