Prime Poet
“Again Sarpedon’s bright spear missed, the blade passing over Patroclus’ left shoulder, leaving the man unscathed. But Patroclus hurled his bronze, in turn, and the spear sped from his hand and not in vain, striking Sarpedon where the ribs press on the beating heart. He fell as an oak, a poplar or lofty pine falls in the mountains, downed by the shipwrights with sharp axes as timbers for a ship. Down he tumbled, and lay stretched out at his horses’ feet, groaning and clutching the blood-stained dust before his chariot.” ~ Iliad, book 16
We have no right to think his robe was white.
It may have been as gaudy in its hues
As temple marble forced to be fell bright
As clouds in lapis lazuli Greek blues
Of skies and cove-line yellows. It may be
His robe was greener than the greenest green
That clings on cliffs above a wine-dark sea
And poetry descended from the scene,
All poetry since then in western brains.
It may have been a red like scarlet blood
That gushed from Sarpedon, his guts, their veins,
And mixed with dirt to make immortal mud.
..That robe was more like purple sold in Tyre.
….That robe was more like orange from his pyre.