“Italians are Cynical, Amoral, Religiously Superficial”

The Roots of Cynicism

A comment by Maryann on the Roman Goddess Fortuna post had started an interesting discussion. Her grandmother from Apulia – Maryann wrote – had a deep disregard for fortune tellers “and wouldn’t even tolerate us visiting one for fun at the Italian festas. I wonder where this came from.”

I had replied that her grandmother’s behaviour probably derived from the Catholic Church’s reaction against possible survivals of Paganism. “Italians – I argued – were highly civilized long before (9-10 centuries earlier) Christianity arrived, while many Northern Europeans were instead brought civilization together with Christianity (or nearly). This couldn’t have happened without consequences. It made us a bit more pagan.”

At this point the Commentator (Exposrip) had popped in:

“I never thought – he observed – of the historical angle of Italians being civilized before Christianity thus making them a bit more pagan. Of course, the Romans were pagans!”
“Let me ask you : where do the Italians derive their realistic and cynical posturing? Did it begin after the fall of Rome? Did Machiavelli instil it? Was it years of foreign conquering?”

ψ

I think Roman survivals – I had replied – exist in various regions of Europe (like England) but here in our country such remnants are more evident.

Cynicism. If you ask about this within a discussion on Italian pagan survivals you probably suspect there is connection. I am convinced there is, although it can’t be easily demonstrated. A long history of glories and defeats, foreign conquering, the influence of intellectuals like Machiavelli – all this must have contributed. But Machiavelli to me is more like the product of a culture. He reinforced elements already existing.

Did these ‘elements’ develop after the fall of Rome or did they stem from the previous Greco-Roman culture, or both things? Both in my view.

ψ

Let’s first see what one means by cynicism today:

A. Cynicism is “a disposition to disbelieve in the sincerity or goodness of human motives and actions.” (Oxford and Webster dictionaries).

B. Cynical is “the person who, with acts and words, shows scorn and indifference towards the ideals, or conventions, of the society he lives in.” (Dizionario Italiano Treccani).

[I may be wrong, but there's a difference between the Anglo-Saxon (A) definition and the Italian one (B). To the former, values seem more like a given, while the latter appears more relativist: values are linked to a certain society]

In any case. Isn’t it possible that behaviours seen as indifferent and cynical according to certain values appear such only because partially obeying to diverse (alien) moral codes coming from the Greco-Roman antiquity?

Let’s have a look at these alien codes then.

No Conflicts of Conscience

Which is no easy task, the Greco-Roman philosophers having dissimilar moral views, plus the ancient people behaving differently according to the different ages.

Thus said, I basically agree on what the British historian C. P. Rodocanachi wrote about the Athenians of the V century BC (which on the whole and to a certain extent applies to the Greco-Romans as well).

“Absence of conflicts of conscience: the Greeks were quit] of this inhibiting and agonizing struggle. Their morals were civic and not religious. Their sense of duty was directed exclusively to the city … They knew nothing of the Christian idea of good faith, of intentions conditioning acts in such a manner that the most law-abiding citizen may feel himself a great criminal at heart… [They] may be considered as being intrinsically amoral and this very amorality was a powerful constituent of balance of mind which they could never have attained if their conscience had been torn, as ours is, between the conflicting forces of good and evil, virtue and vice, pleasure and sin. They could enjoy beauty, taste the delights of life without a pang of conscience. So long as they were faithful to the laws and interests of the city they had no damnation to fear, either in this world or the next.”

By intention Rodocanachi probably meant that just the thought of a sin is almost like committing the sin itself (I’m not a great theologian, I’ll admit.)

Not Torn Between Pleasure and Sin

Ok. So what’s the conclusion of all this?

The conclusion is the beginning. We get back to where we started.

Rodocanachi compares the Greek and the true Christian (or Protestant) attitudes. Italians are definitely more similar to the former.

Almost any Italian would confirm that we are not that torn between virtue and vice, pleasure and sin, that we do not fear damnation that much. Even if Italians captained for centuries the switch from the Pagan religion(s) to Christianity, their Christian feelings are superficial, no matter how false (or outrageous) this may seem (see note 3).

Even among Catholics, when taking the Italians and the Irish for example, we are not that strict compared to them.

The Lewinsky scandal, President Bill Clinton’s trial and this whole Scarlet Letter’s type of atmosphere literally sent Italians rolling on the floor laughing – I hope I won’t offend anybody saying that.

The Epicurean Rome of the Renaissance

“Your religion is not serious, you are cynical and indifferent!” commented many North Europeans arriving to Italy during the Renaissance. Their feelings were halfway between admiration and moral repulsion. The splendid epicurean Rome of the Renaissance (admire Villa d’Este above) appeared often repulsive to them, one reason why the eternal city was brutally sacked by protestant troops in 1527 AD (this comment develops our peculiar approach to Italian Renaissance.)

Truth is, our mind is like a museum, which makes us seem cynical, indifferent. We are inclined to live the joys of life or sometimes do bad deeds without all those self-punishment mechanisms derived from breaking any fundamentalist moral code. Our flexibility (and confusion) springs also from ancient mores that contribute to make us the way we are.

In some regions of our mind, it may be liked or disliked, we are still pagan at heart.

PS
The ideas in this and other posts cannot be considered as proven or demonstrated.

Notes.

1) Quote from C. P. Rodocanachi , Athens and the Greek Miracle, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, London 1948.
2) My answers to Maryann and Exposrip have been further processed since their questions have kept running in my mind (original texts here)
3) In Notebook IV of Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks we read: “There is no doubt that Italian religious feelings are superficial, as there is no doubt that religion here has a character which is mainly political, of international hegemony.” So it seems that also the pre-Christian role of government of peoples still survives: Imperial Rome is resurrected into Catholic Rome. Gramsci wrote this note in a period between 1929 and 1935. He was a Marxist. I am not. His thought went well beyond Marxism and is appreciated by both Marxists and non Marxists all the world over.

Related posts:

Pre-Christian Rome lives (where this movie by Fellini grotesquely unveils aspects of papal Rome’s pagan nature)
Survivals of the Roman Goddess Fortuna
Sex and the city (of Rome). A Conclusion
Gods are Watching with an Envious Eye
Knowing Thyself
Man of Roma
Constitutional Happiness by Australia Felix
The Mafia and the Italian Mind

Sex and the city (of Rome). A conclusion

Amazing Continuities

In Notebook IV of Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks we read an appreciation of Ernst Walser’s suggestion that, in order to better understand Italian Renaissance men, one should think of contemporary Italians (to a certain extent). We believe that, inversely, the same could be said of Italian Renaissance men. To better understand them one should think of the Ancients, namely the Greeks and the Romans (to a certain extent).

Ok, but don’t we have a greater distance between contemporary Italians and the Ancients? Of course, but nonetheless there are some amazing continuities, and these only interest us. Which are these continuities?

An Army of Don Juans

Narrowing our focus on the matter discussed in Sex and the city (of Rome) 1, 2, 3 and 4, we heard this sentence in a History Channel war documentary film: “An army of Don Juans was about to land…”. The film referred to an Italian military expedition sent by Mussolini to some place in the Mediterranean.

Now, I find this funny, and I am asking myself: is this the way many people from the English speaking countries consider us? A bunch of Don Juans lol? I know it was maybe only a boutade but if this is even just partly true, what is the reason for that?

Other associations in fact arise. Why Latin folks are considered sensual by many people in the United States? And why Casanova is Italian and Don Juan is Spanish? Why all American women went crazy for Elvis Presley (well, well, even more for Rodolfo Valentino) who came from the south of the USA, an area marked by some influence of the Spanish and the French? Was it only because he was a very handsome man and his voice was great?

Now the big question: isn’t it possible that we have here those long-period permanences or survivals French historian Braudel was talking about? I mean, aren’t we dealing here with the remnants of a different, pre-Christian, way of living one’s sexuality? Isn’t this what is so seductive, though felt as sinful and almost amoral (think of Elvis the pelvis), but, for this same reason, irresistible?

It is not our intent to exhaust (or to applaud) the phenomenon of Don Juanism, which is a complicated topic (and has a few unpleasant aspects). Please understand that there is no self-indulgence by our side and that all we care about are the possible survivals of a far away past.

Let us then continue with our associative questions.

Amoral Pagans

Why the North Europeans who came down to Rome during the Renaissance were both spellbound and disgusted? Is it because they perceived the Christian religion was not taken seriously by the Romans and by the Italians of that time? Can’t it be this was due to the fact that most of these northern people had started to be really civilised only with the spread of Christianity, while we were already civilised one thousand years earlier?  (magnificently civilized pls allow me readers: Italian Renaissance didn’t come out of a desert, read a moving page here)

Can’t it be that they are the true Christians while in us paganism (and behaviours attached to it) has left some (at times very deep) traces? (an overview from the MoR’s here). Can’t this be the reason (I know I am obsessive) why here the Christian religion was mainly felt as a political thing, namely a way of governing the minds and the spirits of men, in ways not so dissimilar to the times when Rome was a ruler of folks and nations?

And why our cardinals and even numerous Popes had lovers? And why the great Polish Pope (who surely had no lovers) was more appreciated by the big politicians of the planet (who flocked to his funeral) and less by the spiritual gurus of our time? (Today the Vatican is perceived as a political – more than a spiritual – institution, I do not have many doubts about it; even in Germany the Dalai Lama is more popular – 44% – than the German Pope Benedict XVI – 42% -, a datum emerged from a poll published by Der Spiegel in July 2007.).

Why finally many British historians, when discussing until recently the Italian Renaissance, still show(ed) some kind of moral repulsion?

Let us listen to the words of Preserved Smith, a British historian of the Middle Ages, who wrote the Renaissance entry in the 1956 edition of the Britannica:

“A succession of worldly pontiffs brought the Church into flagrant discord with the principles of Christianity. Steeped in pagan learning, desirous of imitating the manners of the ancients, thinking and feeling in harmony with Ovid and Theocritus, and, at the same time rendered cynical by the corruption of papal Rome, the [Italian] educated classes lost their grasp upon morality …”

“The Christian virtues were scorned by the foremost actors and the ablest thinkers of the time … The Church saw no danger in encouraging a pseudo-pagan ideal of life, violating its own principle of existence … and outraging Christendom openly by its acts and utterances.”

Italian society – Preserved Smith continues – was hardly aware that the New Learning it had mostly contributed to create had provoked “an intellectual force of stupendous magnitude and incalculable explosive power …”. His conclusion is beautiful (though tragic for us):

“Why should not [Italian] established institutions proceed upon the customary and convenient methods of routine, while the delights of existence were augmented, manners polished, arts developed and a golden age of epicurean ease made decent by a state religion which no one cared to break with because no one was left to regard it seriously? This was the attitude of the Italians when the Renaissance, which they had initiated as a thing of beauty, began to operate as a thing of power beyond the Alps”.

And in fact Italy was soon to be overwhelmed by that same ‘power’ she had mostly contributed to create.

(Getting back to paganism, Gramsci argues in that same Notebook IV: “There is no doubt that Italian religious feelings are superficial, as there is no doubt that religion here has a character which is mainly political, of international hegemony”.)

So it seems we are often considered amoral and not true Christians. Are we amoral? Are we not true Christians? Are we decadent, rotten? Or maybe someone is simply not fully capable of understanding us?

I will finish this draft conclusion of Sex and the city (of Rome) with this interesting passage written by a British historian, C. P. Rodocanachi (probably of Greek descent), and dedicated to what he considers a potent factor of the Greek miracle (Athens and the Greek Miracle, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, London 1948). This text sheds light in our view on the Greek mind and, to a certain extent, on the Roman mind, plus on some aspects of Italian Renaissance men as well:

Life with no Pang of Conscience

Absence of conflicts of conscience: the Greeks were quit “of this inhibiting and agonizing struggle. Their morals were civic and not religious. Their sense of duty was directed exclusively to the city … They knew nothing of the Christian idea of good faith, of intentions conditioning acts in such a manner that the most law-abiding citizen may feel himself a great criminal at heart… [They] may be considered as being intrinsically amoral and this very amorality was a powerful constituent of balance of mind which they could never have attained if their conscience had been torn, as ours is, between the conflicting forces of good and evil, virtue and vice, pleasure and sin. They could enjoy beauty, taste the delights of life without a pang of conscience. So long as they were faithful to the laws and interests of the city they had no damnation to fear, either in this world or the next.”

Italian version

Related posts:

Pre-Christian Rome lives (where this movie by Fellini reveals papal Rome’s pagan nature)

Sex and the city (of Rome) 1
Sex and the city (of Rome) 2
Sex and the city (of Rome) 3
Sex and the city (of Rome) 4

“Italians are Cynical, Amoral, Religiously Superficial”
Survivals of the Roman Goddess Fortuna (comments section)

Constitutional Happiness by Australia Felix

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PS
We had to erase some insulting comments to this post. They were written by some persons from the UK. I ask for pardon if I have offended anybody, it was not my aim, really, plus I do not really know why these people felt offended. My style is sometimes aggressive but I am fond of the British people. I wouldn’t have toiled so much to learn their language decently enough. The main idea behind this post (a bit hasty and in some parts obscure, I’ll admit) is the fact (an historical fact, no doubt) that the people in the Italian peninsula were civilized long before Christianity arrived. I mean by civilization something distinguished from other cultures by its high level of social complexity and by the presence of urbanisation.

This fact, the existence of this pre-Christian civilization, may have created some cultural differences (living until today) with people who reached this fully civilized stage mostly thanks to (and together with) the spread of the Christian religion. These differences can regard for example some survivals of the Roman religion in our country – traces of paganism which many scholars do recognize and which Protestants, it is well known, always condemned – but could also regard, why not, sexual behaviours as well. Did scholars try to research on this? We do not know so far, but we do not think so. See the comments area for further information on this point.

Sex and the City (of Rome). 3

So far we have wandered about Roman sexuality trying to understand 1) how remote it is from contemporary sexuality and 2) why everything has radically changed in the West since those times.

The first question seems clear. The Romans were very different and fancifully enjoyed pleasures and sex even though they tried not to be dominated by them (see our earlier post on ancient teachings.)

How different they were finds further evidence in statues like the famous Borghese Hermaphroditus shown above and kept at the Louvre Museum in Paris, especially when we think that these statues were very common in the Greco-Roman world. A hermaphroditus is actually a transsexual.

Can you imagine today a VIP’s living room offering the view of a marble transsexual to guests? Well, excluding some eccentric artistic milieus, I think even open-minded people would be very puzzled, what do you think?

The second question is more difficult. I believe that the Christian religion has some responsibility, although I acknowledge that sexual pleasure & love are such a tremendous force that it can be a social problem no matter what culture or epoch we live in. As the Spanish philosopher Fernando Savater puts it, we like it too much, therefore sex is potentially dangerous, unproductive and every society tries to regulate it in a way or another.

Puritanism in its broad meaning however – loving only what is not pleasurable – is to be condemned in my view even if it can push us to be extremely active and to work extremely hard (puritanism was seen as a factor of development in areas of the United States according to Max Weber’s theories, if my memory is not faltering.)

As always it is a matter of right measure. The Romans achieved great things (like the Anglo-Saxons did), so they worked very hard but lived pleasantly and were (mostly) not puritanical.

And it is not by chance that the Latin folks originated from them (Italy, France, Portugal, Spain etc.) tend to enjoy life with refinement, taste and joy, this also incidentally being a reason why the Italian and French (and Spanish) ways of life are so attractive and represent today a school of savoir vivre for the West.

Today’s Latin folks are more or less taught since they were babies to cultivate beauty and all it implies.

It is so simple,
as simple and beautiful
as a Greek temple.

Their ancestors in fact, our Ancient Romans, didn’t just eat (as many Anglo-Saxons do, though progress is evident) but invented a highly refined culinary art. Equally, they didn’t just reproduce themselves (as many Christian fanatics do) but invented forms of refined eroticism which allowed them to live a fuller life.

Is it wrong? Is it right?

Should beauty in all its forms be a main part of our life?

A full answer is more complex than it seems at first, but I definitely think it is right.

Yes, I conclusively think it is right, my sweet readers. Oh I really don’t have many doubts about that.

Italian version

Related posts:

Sex and the city (of Rome) 1
Sex and the city (of Rome) 2
Sex and the city (of Rome) 4
Sex and the city (of Rome). A Conclusion.

Sex and the City (of Rome). 1

The ancient Greco-Romans had a totally different attitude towards sex (so the minor or the puritanical shouldn’t read further.) Suffice it to have a look at these statues, both beautiful and erotic, to intuitively grasp a sensuality open and entirely different from the Western manners prevalent today. The beauty and natural perfection of these bodies in fact convey the idea – a very simple idea, this very gifted Greek student I recently met would say – that sex wasn’t perceived as lewd or licentious; it was felt instead as one of the joys of life:

It is so simple:
as simple (and beautiful)
as a Greek temple.

Hence sex was enjoyed so naturally though in ways most contemporary folks wouldn’t even imagine, especially when we think that these statues were somehow linked to rituals and religion.

Above we can admire the perfect classical beauty of Venus Kallipygos; below, the statue of a Satyr (which a female Roman friend chose among a set and assured me it was a pretty good erotic sample. I couldn’t but yield to her superior discernment.)

Venus was the Goddess of love (both carnal and spiritual) while a Satyr, according to the Wikipedia – a very good tool for initial research, but nothing more – is “a Dionysian creature lover of wine, women and boys, and ready for every physical pleasure…”. Also child satyrs existed (which seems such a sad thing today, to all of us) taking part in Bacchanalian/Dionysian religious rituals, which usually (or sometimes) involved orgies as well.

At this point I’m really sure that every reader cannot but agree that the Greco-Romans had a VERY different attitude towards sex. No doubt about that. An ENTIRELY different attitude indeed.

If we could forget these are classical statues and regarded them just as they appear to our senses and out of their context we’d surely see them as porn or pornographic. According to the Wikipedia “the concept of pornography as understood today did not exist until the Victorian era. …When large scale excavations of Pompeii were undertaken in the 1860s, much of the erotic art of the Romans came to light, shocking the Victorians who saw themselves as the intellectual heirs of the Roman Empire. They did not know what to do with the frank depictions of sexuality, and endeavored to hide them away ….. The moveable objects were locked away in the Secret Museum in Naples, Italy.”

(In case you want to know more about these Pompeii erotic artifacts, read this post of ours and have a look at a large collection of them offered by Arch Art)

I do not quite agree with Wikipedia about how and when the modern concept of pornography was conceived, seeming this to me a totally Anglo-Saxon centred observation, forgetful of how history can be ancient.

I might be wrong (or right) but who the hell cares, chissenefrega, this whole Victorian thing being so incredibly funny.

I can see these prudish Victorians feeling themselves as heirs of the Romans (which somehow they were, at least in my view) who much to their horror found out how perverted these Romans had been (at least in their view), while together with the Italians they were uncovering these sexy statues and paintings.

I can imagine their pale shocked faces and especially I’m fantasizing about their shamefully and hastily helping the Neapolitans to hide somewhere the horrendous, abominable truth.

The Neapolitans incidentally were then probably laughing at them a bit as well, being of course much less disturbed than the Victorians by all these “frank depictions of sexuality” (dear reader, try to guess why …).

Getting back to the Ancients, this Aphrodite of the Beautiful Buttocks is uncovering herself and looking back (and down) in order to evaluate her perfect buttocks. The reason is again very simple (and very erotic, I’ll confess.) All originated from a buttock contest between two beautiful sisters, so, who knows, the statue dedicated to Venus-Aphrodite might exactly represent both the winner and her buttocks. I mean – and of course mine is mere historical interest – there is a chance we are looking at her real ass, and not at the usual idealized one. I am pretty sure she evaluated her rear even more evidently since statues were mostly painted in full colour, therefore the direction of her gaze was probably even more visible (pupils etc. being painted too.)

This cult of Venus-Aphrodite with beautiful buttocks appeared in Greek Syracuse (Sicily, Italy,) according to some ancient author, because this is where the sisters apparently lived. Again, needless to say, it would be nowadays inconceivable to dedicate a sanctuary (or a holy place) to a goddess because of a pair of sexy buttocks (read in the Wikipedia the whole peculiar story of the two lovely sisters.)

Venus was the goddess of beauty, fertility and love. The Roman Venus was born around Lavinium not by chance, since Aeneas, the great Roman ancestor (son of Venus, by the way) may there be landed and there probably lived. So technically the Romans were children of Venus but also of Mars, God of War: what a weird mix, isn’t it.

This I’m thinking while strolling between the Colosseum, to my left, and the temple of Venus and Roma, to my right, between these two symbols of Life and Death. How complex the Romans were.

The Greek Aphrodite was instead born in Cyprus – incidentally where the Greek student comes from, but I do not believe in signs, like Brasilian Coelho does.

Young couples gathered close to the Venus temples for petting, necking and even coupling. Youths were probably discreet but what is interesting is that their loving felt somehow enhanced, even sanctified by the presence of the Goddess, which is again unimaginable today. Think of a today’s scenario where teenagers flock near a Catholic or an Anglican church, in spring time, or in any time, for petting and sex. I mean, even the mere thought of it could offend true Christians.

Of course I do ask for pardon though please it’d also be nice if you religious people did some effort as well. We are not here to offend religion(s) nor to make a porn site out this blog (which could make us richer though not necessarily happier.) We are here to talk about our Western roots. And it turns these ancient Greeks & Romans had entirely different views on sex.

Is it bad? Is it good? Difficult to say. We somewhat prefer the ancient views, but it is our personal opinion. We just love to think Sex to be Beauty, love and sex to be a sublime joy of life that shouldn’t necessarily be related to reproduction (like too many Popes tried to teach us endlessly.)

Ok, one might say, if it’s true these were our Western roots, what the hell has happened? Why had we this oppressive revolution that made one of the joys of life into something to be ashamed of? Was it because of the Victorians? Of the Muslims? Was it because of the Christian priests and intellectuals? Maybe in India, who knows, the Victorians had some influence. Out there Kama Sutra was created, the first great text about love and sexual intercourse – beautiful, poetic and scientific – and the Victorians arrived with their not entirely positive influence in this field of human life (if what the Wikipedia says is true …I need some feedback here by my Indians readers.)

As for the West I am sure the answer is to be found at the times when the Roman Empire turned into a Christian Roman Empire, hence from Emperor Constantine onwards (4th century AD: no trace of the Victorians yet lol). Not immediately though. No. It took some time. It surely took some time to become totally repressed.

One last thing. Are anywhere to be found survivals of this ancient freer attitude towards sex? I believe so. We have said (Braudel had said) great civilisations never die. Plus we had entitled this post Permanences III (but changed the title later.) But we do not want to reveal too much about the Roman sex post num. 2.

So, how can we conclude this writing?

1) With this Roman copy of Castor and Pollux, or Dioscuri (youths of Zeus) by Praxiteles, Madrid (see below), which has also been enthusiastically approved by my female friend.

2) With Lucretius’ initial prayer to Venus.

Lucretius is a great Roman poet. From his verses one can get a good feel of how a true Ancient Roman felt about Venus. So it is a pretty good conclusion for this Sex and the Romans num. 1 post. If you are lucky enough to appreciate these verses you’ll live a unique experience, a real time-machine experience. This also classics offer, a time-machine experience.

Try then hard to read these words attentively. You might be able to penetrate the mysteries of a lost, arcane – though still living, though still living wonder why – world …

Man of Roma

Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura.

Initial invocation to Venus.

“Mother of Rome, delight of Gods and men,
Dear Venus that beneath the gliding stars
Makest to teem the many-voyaged main
And fruitful lands- for all of living things
Through thee alone are evermore conceived,
Through thee are risen to visit the great sun-
Before thee, Goddess, and thy coming on,
Flee stormy wind and massy cloud away,
For thee the daedal Earth bears scented flowers,
For thee waters of the unvexed deep
Smile, and the hollows of the serene sky
Glow with diffused radiance for thee!

For soon as comes the springtime face of day,
And procreant gales blow from the West unbarred,
First fowls of air, smit to the heart by thee,
Foretoken thy approach, O thou Divine,
And leap the wild herds round the happy fields
Or swim the bounding torrents. Thus amain,
Seized with the spell, all creatures follow thee
Whithersoever thou walkest forth to lead,
And thence through seas and mountains and swift streams,
Through leafy homes of birds and greening plains,
Kindling the lure of love in every breast,
Thou bringest the eternal generations forth,
Kind after kind. And since ’tis thou alone
Guidest the Cosmos, and without thee naught
Is risen to reach the shining shores of light,
Nor aught of joyful or of lovely born,
Thee do I crave co-partner in that verse
Which I presume on Nature to compose
For Memmius mine, whom thou hast willed to be
Peerless in every grace at every hour-

Wherefore indeed, Divine one, give my words
Immortal charm. Lull to a timely rest
O’er sea and land the savage works of war,
For thou alone hast power with public peace
To aid mortality; since he who rules
The savage works of battle, puissant Mars,
How often to thy bosom flings his strength
O’ermastered by the eternal wound of love-
And there, with eyes and full throat backward thrown,
Gazing, my Goddess, open-mouthed at thee,
Pastures on love his greedy sight, his breath
Hanging upon thy lips. Him thus reclined
Fill with thy holy body, round, above!
Pour from those lips soft syllables to win
Peace for the Romans, glorious Lady, peace!.”

Of The Nature of Things [De Rerum Natura]
by Lucretius [Titus Lucretius Carus]
(Initial invocation to Venus)

Translated by William Ellery Leonard
(1876-1944)
Project Gutenberg Text

Italian version

ψ

Related posts:

Sex and the city (of Rome) 2
Sex and the city (of Rome) 3
Sex and the city (of Rome) 4
Sex and the city (of Rome). A Conclusion
Caesar, Great Man (and Don Juan)

Sex and the city (of Rome). Season II. 1

See also:

Silvestri, Berlusconi and the Emperor Tiberius