Classic Poem

I want to flee to the frozen north when cliques who prattle
About ancient virtue live like beasts and talk of morals.
For a start they are pig ignorant, though their houses are stuffed with busts
Of Stoic philosophers. Their great hero is one who has bought
A picture of Aristotle or one of the sages, or keeps an original of Cleanthes.
You can't judge a man by his looks — there are gloomy debauchees everywhere.
You chastise sodomy, you , the most notorious Socratic fairy!
A body bristling with hair, hirsute arms, give promise
Of a manly soul, but your arse is sleek when the laughing doctor
Comes to lance your piles. You " philosophers" are taciturn,
But you cut your hair to match your eyebrows. At least Peribombus
Is candid — his face and walk reveal all his inclinations,
And I call those Destiny's fault. His honest flaunting
And self-exposure are pardonable really and worthy our pity.
But you, with Herculean tongues, denounce his weakness and chatter about
Virtue while preparing to practise vice. " How can I respect you ?" shouts one
Notorious queen. " You do what I do. Why am I worse?"
Hypocrites, all of them . . . A famous lawyer dresses in chiffon . . .
Everyone marvels as he launches out against all the vices.
Who'd dress like that? " But darling, it's so hot on July afternoons!"
. . . Careful, this will spread and you'll get involved in worse, you'll slip by degrees
And propitiate the Mother Goddess with the other queers, be welcomed
In homes where men wear heavy necklaces and fillets round their heads.
You'll sacrifice the stomach of a pig and a vast bowl of wine while ensuring
That only males come in. " Clear out! Women are profane!
No music from she-minstrels here!" Such were the cries and the rites
In Athens . . . One queen is using an eyebrow pencil,
A needle stained with damp soot. She puts on mascara.
Another drinks from a phallic cup and ties her hair
In a glittering net. Her cheeks are blue or smooth and green.
The servant, following the master, swears only by Juno . . .
No decent language, no elegant manners, but high-pitched voices
And a gluttonous old grey-haired priest — a master who should teach the vice . . .
Gracchus has given his cornet — perhaps he played a " straight" horn —
Four thousand pounds as a dowry! The contract's signed,
The blessings are pronounced, the banqueters are seated, and the male bride
Reclines at ease on the bosom of her new-found husband.
Oh, nobles of Rome, what do we need, a soothsayer or a moralist?
Would you find it worse, would you be more moved if a woman gave birth
To a calf or a cow or a lamb? The man who is now a " husband"
Carried a shield in the procession of Mars, sweating with the burden!
Oh, father of our city, how came our shepherds so full of vice?
Oh, Lord of War, where did our pastoral grandsires learn this?
An aristocrat marries a man and you sit idly by —
Go, go from the martial plain which you have forgotten!