Surprisingly, there has not been, ever in the history of Eratosphere, a MoM thread on epigrams. Or if there was one my search didn’t find it.
I love a good epigram. For one thing, it doesn’t take long to read. For another, it is easy to memorize. A number of Sphere members have written some excellent epigrams, but this thread is for epigrams by others. I am pretty sure that translations of epigrams by Sphereans would be kosher, though (by MoM rules).
Here are a couple by the Scottish poet Tom Scott (1918-95):
Beeching
When Beeching for the wark he’d duin
xxxIs sent doun ti perdition,
Satan’ll say in fricht, “pass on—
xxxI want nae competition.”
Beeching = Richard Beeching (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_cuts)
A Writers’ Conference
Douce Embro fowk are in a steir,
xxxFor meetin aa in quorum,
A wheen stray dogs hae gaithert here
xxxAnd pisht on their decorum.
Douce = Sedate
Embro = from Edinburgh
steir = stir
aa = all
wheen = number of
And it’s pretty hard to beat Roy Campbell’s
On Some South African Novelists
You praise the firm restraint with which they write—
I’m with you there, of course:
They use the snaffle and the curb all right,
But where’s the bloody horse?