all right

Occasionally adding corroborative details to add verisimilitude to otherwise bald and unconvincing,
but veridicous accounts
with careful attention, indefatigable assiduity, and nice discrimination.

11 February, 2012

The Test of Mortals

οὐ ψεύδεϊ τέγξω λόγον:
διάπειρά τοι βροτῶν ἔλεγχος ...

—Pindar, Olympian IV, 17-18.*

On Olympic Poets

Who would be able
to judge the worth of poems
in competition?

These days, few even
read poems.  Would you choose an
academician?

University
lecturers no longer have
the erudition

and modern “poets”
seldom have technical skill.
No, my suspicion

is that, if poets
were to compete in the games,
the exhibition

of their works would lead
to very swift regret for
such readmission.

*  I’ll not stain with lies
   the saw: “the test of mortals
   is competition”.
†  a comment (edited slightly) to a suggestion by a friend, on Facebook, that more cerebral and artistic competitions—for music and poetry, say—ought to be reintroduced into the Olympic Games.

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