The songs of Bilitis

Bilitis was born at the beginning of the sixth century before our era in a mountain village situated on the banks of the Melas, to the east of Pamphylia. The country is stony an...

Our mothers were pregnant at the same time and, this evening, she is married, Melissa, my dearest friend. The roses still lie upon the path; the torches have not yet burned out.

In her chamber filled with foliage, she waited for me like a spouse. And I carried her away on a chariot between myself and the nymphagogue. One of her little breasts burned in...

I remember ... (at what hour of the day is it not before my eyes!) I remember the manner in which She lifted her hair with her slender fingers so pale.

In a debauch that two young men and some courtesans made at my house, where love gushed out like wine, Damalis, in honor of her name, danced the Figure of Pasiphae.

That she gathered about her a society of maidens to whom she taught the art of poetry, is well known; the names of many of her pupils and friends have been preserved in fragment...