The Poetess of Reform
The
Poetess of Reform
One pleasant day in
the latter part of eternity, as the Shades of all the great writers were
reposing upon beds of asphodel and moly in the Elysian fields, each happy in
hearing from the lips of the others nothing but copious quotation from his own
works (for so Jove had kindly bedeviled their ears), there came in among them
with triumphant mien a Shade whom none knew. She (for the newcomer showed
such evidences of sex as cropped hair and a manly stride) took a seat in their
midst, and smiling a superior smile explained: “After centuries of oppression I
have wrested my rights from the grasp of the jealous gods. On earth I was
the Poetess of Reform, and sang to inattentive ears. Now for an eternity
of honour and glory.” But it was not to be so, and soon she was the unhappiest
of mortals, vainly desirous to wander again in gloom by the infernal
lakes. For Jove had not bedeviled her ears, and she heard from the lips
of each blessed Shade an incessant flow of quotation from his own works.
Moreover, she was denied the happiness of repeating her poems. She could
not recall a line of them, for Jove had decreed that the memory of them abide
in Pluto’s painful domain, as a part of the apparatus.
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