"The good natured need no cutlery
in their vocabulary."
Really, Archilochos?
Poet and warrior, mercenary, that you are?
The Stinging Wasp--the Biting Ant--of the ancient Greek world?
Aren't you the man who said . . .
"Listen to me cuss."
and, ferociously, gleefully,
"Meet insolence with outrage."
Well, how about two of your more moderated reminders?
"The heart of mortal man,
Glaukos, son of Leptines,
Is what Zeus makes it,
Day after day,
And what the world makes it,
That passes before our eyes."
and
"A man, Aisimides, who listens
To what people say about him
Isn't ever going to be quiet of mind."
True, both true, but sometimes we do need the lash of wit, the sting of indignation:
"The arrogant
puke pride."
"You drink a lot of unmixed wine
That you haven't paid for,
And weren't invited to share,
Treating everybody as your dearest friend,
Greed having supplanted any shame
You once had."
And, in the case of your back-stabbing prospective father-in-law, Archilochos, sometimes a full-scale curse is everything that's needed:
"May he lose his way on the cold sea
And swim to the heathen Salmydessos,
May the ungodly Thracians with their hair
Done up in a fright on the top of their heads
Grab him, that he know what it is to be alone
Without friend or family. May he eat slave's bread!
And suffer the plague and freeze naked,
Laced about with the nasty trash of the sea.
May his teeth knock the top on the bottom
As he lies on his face, spitting brine,
At the edge of the cold sea, like a dog.
And all this it would be a privilege to watch,
Giving me great satisfaction as it would,
For he took back the word he gave in honor,
Over the salt and table at a friendly meal."
-Archilochos
from Guy Davenport's 7 Greeks,
A New Directions Book: New York, 1995.
My best Archilochos impression . . . .
