[Marcus Sevat]

Marcus, I think that coming up with strange rhymes is indeed the object of this exercise,

Hello Brian - I enjoyed your artful poem.

I know that "coming up with strange rhymes is the object of this exercise". You have lost my little adjective "sole."

[Marcus Sevat]

No, Marcus, I think VICTORIA GLORIA is better (vocative, don't you know; the whole thing is vocative, as it were)) and, for what it's worth, the lines make perfect sense

Hello John - I am surprised at this rare use of continuous apostrophe. If we concede the entire poem is in the vocative case then we are led to the conclusion that the person being addressed is Albert. Huge though this concession be, we can force sense into the words "Victoria gloria" only if they are attempting to mean that Albert is the glory of the Queen. Thus we must place the lady in the genitive - as I previously suggested. I proffer this advice in all humility, having taught Latin for quite a few years.


But your audacious rhymes are certainly eye-catching.

[Brian Allgar]

I'm sure Queen Victoria was far too well-bred to have genitives.

[Marcus Sevat]

I'm sure Queen Victoria was far too well-bred to have genitives

She would not be amused by that comment , Brian. She was a harsh lady, opposed to breast-feeding as well as male genitives.

[Peter Goulding]

Probably a bit too short to enter for the competition

Twas not his twice daily carafe o’ dill
That rendered the poor Earl of Stafford ill.
“The wrong plant was crushed,”
The Earl’s physic gushed.
“Oh what laxative powers has the daffodil!”

or, indeed, this

Young Juan left his dear Costa Brava
And travelled from Jeddah to Java
In search of a land to inspire him,
To hold him, to rouse him, to fire him.
He travelled to Montevideo
And Munich and Moscow and Mayo
But only the wilds of Saskatchewan
Were impressive enough to enrapture Juan.

[Graham King]

Peter,
if brevity be indeed the soul of wit, that would urge that you enter those verses. I think so!
Cheers.

[John Whitworth]

You may have taught Latin, Marcus, but not Latin as I have rewritten it. Besides, the Latin you taught, as I am sure you are well aware, is merely a literary construct which assumes that Cicero knew the stuff better than anybody else. What Romans actually SAID is a very moot point. I say they said what I said. Oh and it is not Albert who is addressed, but his memorial.

Peter, you are brilliant. Enter that as one poem. It's a winner. Dammit!

[Marcus Sevat]

You may have taught Latin, Marcus, but not Latin as I have rewritten it.

Exactly, John.


What Romans actually SAID is a very moot point. I say they said what I said.

Hmmm. Anachronistically?


Oh and it is not Albert who is addressed, but his memorial.

Then my suggestion applies a fortiori.

But let us talk of other things: cabbages, kings and Brian's win this week in The Spectator. My best wishes!

[Brian Allgar]

Though Byron claims your ladies have “hen-peck’d you all”,
Such calumny is false and ineffectual,
For when the Reaper grimly shall collect you all
(A destiny that cannot but affect you all -
Mortality’s an ill that must infect you all);
When chortling Death has voted to elect you all
And Charon’s been alerted to expect you all;
When doctors wring their hands as they inspect you all,
And mortuary garments have bedecked you all
As sawing surgeons cheerfully dissect you all,
While bits of tissue, bone, and blood have flecked you all,
(Making it hard, alas, to resurrect you all),
They’ll find that loving spouses helped protect you all -
‘Twas beer and cigarettes, not wives, that wrecked you all.

[Ann Drysdale]

And when my wild-card entry has out-lucked you all,
Will I then be considered to have... ?