Comparisons

p. 33

COMPARISONS

Sparrow, 33 bird of Kypris, accompany our first desires with your notes. The new body of young girls blooms with flowers, just as blooms the earth. The night of all our dreams arrives and we whisper it together.

At times we match our different beauties, our long hair, our budding breasts, our quail-plump deltas, couched beneath the springing down.

But yesterday I strove this way against Melantho, my elder. She was proud of her bosom, which sprouted within the month, and, mocking at my flattened tunic, called me Little Child.

No man could possibly have seen us, we showed ourselves nude before the other girls, and, if she won upon one point, I vanquished her by far upon the others. Sparrow, bird of the Kyprian, accompany our first desires with your notes.