THE ACCOMPT
by: Anacreon (c.572-488
BC)
- F thou dost
the number know
- Of the leaves on every bough,
- If thou can'st the reckoning keep
- Of the sands within the deep;
- Thee of all men will I take,
- And my Love's accomptant make.
- Of Athenians first a score
- Set me down; then fifteen more;
- Add a regiment to these
- Of Corinthian mistresses,
- For the most renown'd for fair
- In Achaea sojourn there;
- Next our Lesbian Beauties tell;
- Those that in Ionia dwell;
- Those of Rhodes and Caria count;
- To two thousand they amount.
- Wonder'st thou I love so many?
- 'Las of Syria we not any,
- Egypt yet, nor Crete have told,
- Where his orgies Love doth hold.
- What to those then wilt thou say
- Which in eastern Bactria,
- Or the western Gades remain?
- But give o'er, thou toil'st in vain;
- For the sum which thou dost seek
- Puzzles all arithmetic.
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- TRANSLATED BY THOMAS STANLEY,
1651
"The Accompt" is reprinted
from Poetica Erotica. T.R. Smith. New York: Crown
Publishers, 1921. |
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