According to the latest report

[sovay]

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.

Comments

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

I'd like to reap with my baby tonight / Get off with sheep, and my baby tonight / But I can't sleep with my baby tonight...

Nine

[larryhammer]

Heh. And we just got a break in the heat -- after a record-tying 39 days of highs over 100F, the thunderstorms arrive and give us, instead of dry heat, soggy slightly less heat. Gee, thanks.

---L.

[lesser-celery.livejournal.com]

There's that hot writing duo again, Hesiod and Cole Porter. Refresh my memory, did Hesiod ever speak of educated fleas?

[maddy-harrigan.livejournal.com]

For women, it's probably an evolutionary thing - babies conceived in summertime will be born in late spring, giving them maximum time to grow and get strong before having to face a winter. Also, the mothers will be well-fed into their second trimester, which probably helps as well.