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Or how about this, to flip MacLeish's formula about poems (among which he might not have counted epigrams):
An epigram should mean. |
'Epigrams: A Journal #20 '
After some years Bohemian came to this— *A Bacchante, a frenzied woman, one among the bands of women worshipers of Baccus in Ancient Greece, &c. |
Yes, still as wonderful as it was earlier in this thread. :)
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Epitaph for Someone or Other
Haha. It doesn't seem anyone's posted this one though.
Epitaph for Someone or Other Naked I came, naked I leave the scene, -J. V. Cunningham |
Okay, you've redeemed yourself with that one, Erik.
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Since we are on a Cunningham streak, here is one of my favorites of his (content warning!), which is very Martial-like but not a translation.
Lip was a man who used his head. He used it when he went to bed With his friend's wife, and with his friend, With either sex at either end. --J. V. Cunningham |
LII. — TO CENSORIOUS COURTLING (Ben Jonson)
In this epigram Jonson satirizes a spiteful "courtling" who condemns his work with a fashionable faintness of approbation, or sets himself up as a censorious critic to gain a reputation for wit. The same thing Jonson satirizes here is found in Lucian's recommendation to the courtier in The Rhetorician's Vade Mecum, Fowler:
And then do not wave your hand too much-warm approval is rather low: and as to jumping up, never do it more than once or twice. A slight smile is your best expression; make it clear that you do not think much of the thing.So, Pope's "Damn with faint praise," &c.* LII. — To Censorious Courtling *An Epistle to Arbuthnot Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; [...] . |
1 [Think of your conception, you'll soon forget] - Tony Harrison
Epigram I. |
I have always loved some of Oscar Wilde's epigrams, none of which (to my knowledge) are poems. Two are:
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. and I can resist everything but temptation. I also think Dorothy Parker is hard to beat. Four be the things I'd have been better without: Love, curiosity, freckles and doubt. and of course Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glassses. |
W. S. Gilbert has many choice epigrams buried in his dramatic verse.
My favorite is Things are seldom as they seem / Skim milk masquerades as cream. |
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