Ezra Pound. Homage to Quintus Septimius Florentis Christianus. Harriet Monroe, ed. Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912-22

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22.

Homage to Quintus Septimius Florentis Christianus

By Ezra Pound


Ex Libris Graecae I Theodorus will be pleased at my death,
And someone else will be pleased at the death of Theodorus:
And yet every one speaks evil of death.
Incerti Auctoris

II This place is the Cyprian’s, for she has ever the fancy	5
To be looking out across the bright sea;
Therefore the sailors are cheered, and the waves
Keep small with reverence,
beholding her image.
Anyte	10

III A sad and great evil is the expectation of death—
And there are also the inane expenses of the funeral;
Let us therefore cease from pitying the dead
For after death there comes no other calamity.
Palladas	15

IV Troy Whither, O city, are your profits and your gilded shrines,
And your barbecues of great oxen,
And the tall women, walking your streets, in gilt clothes,
With their perfume in little alabaster boxes?
Where are the works of your home-born sculptors?	20

Time’s tooth is into the lot, and war’s and fate’s too.
Envy has taken your all
Save your douth and your story.
Agathias Scholasticus

V Woman? Oh, woman is a consummate rage, but dead or asleep she pleases.	25
Take her—she has two excellent seasons.
Palladas

VI Nicharcus upon Phidon his doctor Phidon neither purged me, nor touched me;
But I remembered the name of his fever medicine and died.