"samos" poems
"Come, thou clear-voiced Muse, Erato, begin thy song, voicing to the tune of thy lovely lyre the strain of the children of Samos." (Stesikhoros, C7th-6th B.C.)
Upon a dim and distant telling,
Fared a maid of noble dwelling;
Rhadine was so beautiful,
Her suitors fought to claim her hand.
Unbeknownst, her father sold her
To a vile old tyrant soldier;
Rhadine sobbed, but dutiful
She boarded ship to foreign land.
Leontichus, her secret lover,
Swore an oath that he'd recover
Rhadine from the tyrant's grip;
He took the task of a deck-hand.
Many moons would find him weeping,
Ever watchful, never sleeping,
Till the day his mighty ship
Reached distant shore of foreign land.
Leontichus planned and conspired;
Cunning schemes would see him hired,
In the palace of the tyrant,
Where he could be close at hand.
There he watched, and there he waited,
As the nobles congregated
For the wedding, where defiant
Rhadine stood on foreign land.
Songs were sung and vows were spoken,
Then the tyrant brought a token,
Glinting in the bright sunlight
He offered it to Rhadine's hand.
Leontichus was gripped in sadness,
Taken by a sudden madness,
Running forth to save her plight,
He held Rhadine on foreign land.
Anger swept the tyrant's features,
Ridiculed by worthless creatures!
Taking sword, its sharp edge keen
He ran them through with his own hand.
As they lay there, deathly dying,
Midst the nobles, wailing, crying,
Leontichus held his Rhadine
And there they passed on foreign land.
The tyrant ordered their remains
Should scatter over hills and plains,
He placed them on a chariot,
And sent it with no guiding hand.
Late that night when all were sleeping,
Still the tyrant's eyes were weeping,
Knowing he could tarry not,
He ordered search of foreign land.
Days had passed when news arrived,
The chariot had still survived;
A soldier brought it to his door,
And placed the reigns into his hand.
The two were buried side by side,
Their hands were clasped, their arms entwined,
And there they rest forever more,
Two lovers lost on foreign land.
Leontichus and his Rhadine,
The greatest love the world has seen,
True lovers laying hand in hand,
Forever lost on foreign land.
May 24, 2014
May 24, 2014 at 12:42 AM UTC
De todos los laberintos el mejor
es el que no conduce a nada
y ni siquiera va sembrando indicios
ya que aquellos otros
esos pocos que llevan a alguna parte
siempre terminan en la fosa común
así que lo mejor es continuar vagando
entre ángulos rectos y mixtilíneos
pasadizos curvos o sinuosos
meandros existenciales / doctrinas en zigzag
remansos del amor / veredas del desquite
en obstinada búsqueda de lo inhallable
y si en algún momento se avizora
la salida prevista o imprevista
lo más aconsejable es retroceder
y meterse de nuevo y de lleno
en el dédalo que es nuestro refugio
después de todo el laberinto es
una forma relativamente amena
de aplazar cualquier postrimería
el laberinto / además de trillada metáfora
frecuentada por borges y otros aventajados
discípulos y acólitos del rey minos
es simplemente eso / un laberinto /
cortázar se quejaba / entre otras cosas /
de que ya no hubiera laberintos
pero qué sino un laberinto
es su rayuela descreída y fértil
forzado a elegir entre los más renombrados
digamos los laberintos de creta samos y fayum
me quedo con el de los cuentos de mi abuela
que no dejaba vislumbrar ninguna escapatoria
en verdad en verdad os digo que la única fórmula
para arrendar la esquiva eternidad
es no salir jamás del laberinto
o sea seguir dudando y bifurcándose y titubeando
o más bien simulando dudas bifurcaciones y titubeos
a fin de que los leviatanes se confundan
así y todo el laberinto es tabla de salvación
para aquellos que tienen vocación de inmortales
el único inconveniente es que la eternidad /
como bien deben saberlo el padre eterno
y su cohorte de canonizados /
suele ser mortalmente aburrida
1k
When you put pigs in charge of Democracy
you get pigswill and muck!!
playing ***** chess
and eating bacon butties
unaware of the irony
enough said!!.....
Within the dialogues of Plato, the founding father of Greek Philosophy – Socrates – is portrayed as hugely pessimistic about the whole business of democracy. In his Book Six of The Republic, Plato describes Socrates falling into conversation with a character called Adeimantus and trying to get him to see the flaws of democracy by comparing a society to a ship. If you were heading out on a journey by sea, asks Socrates, who would you ideally want deciding who was in charge of the vessel? Just anyone or people educated in the rules and demands of seafaring? The latter of course, says Adeimantus, so why then, responds Socrates, do we keep thinking that any old person should be fit to judge who should be a ruler of a country?
Socrates’s point is that voting in an election is a skill, not a random intuition. And like any skill, it needs to be taught systematically to people. Letting the citizenry vote without an education is as irresponsible as putting them in charge of a trireme sailing to Samos in a storm. Socrates was to have first hand, catastrophic experience of the foolishness of voters.
In 399 BC, the philosopher was put on trial on ******* up charges of corrupting the youth of Athens. A jury of 500 Athenians was invited to weigh up the case and decided by a narrow margin that the philosopher was guilty. He was put to death by hemlock in a process which is, for thinking people, every bit as tragic as Jesus’s condemnation has been for Christians.
Crucially, Socrates was not elitist in the normal sense. He didn’t believe that a narrow few should only ever vote. He did, however, insist that only those who had thought about issues rationally and deeply should be let near a vote. We have forgotten this distinction between an intellectual democracy and a democracy by birthright. We have given the vote to all without connecting it to that of wisdom. And Socrates knew exactly where that would lead: to a system the Greeks feared above all, demagoguery.
Jan 18, 2020
Jan 18, 2020 at 9:30 PM UTC