Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

Thus much the fates have allotted me, and if, Maecenas,
I were able to lead heroes into armor, I would not,
Neither would I warble of Titans, nor of Ossa
spiked onto Olympus,
Nor of causeways over Pelion,
Nor of Thebes in its ancient respectability,
nor of Homer’s reputation in Pergamus,
Nor of Xerxes’ two-barreled kingdom, nor of Remus and his royal family,
Nor of dignified Carthaginian characters,
Nor of Welsh mines and the profit Marus had out of them,

I should remember Caesar’s affairs . . .

for a background,
Although Callimachus did without them,
and without Theseus,
Without an inferno, without Achilles attended of gods,
Without Ixion, and without the sons of Menoetius and
the Argo and without Jove’s grave and the Titans.

And my ventricles do not palpitate to Caesarial ore rotundas,
Nor to the tune of the Phrygian fathers.

Sailor, of winds; a plowman, concerning his oxen;
Soldier, the enumeration of wounds; the sheep-feeder, of ewes;
We, in our narrow bed, turning aside from battles:
Each man where he can, wearing out the day in his manner.

It is noble to die of love, and honorable to remain
uncuckolded for a season.
And she speaks ill of light women,
and will not praise Homer
Because Helen’s conduct is ‘unsuitable’.