Images of love (Besik Kharanauli, Lyrics, Poems, editor N. Inasaridze, Tbilisi, 1991)

“I am a Roman Consul […]

I have to give a speech in the Senate tomorrow morning. […]

We’re readying ourselves for tomorrow’s battles, -

Us and the whole Rome […]

Nowhere is blackmail and bribery so priced,

As in our Rome […]

Caesar asked me yesterday with wet lips:

-Have you heard, what Alcaeus had written to Sappho, in verse:

‘Sappho I want to tell you something, but I dare not’ -

What did the Mytilenean want to say,

And what would he say, had he been as courageous as the Romans?

-I think,

He would not ask divine Sappho to contend him in verse;

Alcaeus definitely craved to make love to her.

-behold that Lesbian cock,

He did have a better taste than Roman, didn’t he! […]

My foes in Rome laughed at me, […]

And in our Rome

All women are smart […]

And I am with you … day and night

And I relish in it,

Which I could have never achieved in this life;

Had I even been born in Rome seven times in a row […]

I’ll go down to Hades led by candle-light -

The time of love has never been a time lost in vain!” (pg. 388-390)