Sonnets of Seven Greek Philosophers: Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Zeno of Citium, Diogenes of Sinope, Heraclitus, & Protagoras (Additions to "The Apology Box")

                   Plato’s Sonnet

            (A liberated caveman)

When I was tethered up inside the cave

Where I could see but shadows on the wall

I craved to see how Real Things would behave.

I plotted my escape through study:  all

Real Things should be discoverable in the end

Though first unseen directly.  I knew there

Must be Real Forms somewhere since shades depend

On Something Real to cast them.  With great care,

I studied every shadow so I might

Infer what cast the umbrage.  In that way

I burrowed backward out into the Light.

I now see plainly Forms have Forms, and they

Have culmination here in that one Form

Of Good that I predicted as the Norm.

Confucius and Lao Tzu (Additions to "The Apology Box")

            Confucius’s Sonnet

Mere force brings no true order since forced change

Warps from without and thus can never fit

An inner nature that’s rejecting it.

Without such fit, there’s but apparent change.

As mere force is deficient, sages thus

Discount it.  Righting wrong, they find a way

To change a man by his own choices. Thus,

They speak and do precisely. Sages sway

With virtue and right language of the kind

They’ve learned in studies of the old archives

Of ritual and common mythic mind.

Their teaching teaches them. Example drives

Without a whip. On earth, in heaven, too,

Truth bans all thrashings hells purport to do.

            Lao Tzu’s Sonnet

Would breath that loathed to make a sound in life

Somehow reverse itself in airless death?

Would it somehow convert itself at last

Into fools’ terms?  No--death is muter still.

I’ve neither arrogance nor wish to harm.

I’d not presume an ant cares how my mouth

Might label it.  I all the more of course

Would not presume that heaven gives a damn.

Man’s categories cause him needless ill—

A man can’t covet or despise a thing

Some category’s not disjoined from him.

Man's words spread categories' ills about.

Without air heaven must be wordless.  Hence,

I'm mute where no decrees expel me hence.

© Harold Anthony Lloyd 2016

The current contents of "The Apology Box" can be found here.

Boethius, St. Ambrose, and Marcion the Docetist (Additions to "The Apology Box")

               Boethius's Sonnet

Was Theodoric’s prison in the end

That proved the real academy.  Was there

They taught first hand true good cannot depend

Upon mere fortune.  There caged in despair

This humbled bureaucrat learned power flees

In but a moment and, too, learned, how fast

“Good” title both in name and properties

Is marred.  Yet, I found hope!  Though no things last

Below at length, that maid Philosophy

Took pity, visited dark dungeons and

Consoled me with her higher poetry

Of permanence.  Caressing that sweet hand,

I thought no more of nooses or of cells

But of divinity and where it dwells.

 

               Saint Ambrose's Sonnet

Before the awful bench where all will stand

We come in turn to plead and do admit

Our errors though in doing so submit

In mitigation it was not our hand

That sought the staff.  Instead, Milan asked.  We

Were acquiescent, humbly turned our backs

On Roman boons (yet kept her bones as racks

For Christian ornament--past lies would be

Upholders of the truth.)  Thus we transformed

Words, music, marbles, even living flesh--

Behold Augustine we baptized afresh.

Mere spirit now, our temporal see performed,

Pray let us see Rome’s church ascending now

Above Rome’s ruins we’ve refurbished now.

             

            Marcion The Docetist’s Sonnet

I’ve kneeled before the true God now revealed

Through that majestic phantasm called Christ

That clarified true faith and thus repealed

The older books.  Sweet ghost!  If sacrificed,

I knew it was not God.  Perfection by

Its very terms can never suffer.  For

To suffer is to lose, to be less than

Complete and thus prove imperfection.  Nor

Could it have been a man.  Though man could be

Sinless despite the lie of Eden, You

Could not allow a sinless man to be

Condemned and killed for sins he did not do.

Great ghostly messenger!  It had to be

Of course fantastic coming, Lord, from Thee!

© Harold Anthony Lloyd 2016

The current contents of "The Apology Box" can be found here.

Cyrus and Esther (Additions to the Apology Box)

     Cyrus The Great’s Proof

It’s wrong to disown any family.

We must be fair in hospitality

To every member. We may not despise

Another made in Heaven’s image.  Wise

Ones know the converse would be blasphemy.

We had to unify.  No boundary

Is moral.  Even Hebrews now are free

To come back in the fold, to realize

It’s wrong to disown any family.

Death can’t destroy your Image. Unity

Has to survive the grave and cannot be

Extinguished.  Live and dead must still comprise

A common brood.  We specters therefore rise

To meet you knowing that you will agree

It’s wrong to disown any family.

 

                      Esther's Sonnet

There’s bravery that’s physical in bed,

That’s cousin to the field of battle’s.  I

Burned with such valor from the day I wed

Another by whose whim I’d live or die.

I passed, had spies, laid trenches in the sheet.

I suffered the assaults but never gave

A true surrender.  I held till defeat

Had closed the enemy within his grave

With my assistance.  There’s no felony

In war’s attack, in what I had to do.

There are no lies or whores in battle.  We

Have heroes or we’ve cowards--just the two.

This star of Esther stayed though others fell:

By name, the heavens are where Esthers dwell.

© Harold Anthony Lloyd 2016

The current contents of "The Apology Box" can be found here.

Two Greeks Whose Bones Are Lost in Egypt Now (Additions to the Apology Box)

              Alexander The Great's Sonnet

Sweet novelty of death!  You’ve heard my prayer,

O gods!  There’s more adventure!  I am not

Condemned to idleness.  In brief despair

My reason was confounded. I forgot

The underworld that can be molded by

My sword and genius, too.  Profounder war

Will justify me further.  O gods, I

Shall meld from parts a better whole.  Once more,

I’ll combine East and West and redefine

The normal taste in men--my own won’t be

Scorned but admired.  Good standards will be mine

And I the norm.  Have confidence in me,

Commission me, O Gods.  I’ll serve you well.

I’ll take my sword to every inch of hell!

                    Cleopatra VII's Sonnet

O gods, you should receive at least as large

A welcome as mere Romans had from me.

The Styx of course should waft me on a barge

To you with purple plumèd finery

At least as grand as that displayed before

Mere men.  You’ve no less right to girls perfumed

As sweetest flowers (or to soft skin that’s more

Inviting than a couch or to queens groomed

More perfectly than sculptures to be found

In shrines.)  You’ve no less right to unwrap each

Fold of some gentle garments that surround

A pleasure that lies well within your reach.

Gods, take me now so no fools ever can

Pretend that gods are favored less than man.


© Harold Anthony Lloyd 2016

The current contents of "The Apology Box" can be found here.

Rhetoric to Lettie (A Book of Original Verse)

                                        Lettie 6/12/2001 to 6/2/2013

                                        © Harold Anthony Lloyd 2016

            

Preface for Lettie

A household lacking animals

            Is like a Cyclops who

Half-brained has lost an ear, a hand,

            A leg, a nostril, too.

RACINE’S PHÈDRE

PHÈDRE

By Jean Racine

                                                     Translated By Harold Anthony Lloyd  © 2016

Translator’s Note:  To accommodate the different rhythm of English, I have generally rendered the French alexandrine couplets into iambic pentameter ones.  To accommodate further the linguistic difference, I have freely used enjambment.  I agree with Richard Wilbur that stacking up end-stopped lines in English can sound like piling lumber. 

The Complete Palladas from the Palatine Anthology

 Translated By Harold Anthony Lloyd  © 2016

Translator’s Notes:

I have compiled a complete verse collection of Palladas in English for several reasons.  First, of course, the merits of the best lines speak for themselves and much of this is lost in prose translation.  Second, almost all that is known of Palladas comes from his verse.  Much like the historical search for the identities of Shakespeare’s young man and dark lady in his sonnets, Palladas’s epigrams provide most of the fodder for speculation about the poet himself.  This of course cannot be done as fully in the absence of every available epigram and therefore requires inclusion of his lesser lines.  Third, this sort of inquiry applies to characters in the epigrams themselves such as Hypatia and the wife of Palladas.  Fourth, the epigrams show the fascinating state of the world as the Greek gods gave way to the god of Christianity.  Finally, the epigrams show the fate of a grammarian who would have lived solely by his art but had to abandon that art in the face of starvation.  This perhaps gives some comfort to other poets who have chosen a trade as well as a poet’s life.

Snow In August (A Book of Original Verse)

 

       Snow In August

She had enjoyed sweet certain knowledge that,
however hot the summer, August brought

its welcome snows upon a boundary fence
that she had kept to please her neighbors, too.

Either Oar (A Book of Original Verse & Translations)

Charms & Knots (A Book of Original Verse)

Part I: Plato’s Pigeon Hole

Part II: Aristotle’s Remainder

Part III: Anthology of Moons & Other Nouns

Dedicated To: The Late Kenneth Hovey, Former Associate Professor of English, University Of Texas San Antonio.  The cover pictures is of Abby (b. April 20, 1991 & d. April 2 2004).

Who read a Chapter, when they rise,

Shall ne're be troubled with ill eyes.

--George Herbert

Revised version December 2009/June 2016

Deborah's Sonnet Song (Additon to the Apology Box)

A bit of music!  Life leaps over speech!

Life leaves some greater parts beyond the reach

Of words alone.  Therefore, God gave us each.

I’ll sing of me who judged beneath a palm

And reckoned past and future.  Thus, I knew

Jael would drive a stake in Sisera

Once she had feigned her hospitality.

I killed no guests, there’s no hypocrisy

Here in my seeking hospitality.

Hear! I’ll sing purest notes beneath a palm

And judge not.  Here in Heaven I’m too new

To gauge Jael or even Sisera.

I’ll let the veterans guess at Sodom’s sin

Of harming guests one has invited in.

© Harold Anthony Lloyd 2016
  
The current contents of "The Apology Box" can be found here.

I Mined and Shared from Matchless Mines of Me: Two Sonnets of Job (Apology Box Additions)

In these days when some claim to follow so-called prosperity theology, it's of course good to remember the story of Job.  It is, in fact, impossible to claim that one follows the Bible literally and yet also claim that God will lavish health and material reward on those who follow him. Similarly, suffering does not in and of itself indicate malfeasance. Both experience and Job tell us just the opposite.  We see good people suffer, and we see people who do bad things prosper nonetheless.  Of course, this is not to say that we are not often rewarded for good and that we are not often punished for doing wrong.  Nor is this to say that at least some form of reputational "karma" does not exist.  We of course build and lose reputations based upon our voluntary choices and we reap and suffer consequences of those choices.  However, all this occurs in the context of a world coming at us in countless ways that are also beyond our control and that deliver both bounties and setbacks that we don't deserve.  The best of us can live in poverty and ill-health despite our best efforts and those of us doing the worst can live in great prosperity.  To claim otherwise (1) rejects both experience and the Book of Job, (2) rejects true humanity itself, (3) rejects the compassion and understanding true virtue requires, and (4) demeans grace which, frankly, we all need to appreciate and cultivate more.    

Finding Wisdom in a Fractured World

Archive of Blog Originally Posted 4/5/2014 in The Huffinton Post

We need to discuss the nature of wisdom more than we do. If we can’t articulate at least some measure of what it means to be wise, how can we justify any notion of the good life or of the good society? At this particularly-difficult time when our country seems fractured down the middle, how can we not focus on the nature of wisdom?

The Kingdom Is Within

Archive of Blog Originally Posted 4/16/2014 in The Huffinton Post