A Cat of Tindalos

A Cat of Tindalos

Saturday, April 13, 2019

Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff by A. E. Housman

‘TERENCE, this is stupid stuff: 
You eat your victuals fast enough; 
There can’t be much amiss, ’tis clear, 
To see the rate you drink your beer. 
But oh, good Lord, the verse you make, 
It gives a chap the belly-ache. 
The cow, the old cow, she is dead; 
It sleeps well, the horned head: 
We poor lads, ’tis our turn now 
To hear such tunes as killed the cow. 
Pretty friendship ’tis to rhyme 
Your friends to death before their time 
Moping melancholy mad: 
Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad.’ 

Why, if ’tis dancing you would be,
There’s brisker pipes than poetry. 
Say, for what were hop-yards meant, 
Or why was Burton built on Trent
Oh many a peer of England brews 
Livelier liquor than the Muse,
And malt does more than Milton can 
To justify God’s ways to man
Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink 
For fellows whom it hurts to think: 
Look into the pewter pot 
To see the world as the world’s not. 
And faith, ’tis pleasant till ’tis past: 
The mischief is that ’twill not last. 
Oh I have been to Ludlow fair 
And left my necktie God knows where,
And carried half-way home, or near, 
Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer: 
Then the world seemed none so bad, 
And I myself a sterling lad; 
And down in lovely muck I’ve lain,
Happy till I woke again. 
Then I saw the morning sky: 
Heigho, the tale was all a lie; 
The world, it was the old world yet, 
I was I, my things were wet,
And nothing now remained to do 
But begin the game anew.

Therefore, since the world has still 
Much good, but much less good than ill, 
And while the sun and moon endure 
Luck’s a chance, but trouble’s sure, 
I’d face it as a wise man would, 
And train for ill and not for good. 
’Tis true, the stuff I bring for sale 
Is not so brisk a brew as ale: 
Out of a stem that scored the hand 
I wrung it in a weary land. 
But take it: if the smack is sour, 
The better for the embittered hour; 
It should do good to heart and head 
When your soul is in my soul’s stead; 
And I will friend you, if I may, 
In the dark and cloudy day.

There was a king reigned in the East
There, when kings will sit to feast,
They get their fill before they think 
With poisoned meat and poisoned drink. 
He gathered all that springs to birth 
From the many-venomed earth; 
First a little, thence to more,
He sampled all her killing store; 
And easy, smiling, seasoned sound,
Sate the king when healths went round.
They put arsenic in his meat 
And stared aghast to watch him eat; 
They poured strychnine in his cup 
And shook to see him drink it up: 
They shook, they stared as white’s their shirt: 
Them it was their poison hurt.
—I tell the tale that I heard told.
Mithridates, he died old.

Friday, April 12, 2019

Waiting for the Barbarians

BY C. P. CAVAFY
TRANSLATED BY EDMUND KEELEY

What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?

      The barbarians are due here today.


Why isn’t anything going on in the senate?
Why are the senators sitting there without legislating?

      Because the barbarians are coming today.
      What’s the point of senators making laws now?
      Once the barbarians are here, they’ll do the legislating.


Why did our emperor get up so early,
and why is he sitting enthroned at the city’s main gate,
in state, wearing the crown?

      Because the barbarians are coming today
      and the emperor’s waiting to receive their leader.
      He’s even got a scroll to give him,
      loaded with titles, with imposing names.


Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?

      Because the barbarians are coming today
      and things like that dazzle the barbarians.


Why don’t our distinguished orators turn up as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?

      Because the barbarians are coming today
      and they’re bored by rhetoric and public speaking.


Why this sudden bewilderment, this confusion?
(How serious people’s faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home lost in thought?

      Because night has fallen and the barbarians haven't come.
      And some of our men just in from the border say
      there are no barbarians any longer.


Now what’s going to happen to us without barbarians?
Those people were a kind of solution.




Wednesday, April 10, 2019

Labyrinth of the Ghoul Prince

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7cav44145d9a3U2NjFWR0ptWjg/view?usp=sharing

This is minor something that I actually made up at the table in play to start (based on a map in Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea book Tombs of Atuan) but keep coming back to refine...players seem to like it. A new title but only very minor revisions.