There’s this poem that I want to talk about.
But first, I’d like to talk about Vocaloid. Bear with me. Please. I swear I'm going somewhere with this.

I was introduced to this poem not by way of, say, a college course or something else hoity and/or toity, but through a Vocaloid song I was listening to on repeat. I'm not explaining what Vocaloid is. Here's the Wikipedia article about it if you're curious.

Anyway, for a little bit of context, Ferry is one of my favorite producers. She's a fantastic musician and incredible artist. I adore Ferry's work beyond words, her storytelling and writing and musical chops are all top notch. Her current project is a series of music videos based on the novel Roadside Picnic by the brothers Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky. You might know it from the 1979 movie, the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games, or maybe you’re just really into Russian literature. I don't know what you get up to in your free time. Anyway, this is all to tell you to go watch Parties Are For Losers, read all of the lore, read the prequel comic, and look at Ferry's blog where she posts a bunch of bonus art and assets! Also, go subscribe to her Patreon if you like her stuff. She deserves it!
(Join me in my pit. Please. I need more people to talk to about this.)

Okay, so, this poem!
So before PAFL, Ferry wrote a handful of mostly unrelated one-off songs. One of them is Hack Writer, featuring GUMI, a voicebank that’s like maybe 2nd to Hatsune Miku in terms of sheer popularity.

In this song, the chorus is an excerpt from the poem Catullus 16, which I’ve included below with an English translation, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Vulgar, yes, but is it worth censoring? For several decades?
Apparently!!!
This is Catullus 16, by one Gaius Valerius Catullus, a Roman poet who’s been dead for about two thousand years. Apparently he wrote a lot of stuff like this, but only some of it’s survived - which tracks, the sands of time show mercy to no one. Supposedly he had a lot of beef with the guy named in the poem,
Catullus 16 is really important in literary history cause its been around for fuckin ages but it had been censored until the 20th century due to how 'filthy' it is
Now, alright, look- personally, I’m of the opinion that the sentence “I will sodomize and face-fuck you” isn’t NEARLY bad enough to get your panties in a twist over. But I’m a young queer adult in the 21st century, where that sort of thing is much more- like, okay, look, that's something I would say to my friends. With affection. I mean, the part about having sex with prepubescent boys is pretty fucking gross but, ehhh, it was the time, whatever.
To pearl-clutching, god-fearing scholars in the 1800s, I guess I could see the issue. Especially with this general notion that a lot of people have about “the ancient masters” - you know, ohh, the Greeks and the Romans were so civilized and poise and proper and they all were big brained philosophers that jacked off about how smart they were all day. It’s a popular sentiment you see among right-wing manosphere types nowadays, but it’s nothing new.

That’s the thing, though!
humans are humans are humans. There is nothing new under the sun.
We’ve always been petty, we’ve always been silly, we’ve always been shitposters. It’s a beautiful thing and it’s something that I get embarrassingly emotional about. Seriously, how- how simply fucking beautiful is it to see art from so, so long ago resonate with us in the here and now? Too often, there's a degree of seperation that exists between "now" and "the past," but finding stuff like this, pieces of writing or art or whatever else that can resonate, speaking to those who have been long gone, the inherent beauty and magic in communication across centuries and across rock tablets--
It's really, really nice.
It makes me smile.

I hope it makes you smile, too.