Great Medicine This Sin Poem by gershon hepner

Once Leda announced to her husband whose old,
“I need to be laid, since I’m feeling so cold.”
At the same time she said, while removing a garter,
“I’m so moralistic, I’ll die like a martyr.”
Her husband towards her was most sympathetic:
he did not want her to become an ascetic.
The nurses stepped out and the doctors came in,
and opened her legs up. Great medicine this sin.

Inspired by Epigram lxxi from Book XI of Martial’s Epigrams:

Hystercam vetulo se dixerat esse marito
et queritur futui Leda necesse sibi;
sed flens atqe gemens tanti negat esse salutem
seque refert potius proposuisse mori.
Vir rogat ut vivat virides nec deserat annos,
et fieri quod iam non facit ipse sinit.
Protinus accedunt medici midicaeque recedunt,
tollunturque pedes, O medicina gravis!

James Michie translates this epigram thus:

One day Leda announced to her aged husband: “I’m suffering from hysteria.
I’m sorry, but I am told that nothing but intercourse will make me cheerier.
In the same tearful breath
She swore his honor mattered more than her health, she preferred a martyr’s death.
Her lord and master urged her to preserve her life and beauty
And gave permission for the vicarious performance of his duty.
At once the nurses retire, the doctors rush in,
Hoist and prise open her legs. Ah, sweet medicine!

© 2009 Gershon Hepner 2/4/09