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THE EROTIC DREAM OF MELEAGER OF GADARA
#1
To demonstrate, if ever necessary, the eternity of homosexual eros, I carry here a splendid lyric of Meleager (Μελέαγρος) of Gadara (130 BC - 60 BC ), a Greek poet of Palatine Antologie who made love for boys the main object of his poetry.

Before letting you read the text that is upsetting for the utmost modernity of a substantially timeless event, I would like to point out a few things.

In modern common language, the word ἔφηβος  ("ephebe" in English, more correctly with the emphasis on the first "e" as in Greek) means young boy, essentially still not adult. The noun ἔφηβος, derives from ἐπί (above) + ἥβη (youth).

In the Greek world, ἔφηβος was the young man who belonged to the age class of "Ephebeia" (ἐφηβεία or also ἐφηβία). Ephebeia was the legal status of young people just enlisted in the army, essentially the recruits, who were trained to the war under state control. They were therefore not ephebes in the modern sense of the word, but young adults.

In the city of Athens, for example, young men were considered as ephebes from eighteen to twenty years. The efebìa was therefore the first step in adulthood.

The chlamys (from the Greek χλαμΰς = mantle) was a short coat that covered essentially the upper part of the body, was the habit of the ephebes and the young military. When ancient poets refer to the ephebes, then they mean refer to guys between the ages of 18 and 20. 

Saying that a guy "is still in chlamys" means that he has not yet emerged from the ephebeia and therefore is still one recruited by the army and is no more than 20 years old. This clarification is essential to understand the exact meaning of Meleager's of Gadara text, which I found often commented in a very fanciful way, ignoring what ephebeia was "historically".

Below you can read the Greek text, followed immediately by the Italian translation by Salvatore Quasimodo (Nobel Prize for Literature). There is also a English translation. This is a description of a "gay erotic dream". Notice how the gay eros is lived in an atmosphere of smile and sweetness.

ἡδὺ τί μοι διὰ νυκτὸς ἐνύπνιον ἁβρὰ γελῶντος 
ὀκτωκαιδεκέτους παιδὸς ἔτ᾽ ἐν χλαμύδι 
ἤγαγ᾽ Ἔρως ὑπὸ χλαῖναν ἐγὼ δ᾽ ἁπαλῷ περὶ χρωτὶ 
στέρνα βαλὼν κενεὰς ἐλπίδας ἐδρεπόμαν. 
καὶ μ᾽ ἔτι νῦν θάλπει μνήμης πόθος: ὄμμασι δ᾽ ὕπνον 
ἀγρευτὴν πτηνοῦ φάσματος αἰὲν ἔχω. 
ὦ δύσερως ψυχή, παῦσαί ποτε καὶ δι᾽ ὀνείρων 
εἰδώλοις κάλλευς κωφὰ χλιαινομένη.

(The Greek Anthology. with an English Translation by. W. R. Paton. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1926. 4.)


Nella notte un dolce sogno, Eros portò sotto la mia coltre un ragazzo di diciotto anni dolce sorridente, ancora in clamide. E io, col petto stretto alla sua delicata pelle, colsi tante vane speranze. Ora al ricordo mi brucia il desiderio ed ho continuo davanti agli occhi il sogno che prese in caccia l’apparenza alata.(1) Ma tu, anima dal triste amore, quando finirai d’infiammarti anche nel sogno alle vane immagini di bellezza? [Salvatore Quasimodo]
(1) inseguito da me se ne volò via.


Love in the night brought me under my mantle the sweet dream of a softly-laughing boy of eighteen, still wearing the chlamys; and I, pressing his tender flesh to my breast, culled empty hopes. Still does the desire of the memory heat me, and in my eyes still dwells the sleep that caught for me in the chase that winged phantom. O soul, ill-starred in love, cease at last even in dreams to be warmed all in vain by beauty's images. 
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