by Brett Rutherford
after Callimachus, Epigram 24
So who the hell is Asticides,
anyway? What's all the fuss?
A Cretan — need I say more?
A goat-herd, no less,
you know what they're into.
He vanished, it seems.
Not smart enough to chase one,
he let himself be carried off
by a desperate nymph.
You can just imagine
how desperate! So why
is his name brought up
each time some schoolboy
fails to come home at night,
"Ah, some girl has got him,
just like poor Asticides!"
This clown will be the death
of pastoral poetry. No more,
the pan pipes beneath the oaks
of Mt. Dikte, no more the odes
of Daphnis and the shepherds' life,
just hillbilly Asticides
crawling with fleas
a he-goat and a she-hag.
What is the city coming to?
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