Poetic Preludes

The year has started well,
with a poet of the ancient dead,
wandering into my hearth,
with a voice of cheery mirth,
to sing to me once more,
and regale me with lore-
of lusty girls and strappy youths
absent spouses, lovers uncouth,
pretensions absent,no room for shame,
modesty tossed,it was all a game;
jealous wives driven insane,
bored maidens escaping mundane,
cheating on husbands - just for fun,
or pining lovers on the run,
thus men and women played,
and frolicked till the end,
in the oldest of poetic anthologies,
from 2nd century CE
the Gathasaptasati.

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I have just finished 'The Absent Traveller-Prakit Love Poetry from the Gathasaptasati of Saavahana Hala' that compiles some of the oldest secular verse from 2nd century CE.What astonishes me is how puranitically repressed the modern human has become in sexual expression compared to our very much more liberal distant ancestors who sang, joyously, uninhibitedly, about the intimate relationships between men and women.