Idyll

Sappho (Saffo)- Venite al tempio sacro delle vergini / Come to me here from Crete

By booksofart / Sappho / Idyll, mythology

Pietro Liberi, Diana e Callisto, 1670 Come here to me from Crete, to your holy temple, where your lovely grove of apple stands, where the altars smoke with frankincense; Here cold water sounds through apple branches, the ground is all carpeted with roses, enchanted sleep falls from shimmering leaves; Here the horse-grazed field is lush …

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Constantine P. Cavafy – Il poeta e la musa / The poet and the muse

By booksofart / Constantine P. Cavafy / flower, Idyll, mythology, song

Workshop of Giulio Romano, The Infancy of Jupiter, c. 1535 If the earth is veiled in darkness, have no fear. Do not think it is a perpetual darkness. Friend, you are close to pleasures, flowers, valleys; have courage, and step forward. Behold the early dawn! It is only a light mist that frightens our vision. …

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Catullus – Carmen XLVII

By booksofart / Catullus / Idyll, Love poems

Modesto Faustini, Lovers by a fountain, c. 1850 If someone let me kiss continually your honey-sweet eyes, Juventius, continually I’d kiss even to three hundred thousand kisses,nor ever should I seem on the verge of having enough, not even if the crop of our kisses should be thicker than dried wheat sheaves. Se quei tuoi occhi …

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Catullus – Carmen LXX

By booksofart / Catullus / Idyll, Love poems, mythology

Lucas Cranach, The golden age, c. 1530 No one, says my lady, would she rather wed than myself, not even if Jupiter himself sought her. Thus she says! but what a woman says to a desirous lover ought fitly to be written on the breezes and in running waters. (Transl. by Leonard C. Smithers) Solo con …

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William Shakespeare – Sonnet 1

By booksofart / W. Shakespeare / Idyll, Love poems

Titian, Sacred and Profane Love, c. 1514 From fairest creatures we desire increase, that thereby beauty’s rose might never die, but as the riper should by time decease, his tender heir might bear his memory; but thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes, feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel, making a famine where abundance …

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Ezra Pound – The Garrett

By booksofart / Ezra Pound / Idyll, Love poems, sun

Jean-Antoine Watteau, Gathering in the park, 1717 Come, let us pity those who are better off than we are. Come, my friend, and remember that the rich have butlers and no friends, and we have friends and no butlers. Come, let us pity the married and the unmarried. Dawn enters with little feet like a …

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Sappho (Saffo)- Venite al tempio sacro delle vergini / Come to me here from Crete

Constantine P. Cavafy – Il poeta e la musa / The poet and the muse

Catullus – Carmen XLVII

Catullus – Carmen LXX

William Shakespeare – Sonnet 1

Ezra Pound – The Garrett

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