Under the comfort of the cot’s duvet,
   the dreamy guitar chords pervaded the cavern and ebbed
   like the neighboring cove.
Echoes, acoustics, and amplification alike, 
   each breath and note suspended by the anticipation of drifting into another afternoon slumber.
Entombed in layers, sheets, and garments alike–
   an almost mummified girl protected by her pillow and canopic 
stuffed animals. 

O’ Jezebel, magnificent and magnanimous,

But whose fury is seething and righteous. 

Who laid waste to Moab, 

Trampling their cities, their palaces, and their coffers? 

Who adorned our women with the finest of silks, 

Gilded our men with gold, 

With the plunder of Moab? 

Writhing within with vehement wroth
In bitterness I speak of my soul
Made from the spent elements of ash
I am like a leaf that is trifled by the wind

And while it is truly proper for a wise man, 
To place upon the rock, his home’s foundation,
I, a fool, am more alike a flowing stream
That never treads one place alone…

Helen. (Helen, Helen, Helen.) 

You beautiful, treacherous girl.  
You caused too much—  
(Too much destruction, too much pain 

Your beauty is too much for this world  
Too much too much too—) 

(What do you do with it all? 
Where do you put it all? 
How do you cope with it all?)

I paused, staring at the sea ahead of me—bleak, bottomless, and breathtaking in its scope. My memories filtered through my mind in a similar fashion; they, too, had no happy ending. The words caught in a notch in my throat; was it truly a story worth telling? A story better left in the depths of a bottomless abyss? Then her hand squeezed mine, warmth streamed through her fingertips into my own, and the story spilled out.

As I speak, Cytherean
Venus is leading her dance
troupe in the dead of night;
likewise, as befits them, the
Graces hand in hand with
the Nymphs knock the earth
with their steps…

In 2018, the Classical world shifted with the introduction of a new translation of Homer’s Odyssey, the timeless Greek tale of journey, loss, hope, and more than a few mythical misadventures. Dr. Emily Wilson, professor and department chair of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, brought a new perspective to her translation that resonated with audiences around the world. Read here our exclusive interview with Dr. Wilson which was conducted during her recent visit to UC San Diego!

Sappho, well—she worries there’s no one left to read her work.

An Ekphrastic Poem by Tyler Olcese

Alexander burst into the royal bedchamber, startling the servants who shrank back, quaking in fear. The rest of the companions followed suit and stayed behind as Alexander approached to pull back the curtain. His hands trembling, he grasped the heavy, silken curtains meekly and ripped them aside.

Aristophanes presented his new play called Lysistrata at the festival recently and I left with tears of laughter in one eye and of sadness in the other. I know you would tease me so for my girlish weakness, but as I tell you about this play, I think you would have felt the same if you had been alongside me.

Just shy of the eighth hour—after the plays, and long after the gladiators, and longer still since we saw the beasts—the herald called for the execution of criminals. Only one man was brought out, nude and old enough to be our grandfather. I could not help but wonder, as I am sure you do now: What could this man have done to warrant his own death?

Writing to her sister, Mirryn recounts the risk she took sneaking into the theatre to watch Aristophanes’ all time famous comedy, Lysistrata, which premiered in Athens in 411 BCE. Closely following her husband after the performance, Mirryn discovers much more than she could have anticipated.

Seleucus, sober and attentive, sat glumly now in the center of the room, imbibing from the delta at the river of ambition, wherein all the generals sailed out to sea by different branches to do battle upon the open water at the river’s mouth.

A smile so sweet and endearing. An angel among other things. Blessed with a form more beautiful and pure than anything Pygmalion could have crafted. For that is the mysticism of a natural-made body. But how could divinity like me be so enamored by a being meant to be imperfect?

She’s a goddamn catastrophe, she is. A writhing mass upon the floorboards, twisting and mangling under the eyes of a multitude.

So you survived cuffing season without anyone to share in the delights of your wretched soul. But here comes summer, just around the corner, and here you are, without even a fling on the horizon! I felt this way once, too. That is, until I found this recipe. I tested it beforehand just to be sure, and it really does work!

There are countless references to Greco-Roman mythology and history within Suzanne Collins' "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes". In this essay, Isabela Contreras argues that these allusions have deep influences on the world-building and characterization throughout the novel.

Seneca (4 BCE–65 CE) wrote prolifically, including many letters about Stoicism to a man named Lucilius. In this work, three authors imagine what Lucilius may have written back.

In this translated excerpt of Homer’s Iliad, re-imagined as a stage play, Hera plans to convince Zeus to allow her to interfere in the Trojan War. She seeks Aphrodite’s help, hoping some erotic tricks might help her case.

Shortly before the demise of the young king of Macedon, Alexander the Great’s campaign to Babylon is interrupted when he learns of the approaching death of a wise dear friend. Read here the first chapter of Novak Tatarevic's drama concerning the last days of Alexander the Great and the reign of his regent Perdiccas.