Friday, January 18, 2008

The captain

Two versions of a poem by my patron, Archilochus. I prefer the first, but the second is more widely quoted

I do not like the captain, tall-standing, legs apart,
Whose cut of hair & whisker is his principal renown.
Give me the little fellow, with the bigness in his heart,
And let his legs be bandy, if they never let him down.


I don't like the towering captain with the spraddly length of leg,
one who swaggers in his lovelocks and cleanshaves beneath the chin.
Give me a man short and squarely set upon his legs, a man
full of heart, not to be shaken from the place he plants his feet
. - link