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According to the latest report
Wet your lungs with wine, because the star* is coming around,
and the season is harsh, and everything thirsts under the heat,
and the cicada shrills sweetly from the leaves, and from under its wings
pours down a clear < compact > song, whenever < the summer >
. . . blazing . . .
and the thistle** blooms: and now women are at their worst,
and men threshed dry, since Seirios parches them, head
and knee . . .***
—Alkaios 347
*Sirius: the Dog Star. As in the expression "dog days." Break out the cold drinks.
**Or artichoke, since Liddell and Scott provide both translations for σκόλυμος: i.e., we may not know exactly what this plant was, but it's prickly.
***These last three lines paraphrase Works and Days 582—88, where Hesiod is rather more explicit about what the season does to the sexes: and women are the most lustful and men the most unable . . . Or, if you want to put on the Cole Porter for a moment, But when the thermometer goes way up / And the weather is sizzling hot / Mister Adam for his madam / Is not . . .
It is too darn hot.
and the season is harsh, and everything thirsts under the heat,
and the cicada shrills sweetly from the leaves, and from under its wings
pours down a clear < compact > song, whenever < the summer >
. . . blazing . . .
and the thistle** blooms: and now women are at their worst,
and men threshed dry, since Seirios parches them, head
and knee . . .***
—Alkaios 347
*Sirius: the Dog Star. As in the expression "dog days." Break out the cold drinks.
**Or artichoke, since Liddell and Scott provide both translations for σκόλυμος: i.e., we may not know exactly what this plant was, but it's prickly.
***These last three lines paraphrase Works and Days 582—88, where Hesiod is rather more explicit about what the season does to the sexes: and women are the most lustful and men the most unable . . . Or, if you want to put on the Cole Porter for a moment, But when the thermometer goes way up / And the weather is sizzling hot / Mister Adam for his madam / Is not . . .
It is too darn hot.
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