“That isn’t quite right either.”Her willingness to contradict his suggestions delighted him.He watched her worry her lower lip with her teeth in the adorable way he had come to expect before she went on.“‘All other pleasure takes second place,’ perhaps?”
It was an excellent suggestion.The teacher in him kept his tone even or he would have overwhelmed her with delight.“Your variation works very well.It will do nicely.‘Pleasure’ or ‘delight’?Your initial translation was ‘delight.’Did you consider ‘joy’?”
“‘Pleasure.’”Her voice was firm, but the delightful rosy color rising up her neck deepened.Knowledge doesn’t always come from books.
She looked at him without shying away.“‘Pleasure.’‘Joy’ can convey a world of meaning, depending on the ear of the listener.I think ‘pleasure’ is more precise and closer to the author’s intent.”
“‘Pleasure’ it is then.That leaves us with ‘Nothing is sweeter than desire.All other pleasure is second to it.’”
The air crackled between them.Her feminine scent filled the air and awoke his senses.Lilacs and springtime.Andrew felt his breathing slow until it became labored.He felt rather than heard a catch in his voice.Hoarseness undermined his effort to retain the tones of a teacher.
“The next line looks the same as before.”
“There isn’t much you can do with spitting out honey,” Georgiana said.“She just spits it out of her mouth.She says, ‘Even honey I spit from my mouth.’”
So much for poetic rapture.He couldn’t imagine what else to do with spitting; honey clearly didn’t match up to other delights.He laughed.It was the only possible response.
“Oh, do be serious.The honey is what it is.We have
Nothing is sweeterthan desire
All other pleasure is second to it.
Even honey I spit from my mouth.
She paced while she talked,as she always did when agitated, gesticulating broadly.“The part that comes next–Andrew, do pay attention.The next part, about what or who ‘Kypris’ did or didn’t love confuses me.Nossis makes some sort of declaration.She says it outright.‘Nossis declares...’or ‘So says Nossis...’or even just ‘Nossis says...’Do you see?”
Andrew struggled to focus on Georgiana’s words and not onthe sight of her morning gown stretched across her breast when she moved her arms, but he lost the struggle.He nodded without hearing her.“Go on.”
“I can’t.I have no idea what to do with Kypris.I thought at first Kypris was a man’s name, but I have never seen it used thus.Does she refer to the Island of Cyprus?”
“I’m sorry, Georgiana.Cyprus?”He pulled his wandering thoughts back to the words.
“Kypris.Who is it?Do we have geographical features speaking again?Romance with an island seems unlikely, but Nossis says ‘She whom Kypris hasn’t loved.’”
Andrew realized her expressive face had altered.She went pale and then flushed.He knew the many uses of the verb “to love.”He wondered if those meanings brought the blush to her face.He wouldn’t sort it out for her.She would have to work it out herself.He wondered what she knew about Greek culture to reconsider whether the person in question was a man.
The identity of Kypris presented an easier topic.
“It isn’t a man’s name, Georgiana.You correctly identified it as Cyprus.However, in this case, I don’t believe the island itself is what is meant.Cyprus was the birthplace of Aphrodite and her son Eros.She refers, I think, to Aphrodite herself.It is a common enough poetic image.”
“So, it is whomever ‘Aphrodite hasn’t loved’ or ‘doesn’t love’ perhaps?”She considered the matter; she worried her lower lip again while she worked out the author’s meaning.He couldn’t look away.He watched a question form in her mind, watched her hesitate, and watched her square her shoulders when she determined to ask it.
“Could it mean ‘the person who has not been made love to by Aphrodite’?That wording is clumsy, but could that be the sense of it?”
Too amused to hide it, he spoke quickly before she could get her back up at his laughter.“I think that interpretation is possible, but it stretches the meaning of the text.The poet describes someone who isn’t the beloved of Aphrodite, but notnecessarily someone who hasn’t been the lover of Aphrodite.Of course, a person who is the beloved of Aphrodite would be aware of the arts of love and the sensual delights.That would be true, in this context, regardless of whether or not the person learned them from Aphrodite herself.”
He wondered if he had gone too far when her blush deepened.They were on dangerous ground.She swallowed, and—God help him—wet her lips with her tongue.
“So ‘the one whom Aphrodite does notlove’ is best.”She seemed to seek his approval.“I think I understand the words so far, but the final line confuses me completely.When I look at it, I wonder about the entire poem.She talks about flowers and roses.”
“There is no ambiguity about the literal meaning of the words.They—the ones Aphrodite doesn’t love— ‘can’t tell what sort of flowers these roses are.’”
“She doesn’t mean it literally, though, does she?She says, ‘Nossis declares...’What does she declare?That ‘anyone who is not the beloved of Aphrodite’—or isn’t Aphrodite’s beloved—‘can’t tell what kind of flowers roses are’?I don’t think she means it as a treatise on gardening.”
“No, certainly not.Nossis is obviously making a serious declaration about herself.”
“Is it about her life or her work?”
