CYLLENE, CHORUS CYLL. Though the goddess made you wonder, do believe the things she said. CHO. How can I believe such thunder comes from any creature dead? CYLL. Do believe, -- when dead, the creature talks: alive, its mouth is shut. CHO. How explain its form and feature? Tall, or arched, or sharply cut? CYLL. It is very short and pot-like, shrivelled, and with chequers barred. CHO. Is it like a cat, or not like? . . . Or more nearly like a pard? CYLL. Half and half. You see it grew monotonously fat and squab. CHO. Why, it sounds like an ichneumon, -- or perhaps it is a crab? CYLL. No, it's not like that to meet. Alas, you'd better try again. CHO. Isn't it a horny beetle of the old AEtnean strain? CYLL. Much the nearest -- that is clever -- to the beast I talk about. CHO. Tell me, tell me, then, wherever is its voice, -- inside or out? CYLL. . . . . Sinister and dark of hide, to the shell-back near allied. CHO. Then its name you might report us, if you know what we desire. CYLL. Boy Hermes calls it 'tortoise': and its voice he calls 'the lyre'. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...LOST LOVE by ROBERT RANKE GRAVES SONNET WRITTEN IN THE FALL OF 1914: 2 by GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY THE DANUBE RIVER by C. HAMILTON AIDE EMBLEMS OF LOVE: 21. 'TIS CONSTANCY THAT GAINS THE PRIZE by PHILIP AYRES RECOLLECTINS OF CHRIST'S HOSPITAL by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN THE ORDER OF NATURE by ANICIUS MANLIUS SEVERINUS BOETHIUS |