The gods had never taught him to plant or sow
or any other skill: he failed at every craft.
He knew a lot of things, but never knew them right.
τὸν δ' οὔτ' ἂρ σκαπτῆρα θεοὶ θέσαν οὔτ' ἀροτῆρα
οὔτ' ἄλλως τι σοφόν· πάσης δ' ἡμάρτανε τέχνης.
πόλλ᾽ ἠπίστατο ἔργα, κακῶς δ᾽ ἠπίστατο πάντα.
"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
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Saturday, May 23, 2009
Self-Portrait
[Homer], Margites, fragments 2-3 (tr. M.L. West):