SOURCE: Tarán, Sonya Lida. “Erotic Epigrams: The Motif of Ganymede.” In The Art of Variation in the Hellenistic Epigram, pp. 7, 28-40. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1979.

In the following excerpt, Tarán explores how the story of Zeus and Ganymede serves as a model for Meleager's accounts of his own desire in his erotic epigrams.

In the twelfth book of the Anthology there appears a small group of Hellenistic pederastic epigrams in which the ἐρώμενος is in one way or other compared with Ganymede. Each poet deals with the motif in his own manner and with a different degree of elaboration and originality, but a close interpretation of the texts seems to show that they are related to one another. …

Οὐκ ἐθέλω Kαρίδαμον · γ γρρ καλòς εἰς Δία λεύσσει           ὡς ἔδη τῶ θεῶ νέκταρ <ἐ]ν>οινοχοῶν. οὐκ ἐθέλω · τί δέ μοι τòν ἐπουρανίων βασιλήα           ἄνταθλον νίκης τῆς ἐν ἔρωτι λαβεῖν; ἀρκοῦμαι δ' eν μοῦνον ὁ παῖς ἀνιoν ἐς '′Ολυμπον (5)           ἐκ γῆς νίπτρα ποδῶν δάκρυα τἀμ
F70x; λάβῃ, μνημόσυνον στοργῆς · γλυκὺ δ' ὄμμασι νεῦμα δίυγρον           δοίη καὶ τι pίλημ' ἁρπάσαι ἀκροθιγές. τἄλλα δὲ πάντ' ἐχέτω Zεὺς ὡς θέμις · εἰ δ' ἐθελήσει           ἦ τάχα που κἠγo γεύσομαι ὠμβροσίας. (10) 

Meleager 112 = A.P. 12.68

I do not want Charidamus, for the fair one looks towards Zeus...