Back in the simpler days of personal home pages I had put up a page with some favourite poems. That was, at least in part, an exercise in pomposity. Now that I have a more permanent format for my online home, I would like to repost some of those short poems; this time motivated by nostalgia and a librarian’s obsession with preservation. I found this poem on Nerve° several years ago and memorised it instantly. On a summer holiday of yore, intoxicated by our own youthfulness, Matt, Raphael, and I translated it to Greek, Latin, and French, put it in bottle and dumped it in the Mediterranean. Here it is now, for your enjoyment, this 5^th century poem by Bhartrhari:

In this vain fleeting universe, a man
Of wisdom has two courses: first, he can
Direct his time to pray, to save his soul,
And wallow in religion’s nectar-bowl;
But, if he cannot, it is surely best
To touch and hold a lovely woman’s breast,
And to caress her warm round hips, and thighs,
And to possess that which between them lies.