Puer Delicatus-το ζήτημα της υιοθεσίας στην αρχαία Ρώμη

[Σενέκας]

How perverse to even begin to console you, Melior

For your foster-child, abruptly taken, while I yet stand

By the pyre’s glowing embers? As yet the sad wound’s

Open veins gape wide, the treacherous path of the blow.

While I, in my cruelty, make verse and healing words,

You seek out loud lament, and the beating of breasts,

Out of love with the lyre, and turning deaf ears aside.

Song is ill-timed. Sooner would a tigress choose to hear,

Or some bereaved lion and lioness robbed of their cubs.

Not even by the threefold harmony of the Sicilian Siren,

Or that lyre of Orpheus’s, woods and wild beasts knew,

Could your wild cries be calmed. Frantic grief consumes

Your heart, and when you are touched you groan within.

None would forbid it; sate yourself with misery, be free

To conquer bitter pain. Has the need to weep yet gone?

Are you no longer weary, resentful of a friend’s pleas?

Now, shall I sing? See even as I do so, my face swims

With tears, and their sad droplets fall to stain the page.

For I myself, beside you, led the black-garbed funeral

Procession, and the child’s bier (alas how wrong it felt!)

While Rome watched; I saw the cruel heaps of wretched

Incense, and the heartfelt weeping there over his corpse,

And as you outdid a father’s groans, or a mother’s arms

Outstretched to clasp the pyre, ready to eat the flames,

I, likewise, could scarcely restrain you, without offence.

And now, a poet of ill-omen, alas, I doff the ribbons

Honouring my brow, reverse my lyre, beat my breast,

Beside you. Be soothed now, I pray, and if I have felt

And deserved involvement in your mourning, accept

Me as your friend and companion in this raw grief.

Fathers in pain have heard me. I have sung solace

To mothers prostrate by the pyres of dear children,

And solaced myself when, Nature, I, bowed down,

Lamented, oh so dear a father! I don’t say, harshly,

Do not mourn; but share your pain, let us both weep.

For many a long hour; unsure how to begin my praise

Of so deservedly loved a child, I sought some worthy line.

At one moment his age, at the very threshold of life,

Inspired me, then his charms, or precocious modesty,

His sense of honour, his probity riper than his years.

Oh, where is that fine complexion suffused with blushes,

Those star-bright orbs, eyes filled with heavenly radiance,

And the modest compactness of that slender forehead,

The delicate locks of hair above, the soft decorous fringe?

Where’s that melodious voice with its charming plaint,

Those kisses redolent of spring flowers at each embrace,

Those tears blended with laughter, those accents laced

With the sweetness of Hybla’s honey, at which serpents

Ceased to hiss, and cruel stepmothers longed to serve him?

No way I do exaggerate his true charm. Alas, the milk-white

Throat, those arms always clasped about his master’s neck!

Oh where is the burgeoning hope of that coming manhood,

The longed-for grace on those cheeks, the beard he so often

Swore to you was there? A heavy hour, a hostile day turned

Everything to ashes; and all that is left to us is our memories.

Who’ll now soothe your heart with the happy talk you loved,

Who’ll reflect the drift of your cares, your private thoughts?

Who’ll calm you when bile inflames your anger, and you wax

Harsh with your servants, turning you from hot ire to himself?

Who’ll steal the food you’ve just raised, the wine you’ve sipped,

From your lips, wreaking havoc with his sweet plundering?

Who’ll leap on your bed, and murmur to break your morning

Slumber, who’ll delay your leaving with a clinging embrace,

And call you back at the very threshold to receive his kisses?

Who’ll meet you on your return again, and rise to your hands

And lips, embracing your shoulders with his little arms?

Mute is the house, I bear witness, and desolate the hearth,

Neglect pervades the bedroom, sad silence the dinner-hour.

What wonder, Atedius, that your loyal foster-father honoured

You with so grand a funeral? You were your master’s solace,

A haven for his old age, at times his joy, at times his heart’s

Sweet care. You were not spun round on some barbarous

Slaver’s turntable, nor for sale, a child, among the Pharian

Goods there, cracking concocted jokes, speaking made words,

Playfully seeking a master, and all too slow to discover one.

Here was your home, here was your origin, both your parents

Were long dear to your master’s house, freed for your happiness,

Lest you bemoaned your birth. But no sooner were you snatched

From the womb, than your master raised you up, in exultation,

To greet the glittering stars with your first cry, calling you his

In his heart; clasped you to his breast naming you as his own.

By permission of sacred parenthood, and by your leave, Nature,

Who dictate the whole world’s primal laws, may I be allowed

To say: consanguinity and natural descent via a line of offspring,

Are not the only bonds; adopted children are often dearer to us

Than kin. Legitimate sons are a necessity, but those we choose

Are a joy. So Achilles meant more to that kindly centaur Chiron,

Than to Haemonian Peleus. Nor did the aged Peleus accompany

His son to the Trojan War, but Phoenix clung to his dear pupil.

Evander, far away, prayed for his son Pallas’s triumphant return,

While loyal Acoetes, Evander’s armour-bearer, watched the fight.

Among the bright stars, winged Perseus’ father, Jupiter, lingered,

While Perseus was nurtured by the wave-borne fisherman Dictys.

What need to speak of mothers less affectionate than the nurse?

What need to tell of you, Bacchus, lying more safely in Ino’s lap,

After your mother, Semele, tricked by Jove, had turned to ashes?

Ilia, careless of her son, reigned as queen over Tuscan waters,

While Acca, his nurse, grew weary carrying Romulus around.

I have seen twigs grafted on an alien tree grow taller than they do

On their own. And your mind and spirit had already made you

His father, even before his beauty and his ways captured you,

Even then, you loved the sounds that he made though limited

To crying, you loved his innocent wailing and his infant tears.

Like a flower fated to die at the first breath of adverse wind,

Standing far too tall in the tender field, so that child, in looks

And proud steps beyond his years, prematurely outdid his peers.

When he stood firm in a wrestling hold, you might have thought

Him born of some Spartan mother, (Apollo would have been

Ready to exchange him for Hyacinthus, Oebalus’s son, or

Hercules for his favourite Hylas); or when, in Greek costume,

He performed eloquent Menander’s Attic speeches, wanton

Thalia, in delight, would have praised his accents, ruffled

His handsome locks, by placing there her garland of roses;

Or when he recited from Homer, the story of Troy’s toils,

Or the adventures of Ulysses long-delayed homecoming,

His father, teachers even, were amazed at his understanding.

Surely Lachesis touched the child’s cradle with her hand

Of ill fate, and Envy fondled the infant on her lap; the one

Stroked his cheeks and curly hair, the other granted him

Talent and filled him with those accents we now mourn.

Developing year by year he bid fair to equal Hercules’

Labours, and yet he was still not much more than a child;

His step was firm already, his clothes seemed inappropriate

To his stature, he always seemed to be outgrowing them,

And what gear did your tender master not rush to provide?

Not wanting to restrict your breathing with a lined cloak,

Or burden your chest with a constricting winter mantle,

Always selecting clothes to suit your years, with folds

Not too ample, at one time dressing you all in scarlet,

Now in a green like the grass, now in the sweet blush

Of purple; delighting in making your fingers sparkle

With vivid gems. Hosts of servants and gifts unending;

Only the toga of free birth lacking to your modest dress.

Here is the doom of the house. Suddenly a hostile Fate

Raises her hands. Whom do you bare your savage nails

To harm, goddess? Do neither beauty nor piteous youth

Move you? Procne could never have attacked him so,

Nor the cruel Medea have steeled herself to such fierce

Wrath, not even if he had been Jason’s son, by Creusa.

Mad Athamas would have turned his grim bow aside.

Ulysses, though he hated Troy and Hector’s very ashes,

Would have wept, balked at hurling the lad from its walls.

The seventh dawn comes, and his cold eyes are dimmed,

Already Proserpina holds a lock of his hair in her hand.

But even as the Fates curtail his frail years, his dying gaze

Fixes on you and his failing tongue murmurs your name.

All the air left in his empty lungs he breathes towards you;

He remembers your name alone, her hears only your cry,

And moves his lips for you, and speaks his parting words,

Forbidding you to grieve, trying to console your sadness.

We thank you, Fates, that no lingering illness consumed

His boyish beauty as he lay there, he will descend whole

To the shades, his body inviolate, nothing lost; as he was.

What should I tell of the funeral rites, or the lavish gifts

Given to the flames, the corpse alight with funerary pomp?

Or of how tall your sad pyre rose high in a purple mound,

How Cilician saffron and those tributes of Indian spices,

Arabian, Pharian, Palestinian perfumes drenched the hair

About to burn? Melior rushes to bring all he has to the pyre,

To set a torch, prodigally, to his entire wealth, loathing all

These riches left behind; but the jealous fire refuses to burn,

The flames are stifled, unequal to so great a pile of offerings.

A shudder grips my senses. Melior, calmest of men, how I

Feared for you during the last rites, hard by the funeral pyre!

Was this then the pleasant and friendly face I used to know?

Whence was that passion, wild gestures, strange tremors?

Now flat on the ground you hid from the cruel light of day,

Now you tore at your clothes fiercely, raked the skin beneath,

Pressing your mouth to those beloved eyes and cold lips.

The father and mother of the dead child were both present,

But those parents gazed at you dumbfounded by your grief.

No wonder, all the populace wept for the tragedy, as did

The crowd who had gone on ahead, by the Flaminian Way

Over the MulvianBridge, when the blameless child was lost

To the sad pyre, earning their tears for his beauty and youth.

So drowned Melicertes was carried by sea to an Isthmian

Harbour and, set down there, was laid beside his mother Ino.

So too the greedy flames consumed Opheltes, torn by snakes

As he was playing in Nemea’s serpent-infested meadows.

But lay aside your fears, and cease to fear death’s menace.

Triple-jawed Cerberus will never snarl at him, the Furies

With their torches and writhing snakes never scare him;

Even Charon the surly oarsman of the avid boat will steer

Nearer to the barren bank, closer to the scorched shore,

Lest the lad should find it difficult to clamber aboard.

What is this Mercury, Cyllene’s son, proclaims to me,

So joyously, with his wand? Can anything there bring joy?

Yet the boy would recognise great Blaesus there, his high

Countenance, from statues in your house, when you twined

Fresh garlands, or clasped the waxen images to your breast.

Seeing him as he paces the banks of Lethe’s stream, there

Among the Ausonian noblemen, and among Quirinus’ line,

The lad would walk timidly by his side, approaching silently,

Plucking at the edge of his robe, following him persistently,

Nor would Blaesus spurn him the more he plucked at him,

Merely think the boy some young relation unknown to him.

When later he was made aware that this was his dear friend’s

Darling child, who had consoled that friend for his own death,

He would take him up and clasp him to his mighty breast,

Taking him happily by the arm, showing him all the charms

Of bloodless Elysium, the bare branches and the silent birds,

And the weak and pallid flowers there, nipped in their bud.

Nor would he discourage him from those memories of you,

But heart to heart share the lad’s love for you, yours for him.

Death has him. Surely now you must heal the wound, raise

Your head bowed by grief? All we see is passing or doomed

To pass. The nights vanish and the days, and even the stars,

And its substance can do nothing to preserve the solid earth.

As for human beings they are mortal, and who shall weep

The loss of transient creatures? Some war takes, some the sea,

Some are ruined by love, others by savage greed or madness,

To say nothing of disease. Some await winter’s frozen face,

Others implacable Sirius’ fatal heat, while yet again others

Go to find their fate in pallid autumn’s rain-filled depths.

Whatever has a beginning, fears its end. We shall all, all

Go our way; Aeacus rattles the urn for countless shades.

But happily he for whom we grieve, he will elude both

Men and gods, and doubtful days, and all the dangers

Of blind chance, immune to fate. He did not ask for death,

Nor did he deserve, nor fear, it. We the anxious multitude,

We are wretched, ignorant of when our last day will dawn,

How we shall quit this life, from what star the lightning will

Fall, what cloud thunder our fate. Does this not move you?

Yet you shall be moved, and willingly. Come to us, Glaucias,

Sent from the dark sill, you who alone can win what I ask,

(Neither Charon the ferryman, nor Cerberus chained tight

To the inexorable gate, bar guiltless souls): soothe his heart,

Forbid his eyes to weep; and fill long nights of blessedness

With your sweet speech and the living image of your face;

Deny you have perished; and bring him, as only you can,

Renewed awareness of a bereaved sister, sorrowing parents.

[Σενέκας]

Το ποίημα είναι του Στάτιου, θρήνος για ένα παιδάκι ονόματι Γλαυκίωνας που ήταν το παιδί ενός φίλου του...αλλά δεν ήταν ακριβώς παιδί του. Δεν ήταν λέει βιολογικός του πατέρας, ούτε ήταν σκλάβος του το παιδάκι, αλλά το είχε μαζί του απο τότε που βγήκε απο την κοιλιά. Κατάλαβε κανείς ποια ήταν τέλος πάντων η σχέση τους;

[Σενέκας]

The father and mother of the dead child were both present,

But those parents gazed at you dumbfounded by your grief.

wtf

[Σενέκας]

Ο βιολογικός του πατέρας τον έβλεπε λέει στην παλαίστρα και τον καμάρωνε, η δε μάνα του ζει, αλλά εμφανίζεται 2 φορές σε όλη την πορεία, μια φορά στη γέννα και μια στη κηδεία του

[taxalata xalasa]

Puer Delicatus ήταν ο Gayνυμήδης...

[Σενέκας]

Puer Delicatus ήταν ο Gayνυμήδης...

καμιά σχέση. Puer delicatus ήτανε πάντα μικρά παιδάκια, όχι έφηβοι

[taxalata xalasa]

Puer Delicatus ήταν ο Gayνυμήδης...

καμιά σχέση. Puer delicatus ήτανε πάντα μικρά παιδάκια, όχι έφηβοι

οι επίλεκτοι (elit) Ρωμαίοι διατηρούσαν ένα puer delicatus («παιδί ωραίο, εξαιρετικό, λιχουδιά, νόστιμο») ως μια μορφή σεξουαλικής κατανάλωσης υψηλού επιπέδου...

[Σενέκας]

Puer Delicatus ήταν ο Gayνυμήδης...

καμιά σχέση. Puer delicatus ήτανε πάντα μικρά παιδάκια, όχι έφηβοι

οι επίλεκτοι (elit) Ρωμαίοι διατηρούσαν ένα puer delicatus («παιδί ωραίο, εξαιρετικό, λιχουδιά, νόστιμο») ως μια μορφή σεξουαλικής κατανάλωσης υψηλού επιπέδου...

στο κείμενο παραπάνω δε βλέπω κάποιο σεξουαλικό υπονοούμενο

ίσως σ'αυτό το σημείο, αλλά οκ, αυτό το κάνουν και οι γάτες

Who’ll leap on your bed, and murmur to break your morning

Slumber, who’ll delay your leaving with a clinging embrace

[taxalata xalasa]

καμιά σχέση. Puer delicatus ήτανε πάντα μικρά παιδάκια, όχι έφηβοι

οι επίλεκτοι (elit) Ρωμαίοι διατηρούσαν ένα puer delicatus («παιδί ωραίο, εξαιρετικό, λιχουδιά, νόστιμο») ως μια μορφή σεξουαλικής κατανάλωσης υψηλού επιπέδου...

στο κείμενο παραπάνω δε βλέπω κάποιο σεξουαλικό υπονοούμενο

ίσως σ'αυτό το σημείο, αλλά οκ, αυτό το κάνουν και οι γάτες

Who’ll leap on your bed, and murmur to break your morning

Slumber, who’ll delay your leaving with a clinging embrace

Δεν έχει σημασία τι λέει το κείμενο που έβαλες. Το puer delicatus ήταν αυτό που σου έγραψα...

Πάρε και keywords να βγάλεις συμπέρασμα.

mos Graeciae ή mos Graecorum

Lex Scantinia

[Σενέκας]

οι επίλεκτοι (elit) Ρωμαίοι διατηρούσαν ένα puer delicatus («παιδί ωραίο, εξαιρετικό, λιχουδιά, νόστιμο») ως μια μορφή σεξουαλικής κατανάλωσης υψηλού επιπέδου...

στο κείμενο παραπάνω δε βλέπω κάποιο σεξουαλικό υπονοούμενο

ίσως σ'αυτό το σημείο, αλλά οκ, αυτό το κάνουν και οι γάτες

Who’ll leap on your bed, and murmur to break your morning

Slumber, who’ll delay your leaving with a clinging embrace

Δεν έχει σημασία τι λέει το κείμενο που έβαλες. Το puer delicatus ήταν αυτό που σου έγραψα...

Πάρε και keywords να βγάλεις συμπέρασμα.

mos Graeciae ή mos Graecorum

Lex Scantinia

πως δεν έχει σημασία, αφού περιγράφει τη ζωή ενός τέτοιου παιδιού, απο την αρχή μέχρι το τέλος.

[taxalata xalasa]

στο κείμενο παραπάνω δε βλέπω κάποιο σεξουαλικό υπονοούμενο

ίσως σ'αυτό το σημείο, αλλά οκ, αυτό το κάνουν και οι γάτες

Δεν έχει σημασία τι λέει το κείμενο που έβαλες. Το puer delicatus ήταν αυτό που σου έγραψα...

Πάρε και keywords να βγάλεις συμπέρασμα.

mos Graeciae ή mos Graecorum

Lex Scantinia

πως δεν έχει σημασία, αφού περιγράφει τη ζωή ενός τέτοιου παιδιού, απο την αρχή μέχρι το τέλος.

[Σενέκας]

συνέβαινε και αυτό, δε σημαίνει ότι ήταν το στανταρ

[taxalata xalasa]

συνέβαινε και αυτό, δε σημαίνει ότι ήταν το στανταρ

ανάποδα...

[taxalata xalasa]

Σπόρος.

Γενικά ο puer delicatus ήταν ένα παιδί-σκλάβος επιλεγμένο από τον κύριό του για την ομορφιά του και τη σεξουαλική του ελκυστικότητα.

Οπότε, ο τίτλος του νήματος είναι μούφα... Δεν πρόκειται περί υιοθεσίας αλλά περί θεσμικής παιδεραστίας σκλαβόπουλων που τα ξεκωλιάζανε... Μάλιστα, τους έδιναν και ελληνικά ονόματα, ανεξάρτητα αν ήσαντε ή όχι ελληνικής γενιάς. Ήταν της μόδας να γαμιούνται παθητικά τα ελληνόπουλα...

[Σενέκας]

δεν ισχύει, διάβασε το κείμενο