Two Wonderful Websites! And a New Feature.

     Here are the links to two websites that have given me much pleasure. 

Beowulf on Steorarume

The Story of Mac Dathó's Pig

     I love both of these works (Beowulf is almost meat and drink for me), and it was such a delight to find these sites, kindly put up by some well-read and public-spirited individuals.  There are a few others floating around cyberspace, and I'll post links to them as I find them.

     I've also decided to add a new feature to this blog.  Once a week, I shall post a poem I've come across, along with a few words of my own.  Since I am clever and inventive, I shall name this feature "Poem of the Week."  The only requirement is that the poem be new, that I have not read it before today.  I hope that will keep me reading during the intervals between each poem.

     This week's poem is by Archilochus of Paros, a poet of the 7th Century BC.  The Greeks considered him in the same class as Homer and Hesiod, and he was, as far as we know, one of the first Greeks to be both poet and soldier, the two vocations having been kept ritually separate theretofore.

          My ash spear is my barley bread,
          My ash spear is my Ismarian wine.
          I lean on my spear and drink. 

     I came across these lines while flipping through a textbook one of my friends recently acquired, and I was struck by their simplicity and directness.  One can picture Archilochus resting against his spear, his hide shield slung over his back, and quenching his thirst under the unrelenting Mediterranean sun.  There's something tantalizing, I think, about short poems. They're almost like photographs.  Every word carries such impact, and perhaps it's that, the force of each syllable, that brings the subject of the poem into our minds so vividly.  Or at least into my mind.  I don't mean to speak for anyone else!