#322: ARCHAIC CONVERSATION

eavesdropping on ancient conversations

is not that enlightening

but

neither are a lot of things

              e)nqusia/zeiv: the god is in you.

They, in typical Athenian fashion, started talking
their heads off
in various tenses
and aspects.
Tense is like trajectory;
aspect is like pedal-work. As in:

        "Be careful who is helping
        you throw up."

Or else:

Having persuaded up his friends (a)napei/sav)

from elsewhere (a)/lloqen)

(he had always been trying to convince them (e)pei/qen)),

he outlined his plan:

“You wait around

until I have

returned.”

      He’s an aristocrat
      and he means to seize power.

When the time was lunch
they grew up until
something should eat them.

       The pig is already dead,
       but even if it were a goat
       it would never have counted
       in the sacrifice.
       Get another
       but hurry the place is filling up fast.

Solitary divergence on a point
of physical law
is nothing on which to found
a theory of liberty—
but maybe it is.

        the moon offers a blessing:
       wisdom for the moment of death.
       Still, I dare not accept it.

the old men were like
pickpockets
trapped in a crowded room

    STRANGER, go and be announcing to the Lacedaimonians
    we are a dithery race
    quite passive barbarians.


OKAY
OKAY

OKAY 

OKAY
Don’t say anything else.

I am going.