Sulpicia Sequence

The Sulpicia poems are the only poems by a woman (though there is some controversy about the authorship) that have come down to us from Ancient Rome - six short poems

I

Love's here at last. Love my age and dignity
Could better hide that show it to tittering
Clowns. And it's my poetry and its prayers
It answers. Love won over by my rhymes!
'For favors rendered' I could say. O Hell!
Let me tell it all. They who haven't got it
Won't get it. It's not like me to lock a thing
Like this inside me. And no one to know but
You Love. Today to love. They see it in my face. Why hide then for pride you Love I am so proud of.

II

Birthday's near. Horrid day! With country
Aunts. And no Cerintho there! Horrid day!
I could stay in the city? What can a girl do
On a farm? Walk the fields? Jump in
The frozen lake? I'll be okay! You worry
Too much! You're always planning my life for me! Okay! Drag me body and soul off to Granny's!
I don't want to go! But who ever cares what I want!

III

Guess what! The trip's off! So is the gloom!
They said I can have my birthday in Rome.
All of us should celebrate birthdays together!
Just like this one that now falls into your lap!

IV

It's nice to know now you feel yourself so sure
Of me! So dumb I fall over on my back at first
Touch! Chatting up a bar slut in a cheap blouse
Is your level. But not me, the daughter of Servius
Sulpicia. My family cares about me. They don't
Want me lose it like a pushover to a country bully.

V

You're sweet, Cerinthus, in you care
now your girl has got the hots from you.
Oh! What's the good of getting better!
Unless, of course, that's what you want.
What would I get out of getting better, if
You would take my cooling down as coldly!

VI

Never, my sunshine, never will we do again
The things we did the other night!
Of all the dumb shows I ever did til now
I know I never did a dumber or a worser
Than walking out on you last night
Just to show I do not want it like I do!

^

Biography

Chris Neenan lives in Rome where he is professor of English Literature at John Cabot University. He is also editor and consultant for economic and banking documents in Italy's central bank, the Banca d'Italia, and visiting lecturer for Corporate Communications at the Malta University Link Campus. Chris has published poetry in Cortland Review, ForPoetry, Stirring, and frequently in E-Acorn."