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Erotica Romana

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  • Poetry
  • Book language: English
  • 37 pages

Erotica Romana is a cycle of elegies by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, shaped by his encounter with Rome and classical antiquity. The poems blend love and erotic themes with classical motifs, art, and daily life, often in a personal voice. They are worth listening to for their mature poetic craft, wit, and layered allusions to the ancient world.

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Text source: gutenberg.org · The work is in the public domain.

Opening of the book

EROTICA ROMANA

By Johann Wolfgang Goethe

ABOUT THE ELEGIES

I

Here's where I've planted my garden and here I shall care for love's blossoms—

As I am taught by my muse, carefully sort them in plots:

Fertile branches, whose product is golden fruit of my lifetime,

Set here in happier years, tended with pleasure today.

You, stand here at my side, good Priapus—albeit from thieves

I've

Nothing to fear. Freely pluck, whosoever would eat.

—Hypocrites, those are the ones! If weakened with shame and bad conscience

One of those criminals comes, squinting out over my garden,

Bridling at nature's pure fruit, punish the knave in his hindparts,

Using the stake which so red rises there at your loins.

II

Tell me ye stones and give me O glorious palaces answer.

Speak O ye streets but one word. Genius, art thou alive?

Yes, here within thy sanctified walls there's a soul in each object,

ROMA eternal. For me, only, are all things yet mute.

Who will then tell me in whispers and where must I find just the window

Where one day she'll be glimpsed: creature who'll scorch me with love?

Can't I divine yet the paths through which over and over

To her and from her I'll go, squandering valuable time?

Visiting churches and palaces, all of the ruins and the pillars,

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Contents

  1. EROTICA ROMANA
  2. I
  3. II
  4. III
  5. IV
  6. V
  7. VI
  8. VII
  9. VIII
  10. IX
  11. X
  12. XI
  13. XII
  14. XIII
  15. XIV
  16. XV
  17. XVI
  18. XVII
  19. XVIII
  20. XIX
  21. XX
  22. XXI
  23. XXII
  24. XXIII
  25. XXIV
  26. ABOUT THE ELEGIES
  27. THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE

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