Ψηφιδωτό της ελληνιστικής περιόδου.
Αρχαιολογικό Μουσείο Σπάρτης
ALKIVIATHES
Beloved of Socrates and one of the boys
prize student and experimentalist,
he broke up the Symposium with a timely jest
and esposed a side of Philosophy
that has been only too methodically concealed:
its feminine coyness masking as reticence;
trained athlete, he made the leap
from philosophy into politics
and from politics into war
and from war into a necessary hedonism,
perfecting the art of survival
as few have done before or since, i.e.,
a good Athenian, an excellent Spartan, an exemplary Persian
educated to that “happy versatility”
recommended by a less flexible contemporary,
equally at home in parliament or court
in tunic of war or sybaritic robe-
the first Houdini of History
demonstrating that ideas can be chains
one has not the strength to break
but can shed intact
for the sake of freedom of movement.
David Solway / Καναδάς
Five Canadian poets in Greece (Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sciences, 1974)
ALKIVIATHES
Beloved of Socrates and one of the boys
prize student and experimentalist,
he broke up the Symposium with a timely jest
and esposed a side of Philosophy
that has been only too methodically concealed:
its feminine coyness masking as reticence;
trained athlete, he made the leap
from philosophy into politics
and from politics into war
and from war into a necessary hedonism,
perfecting the art of survival
as few have done before or since, i.e.,
a good Athenian, an excellent Spartan, an exemplary Persian
educated to that “happy versatility”
recommended by a less flexible contemporary,
equally at home in parliament or court
in tunic of war or sybaritic robe-
the first Houdini of History
demonstrating that ideas can be chains
one has not the strength to break
but can shed intact
for the sake of freedom of movement.
David Solway / Καναδάς
Five Canadian poets in Greece (Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sciences, 1974)
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