Dire - II

Anonymous German Printmaker
Demon tormenting Praying Monks with Flames
ca. 1475
hand-colored woodcut
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel

Israel van Meckenem
Man of Sorrows in the Tomb
ca. 1480
engraving
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Melchior Küsel after Johann Wilhelm Baur
Ascalaphus spying Proserpina eating Pomegranate Seeds in Hades
1670
etching
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Johann August Nahl the Younger
Orpheus and Eurydice
1807
oil on canvas
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Evariste Vital Luminais
Psyche among the Shades
1886
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes

Alessandro Sanguinio
Catafalque of Franz I in Milan Cathedral
1835
hand-colored lithograph
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Claude Mellan
Adam and Eve at the Foot of the Cross
ca. 1647
engraving
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

Salvator Rosa
Christ driving Demons from Possessed Man
ca. 1662
drawing
(study for painting)
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Albrecht Altdorfer
Christ in Limbo
ca. 1513-14
woodcut
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Albrecht Dürer
The Rider Death and the Devil
1513
engraving
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Couple scrutinized by Hostile Crowd
1924
oil on canvas
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Lorenzo Lotto
Portrait of Friar Angelo Ferretti as St Peter Martyr
1549
oil on canvas
Harvard Art Museums

Félix Bracquemond
Le Corbeau
ca. 1870
etching
(published in the Parisian weekly, L'Artiste)
Cabinet d'Arts Graphiques
des Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève

Ragnar Ljungman
King Herod
1904
drawing
Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Sweden

Johann Moritz Rugendas
View into a Glowing Crater
ca. 1831-34
oil on board
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Gene Owens
Cinder Sun
1964
bronze
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Just now, as I was passing the place where they make garlands, I saw a boy interweaving flowers with a bunch of berries.  Nor did I pass by unwounded, but standing by him I said quietly, "For how much will you sell me your garland?"  He grew redder than his roses, and turning down his head said, "Go right away in case my father sees you."  I bought some wreaths as a pretence, and when I reached home crowned the gods, beseeching them to grant me him. 

Seek not to hide our love, Philocrates; the god himself without that hath sufficient power to trample on my heart.  But give me a taste of a blithe kiss.  The time shall come when thou shalt beg such favour from others. 

Unhappy they whose life is loveless; for without love it is not easy to do aught or to say aught.  I, for example, am now all too slow, but were I to catch sight of Xenophilus I would fly swifter than lightning.  Therefore I bid all men not to shun but to pursue sweet desire; Love is the whetstone of the soul.

I am not yet two and twenty, and life is a burden to me.  Ye Loves, why thus maltreat me; why set me afire?  For if I perish, what will you do?  Clearly, Loves, you will play, silly children, at your knuckle-bones as before. 

I am down; set thy foot on my neck, fierce demon.  I know thee, yea by the gods, yea heavy art thou to bear: I know, too, thy fiery arrows.  But if thou set thy torch to my heart, thou shalt no longer burn it; already it is all ash. 
 
Child of Leto, son of Zeus the great, who utterest oracles to all men, thou art lord of the sea-girt height of Delos; but the lord of the land of Cecrops is Echedemus, a second Attic Phoebus whom soft-haired Love lit with lovely bloom.  And his city Athens, once mistress of the sea and land, now has made all Greece her slave by beauty.

– from Book XII (Strato's Musa Puerilis) in the Greek Anthology, translated and edited by W.R. Paton (1917)