To Antinous and Hadrian

Lover and beloved, erastes and eromenos,

emperor and favorite, Hadrian and Antinous:

For eighteen hundred years your names have been named

together. Antinous, enthroned with the gods of Egypt,

divine by the gift of the Nile; Hadrian, called divus

by the Roman Senate, divine by right of the numen Augusti.

Hail to you, Hadrian and Antinous, Antinous and Hadrian,

friends and lovers! In equal love you have traded places

again and again. Hadrian raised you, Antinous,

to imperial favor, but Osiris lifted you to godhood;

you, Hadrian, pontifex maximus, led the way

in the new god’s cult. Now Hadrian is in the court

of Antinous as Antinous once was in his, and never

shall the two be named apart: Hadrian and Antinous,

Antinous and Hadrian, hail to you, avete!