He Won More Victories, With Hammering More Hard . . . and Better
The greatest playwright of them all loved boys.
https://www.gardnermuseum.org/experience/collection/13481
Competitors loved prostitutes. Their whores
Were high-class (mostly). Still their slippery joys
Were paid for. Probably they kept cash scores
From tragic poets, these hetaira tarts.
Or maybe they accepted gifts instead.
But Sophocles . . . he wanted other parts.
While many at symposia were led
To lust by dancing girls, the greatest man
Of letters wanted only lads. The youths
Who served beside the watered wine divan
For Sophocles were emblems of high truths.
Their innocence he wanted to impale
….But he would settle for a hustler’s nail.