Orofernis
He who is handsome, and his delicate
face is smiling on the four-drachma coin,
is Orofernis, son of Ariarathis.
As a child, they ousted him from Cappadocia,
out of his father’s magnificent palace
and sent him to grow up
in Ionia, to be forgotten among strangers.
Oh, those beautiful Ionian nights
when fearlessly, and clearly in a Hellenic way,
he got to know the fullness of carnal pleasure.
In his heart, always an Asian.
But in his manners and in his speech, Greek,
dressed up in turquoise, in a Greek chiton
his body fragrant with jasmine,
among the handsome Ionian youths,
the most handsome, the most ideal.
Later, when the Syrians entered
Cappadocia, and made him a king,
he dedicated himself and his monarchy
to enjoy a new pleasure every day,
to greedily gather gold and silver,
and to delight, and to boast,
watching his riches piling and shining.
As for the care of the place, and governing,
he had no idea what was happening around him.
The Cappadocians quickly removed him.
And he ended up in Syria, in the palace
of Demetrios, where he lazed around partying.
One day, though, his great idleness was
interrupted by unusual thoughts.
He remembered that from his mother, Antiochida
and from the old Stratoniki,
he was connected to the crown
of Syria, almost a Seleucid.
For a while, he got out of the lust and drunkenness,
and ineptly, and half dazed
he felt a longing to scheme something,
to do something, to plan something,
but he failed miserably and got worn out.
His end was written somewhere, but got lost,
or perhaps history passed it by,
and rightfully so, not bothering
to record such a paltry event.
He who on the four-drachma coin
left the charm of his beautiful youth,
the light of his youthful beauty,
an aesthetic memory of that Ionian boy,
is Orofernis, son of Ariarathis.
