take vengeance for Phillipos ...

take vengeance for

Phillipos

[blackened at top through fire]

that little hill, rubbed bald
by galling winds, the fossil-hill
nigh the Hades pit

We'll stitch chords to their ribs
and flutter them like kites. We'll
chorus our dead to the music
of the humming strings.

[burn away]

Fragment discovered in Alexandria, Egypt in 1998 where dozens of papyri, among them several poetic passages in relatively intact condition, were lay bareed in a dig near Montazab Palace. Nothing is known of this bard and apparent soldier. While we have titled the metrical composition "Revenge," the identity of