what if every ancient text was translated in the style of dr. seuss
for example:
“I will not fight the Trojans!” Achilles then said.
“I will not fight them now or when you all are dead!
I won’t fight them at Troy. I won’t fight them at Greece.
I won’t fight them at war. I won’t fight them in peace.
I will not fight them while Agamemnon is king.
Do not try to bribe me- I won’t take your things.
I will not fight the Trojans, not here and not there.
I will not fight the Trojans- not anywhere.”
“You’re abusing our patience!” old Cicero said,
“And if there’s sense in the Senate they’ll soon have you dead!
Are you not alarmed by the people’s alarm?
Don’t you know that your plans will be doing us harm?
What is it you’re doing that I do not know?
Oh the times! Oh the morals! You really must go!
Since wise men must do what is best for the state,
we, the consuls, should kill you before it’s too late.”
Let me sing about arms, let me sing of the man,
Let me sing of Aeneas’s Rome-founding plan!
How he sailed off to Italy, fleeing from Troy,
Escaping the Greeks with his dad and his boy:
He was driven by fate, he was punished by Juno,
He suffered in war—and that’s just the part you know.
Oh my love, don’t you know that you’re just the bombshell-est?
See, your hair looks like goats, which we know are the swellest!
You’ve got teeth white as bunches of sheep that are shorn –
And they’re sheep to which TWO lambs, not NONE, have been born.
Scarlet lips! Lovely speech! Cheeks like pretty red fruit!
A neck like an armory tower, to boot!
It’s got thousands of shields on it, mighty and broad.
(Which I guess are a necklace? This seems kind of odd.)
Anyway – you’ve got breasts! Look! Breast One and Breast Two!
I’ll compare them to deer, like the best poets do!