Friday, 15 April 2022

Two more sailor's graves, adorably flawed

These two are taken from p.12 of Woodward's Tales of Sea-Sorrow. The first hinges on an 'eye rhyme'; the second eccentrically Anglicises the Greek personal name Pheidōn (which might ordinarily come to us Latinised as Phido) and makes the poem's sense more dogged than I think Woodward can have intended.

I love them already for their control of tone, but more so for their imperfections.

JULIAN, PRAEFECT <OF EGYPT>: VII.582

Ship-wreckt sea-man, fare thee well!
E'en within the gates of hell
Dub not thou the sea unkind:
Rather blame the stormy wind,
For it proved the death of thee.
But the billow of the sea
On her breast thy body bore
To thy fathers' tombs ashore.
 
LEONIDAS OF TARENTUM: IX.107

Avoid the storms of life, and run
To Hades' port as Fido, son
Of Kritès, I myself have done.



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