Simian Wound to Greece
“The new Greek king, Alexander, … was out walking his wolfhound, Fritz … and the dog was attacked by a tame Spanish monkey. While trying to release the monkey from Fritz’s teeth, the king was attacked by its mate and severely bitten in the leg…. Three weeks after that the king died from blood poisoning…. Winston Churchill later remarked that perhaps it was no exaggeration to say that ‘a quarter of a million people died of this monkey’s bite’—an allusion to Greece’s subsequent military campaign in Turkey, which was led by Alexander’s father, Constantine who returned to the throne”. ~ Philip Eade, Young Prince Philip
He loves his hound and takes a monkey’s bite.
A quarter of a million people die.
The king succumbs in death to this one slight
Infection and his family must supply
Another man. The substitution made
Leads on to war and battles made of blood
And assininity of greed. Decayed,
The dynasty which always was a dud
Construction of a flimsy set of chance
And venial politics, the sort of thing
That Greece is famed for, was far from romance.
Yet then there came the curved, romantic sting.
A prince became a consort to a queen.
Affected royalty slouched on. Obscene.
This poem is part of a shorter sonnet sequence within this large sonnet sequence called The Encyclopedia Sonnetica. The shorter sonnet sequence is called “Philip, Prince of Greece and Great Britain.” I recommend you read this poem where it is set in its sonnet sequence. To do that, search for “Philip, Prince of Greece and Great Britain” here in The Encyclopedia Sonnetica.