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black cow verse: "Tragedie of Lepropais"
The Melatauros Cycle
This verse fragment from the epic Melatauros Cycle, was
discovered in Delphi in 1255, and has since been dated to the late 3rd
century BC. It follows the episodic adventures of a Greek prince
journeying from Sparta to Byzantium. This section of parchment
contains the oldest extant reference to goat song or
"tragoidia," the origin of our English
"tragedy."
BOOK XXXIV:
Of the Sorrow of Lepropais
MELATAUROS: Accch! 'Tis Lepropais who croucheth in this squalid way, and
covered in a pox of prickle spots.
LEPROPAIS: Good day, Melatauros. Aye, 'tis my fortune this curst hide of a rabid
donkey. The children play at lots now for to make cruel lancings at the most suppurous of
these fell boils.
MELATAUROS: Dost they bother with an itch or smarting?
LEPROPAIS: Bother? Alas, 'tis with a dread that they do bother. For 'tis nibbly death
of which they do portend. The Magi who dwelleth in the southern march below the ford
at Iolcus hath forbade that they be healed. It seems their arrangements do form an augury
from which he reads mens' thoughts and better sees the devious branchings of their fates.
The constellations of these foul blemishes do aid him tell men's futures with a clarity
unknown to any seer who studies stars. Alas, for I would be rid of them in one beating of
the heart. They do bother me with shame and, SEE!, how now there doth issue a reeking
blatch from out them that would close a city's doors were I to wander windward of the
dwelling places.
MELATAUROS: 'Tis true. You stinkest like a carrion. This fume must reach from
high places to the most infernal pit of Hades. I should think thou hadst come upon a brace
of rotting kine and fallen here by the roadside to flay the fox and change the juices of thy
stomach atime amid the shade of these rough reeds.
LEPROPAIS: My stomach barks the hours of the day, dear Melatauros. It is a feature
of this malady. Would that it were only rank and reeky offal of the highway that had put
this fit of retching on my body... But can no one remove this foetid Furies gift?
MELATAUROS: Have you knowledge of the playing of the goats?
LEPROPAIS: Speak not of goats that dance and play amid the twisted bracken. 'Tis fools
talk.
MELATAUROS: 'Tis more a singing of the goatish songs. Thou wouldst not skip
about on goatish hooves. Nay, more a chanting than a play of feet.
LEPROPAIS: And why this goatish bleating, this song of kids?
MELATAUROS: A cruel spirit of the woods hath laid these poisons on you. Do not
dally in this dreck of pus and bilious earth for the Magi to return and prophesy with your
lesions. Leap up in tragoidia like one that moves with Pan, swollen with the nectar and
ambrosia. Cast off these rags of the underworld. Sing of buoyant nights under
midsummer's pale orange moon and... [end of text - incomplete]
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