The Sweetness of Honey and the Sting of Bees: A Book of Love from the Ancient Mediterranean

I love reading or quoting many of the verses to my friend. It makes him smile at me so sweetly!!

Sweetness of honey is a well-researched and planned collection of classical poetry. Lovric and Mardas have exhumed and translated the Latin and Greek with sensitivity and passion, so that the strength of poetry is evident on every page. Individual lines speak volumes, and that should be the selling point of this book: that ancients used words thriftily, allowed the words to serve them utmost. This book could serve as a primer for contemporary poets who tend to use handfuls of words to accomplish little. However, many patrons of this book will also note the beautiful art, page layout, and the categorical division of the poems--all well thought-out. My only reservation in judging this book involves the few pages of multi-translated poems which, though they show the variance of interpretation over time, also served to divert my attention from the beauty of the words and focus it instead on the historical tranlators. This is a small matter. Lovric and Madras have done an exceptional job. I fully recommend this book to anyone who wants to experience the stoutness of language or the sage simplicity of well-wrought love poems, or to anyone who simply wishes to familiarize themselves with ancient authors, both well- and lesser-known.