[Andrew Frisardi]

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?

[Max Goodman]

Maybe too familiar to be enlightening, but it would be odd to omit them. Is the last an epigram? (Sorry for the odd periods; I can't remember how to make lines indent.)

Sir John Harington, "Treason"

Treason doth never prosper--What's the reason?
If it doth prosper, none dare call it treason.

John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, "Epitaph on Charles II"

Here lies our Sovereign Lord the King,
. Whose word no man relies on,
Who never said a foolish thing,
. Nor ever did a wise one.

Isaac Bickerstaffe, "An Expostulation"

When I attempted your pity to move,
. What made you so deaf to my prayers?
Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love,
. But--why did you kick me downstairs?

[Maryann Corbett]

J.V. Cunningham gives us quite a few poems he called epigrams, a whole collection. Some of them are too long to fit my sense of the epigram, but here's a short one:


from Epigrams: A Journal, #30

This Humanist whom no beliefs constrained
Grew so broad-minded he was scatter-brained.

And a slightly longer one:


from Epigrams: A Journal, #20


After some years Bohemian came to this—
This Maenad with hair down and gaping kiss
Wild on the barren edge of under fifty.
She would finance his art if he were thrifty.

[Maryann Corbett]

R.L. Barth served as a Marine reconnaissance leader in Vietnam. I haven't found any of his epigrams about war itself, but here's what he has to say about what was happening around it:

Social Darwinism

Professionally aided,
The Privileged became,
Until the danger faded,
The weak and halt and lame.

[ross hamilton hill]

I once had a rose named after me
and I was very flattered,
except for the catalog description:
no good in a bed,
but fine up against a wall.

.....................................Eleanor Roosevelt

[Michael Cantor]

I'll bet you $100 or the Australian equivalent, Ross - loser to donate it to the Sphere - that you can't substantiate it's an Eleanor Roosevelt quote. You're a googling hot shot - why don't you google this and see what you find. What I find is no actual source or reference - just the attribution to Eleanor Roosevelt - and any number of posts indicating it's nonsense.

I assume it's been around for a while. Otherwise, it would mention Hillary.

[Maryann Corbett]

Here are two from Jan Schreiber's Pecadilloes:

The Angler

Pompous has found a worthy mark at last:
young and amazed, she dotes upon his airs,
swallowing lines he's practiced years to cast:
She strikes, he reels, as they go up the stairs.

The Crowd

They watched him drawn and quartered,
xxxxxthe wretched sinner,
and when they got back home
xxxxxsat down to dinner.

I'm editing back because I hesitate to post again when I've posted so much. Here's one of Dan Brown's little gems:

Epitaph for Deconstruction

A puff of wind that really shouldn't
Have blown so many so far astray--
And yet not anyone who wouldn't
Have come to nothing anyway.

[Roger Slater]

a politician is an arse upon
which everyone has sat except a man
(e e cummings)

[Roger Slater]

EPIGRAM V
Baltasar de Alcazar

... Juana, what's behind
my torment? Only you.
My heartaches would be few
if you were less unkind.
... It doesn't seem absurd
for it to be inferred
your motive is my money.
If so, then kiss me, honey,
right on this poem's third word.




Original Spanish:

Juana, pues que no dais cabo
Al tormento en que me veis,
Y de ordinario volvéis
A mis lástimas el rabo,
Temo que queréis dinero;
Si es cierto lo que refiero,
Bien podéis de aquí adelante
Besarme en el consonante
Que tiene el verso primero.

[Ann Drysdale]

Here's one that has always meant a lot to me.

I said to Heart, 'How goes it?' Heart replied:
'Right as a Ribstone Pippin!' But it lied.

Hilaire Belloc