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| Jacques Callot Bird of Paradise ca. 1625-30 etching Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich |
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| Marco Zoppo Fortuna filling the Sail ca. 1460 drawing Hamburger Kunsthalle |
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| Frans Wouters Bacchanal ca. 1648 oil on panel Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
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| Adriaen van Stalbemt Triumph of the Infant Bacchus ca. 1620-40 oil on copper Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe |
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| Johann Elias Ridinger Joyous Dancer ca. 1730 mezzotint Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig |
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| Pierre Brébiette Venus sailing in Shell Chariot ca. 1640 engraving Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich |
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| Sébastien Dulac Bohème 1831 oil on canvas private collection |
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| Dirck Hals Merry Company 1633 oil on panel Mauritshuis, The Hague |
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| Carl Wilhelm von Heideck The Wild Hunter 1817 watercolor on paper (illustration to poem by Gottfried August Bürger) Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin |
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| Marie-François Firmin Girard Sirens luring the Ship of Odysseus 1864 oil on canvas Musée d'Art et d'Histoire de Narbonne |
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| Madeleine Lemaire Fairies in Chariot ca. 1892 oil on canvas Château Musée de Dieppe |
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| Jan Miense Molenaer Brothel Scene before 1668 etching Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich |
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| Pietro Palmieri the Elder Group making Music ca. 1780 drawing Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna |
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| Pietro Righini Rococo Set for Opera staged at La Scala, Milan ca. 1730 etching Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden |
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| Pellegrino Tibaldi Three Bacchantes ca. 1570 drawing Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna |
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| Augustin Hirschvogel The Four Winds 1549 etching Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna |
Two loves, descending on me like the tempest, consume me, Eumachus, and I am caught in the toils of two furious passions. On this side I bend towards Asander, and on that again my eye, waxing keener, turns to Telephus. Cut me in two, I should love that, and dividing the halves in a just balance, carry off my limbs, each of you, as the lot decides.
O eyes, betrayers of the soul, boy-hunting hounds, your glances ever smeared with Cypris' bird-lime, ye have seized on another Love, like sheep catching a wolf, or a crow a scorpion, or the ash the fire that smoulders beneath it. Do even what ye will. Why do you shed showers of tears and straight run off again to Hiketas? Roast yourselves in beauty, consume away now over the fire, for Love is an admirable cook of the soul.
Boys are a labyrinth from which there is no way out; for wherever thou castest thine eye it is fast entangled as if by bird-lime. Here Theodorus attracts thee to the plump ripeness of his flesh and the unadulterate bloom of his limbs, and there it is the golden face of Philocles, who is not great in stature, but heavenly grace environs him. But if thou turnest to look on Leptines thou shalt no more move thy limbs, but shalt remain, thy steps glued as if by indissoluble adamant; such a flame hath the boy in his eyes to set thee afire from thy head to thy toe and finger tips. All hail, beautiful boys! May ye come to the prime of youth and live till grey hair clothe your heads.
Delightful is Diodorus and the eyes of all are on Heraclitus, Dion is sweet-spoken, and Uliades has lovely loins. But, Philocles, touch the delicate-skinned one, and look on the next and speak to the third, and for the fourth – etcetera; so that thou mayst see how free from envy my mind is. But if thou cast greedy eyes on Myiscus, mayst thou never see beauty again.
I know but one beauty in the world; my greedy eye knows but one thing, to look on Myiscus, and for all else I am blind. He represents everything to me. Is it just on what will please the soul that the eyes look, the flatterers?
I am caught by Love, I who had never dreamt it, and never had I learnt to feed a male flame hot beneath my heart. I am caught. Yet it was no longing for evil, but a pure glance, foster-brother of modesty, that burnt me to ashes. Let it consume away, the long labour of the Muses; for my mind is cast in the fire, bearing the burden of a sweet pain.
– from Book XII (Strato's Musa Puerilis) in the Greek Anthology, translated and edited by W.R. Paton (1917)