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Book XII of the Greek Anthology, the one this volume first offers in Portuguese translation, gathers around 260 epigrams united by the homoerotic subject they all develop. Besides a small group of components devoted to heterosexual love, erroneously included in the collection by scribers and here translated as well, they all deal with the model of a love-relationship between an adult (the so-called erastes, the top-lover) and a teenager (the eromenos, supposed to be the bottom). The Boyish Muse’s immediate parallel is Book five of the Greek Antholoy, devoted to heterosexual love. Nonetheless, a first reading of both of them sheds light on their similarities, enhancing several common topics and images, themselves prove enough of a same reality that is celebrated – both the joys (rather few) and the (many) pains of love.