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The Sorrowing Muse Explains Statius' Unfinished Epic, The Achilleid
His flesh as the expression of his soul,
Achilles should have been most beautiful
in Statius' poem; an adolescent boy
of gently formed and delicate affection,
not that crude, bullying brawler at Troy,
a clumsy figure only meant to pander
to fools like those who strut through Homer's slander.
Alas for Statius---Rome's mythic deceit
misled him from my pueryl inspiration
to write Achilles as an imitation
of some uncouth, on any Roman street,
staggered by booze, not feelings' introspection.
at least the manuscript is incomplete;
but how much more dismal is my dejection.
J-Called
