Valentine's Day Love Poems

Welcome back to the New Thinkery. This episode is brought to you by the American Woodsman, the American Woodsman, helping young Americans bag beavers since 1914. How are you doing Alex? I'm good.

How are you doing? I'm having an office day. I'm having an office day too. Be mine.

And how are you doing Greg? I'm feeling amorous my friends. Me and me goes me. I'm watching out world.

Watch out world. So what did you get the Gouda at Pops? Cheesebro. I haven't gotten my wife anything yet around time today.

I need to figure that out. Where have I? Yeah. That's right.

That's right. I got my wife last on carry on luggage. I tried to send the message to Scram. Actually, that's a very thoughtful gift carry on luggage.

Yeah, she told me she. That is a good gift. Yeah. Well, that's what happens.

Your wife tells you what to get all the time. Yeah. Mine does the same and it really bothers me because it seems to take away the fun of giving a gift. Yeah.

But then I came from everything and got it on my own. So I just had to sometimes not give you anything. She's like, what the hell, Greg? I'm like, you really want to take that?

I'll see you. Great. Like, actually try to come. I just need to be better, please.

You know, she's the romance out of it that she just told me what to get her. Sometimes my wife will, because I'm a romantic, I'll find a big ticket item in the home. I'll say, oh, we're, you got a leather couch for yourself? No, I got it for us.

It's spent $15,000 on a leather couch. Family? How much? So what will happen is she tries to these slick games like their presence for all of us.

Just presence for one person. How much did your couch cost? It was $15,000. Yeah.

It's not that much. Oh, yeah. Somebody like you. Don't you have multiple gates to your community?

Like, I'm a national, I get you a home. That's not true. Furnished. That's not true.

Well, Greg, don't you, I mean, you have a nice home and you have a Uday in Cuse, yeah. Yeah. It's safe. And it's safe.

So what are we discussing today, boys? What are we up to? What do we do for this special treat episode? We're going to make this.

Love homes. Love homes. Nobody has sent us a mix in the history of the show. That's not true.

People have sent us a mix. Not the kind of one. No, no, that's not true. That's true.

That's true. Yeah. So I have Swiss cheese with very tiny holes. I'm like, that's for Greg.

It's for Greg. You're the one who likes the cheese and needs the tiny holes. We're doing love. We've selected a love home.

Greg, who's your answer? Greg. I chose two. Well, I chose one by Machiavelli called Serenade.

And I have a few fragments that are attributed to Plato that, you know, a lot of our listeners are big fans of Plato. They may not know that we actually have a series of short love homes allegedly written by Plato outside of the corpus of the dialects. Where do you find a few lyrics? Obviously.

Where do you find those fragments? Chris Hoffman, Drs. Hoff. You find him on Twitter.

He, I think it's about a bingazinga or something like that as his Twitter handle. He's like, oh, so if you want a lot of pictures of watches that cost you. Yeah, he's big into watches. So sidebar, I'd like to have him on the show and he thought I was joking.

So if he's listening, this is a series I'd like to have you on the show as a guest. He's one of the smartest, most learned guys I know. And even he turned me on to this probably 15 years ago. I think he showed me a toy mirror which are the German editions of some of the Greek texts.

And it was just a, I can't remember what the book was called, but I found that book. My library doesn't have the toy mirror, but I found a couple of different volumes. One's just called Greek anthology. And then I found in the lobe also called Greek anthology volume one and five.

I'm going to read a couple of the epigrams in volume five. So very short, like two, three line, a love homes from Plato to a boy. No, Greg. All right.

All right. And another one to a woman. Okay. Secret territory.

Let's just say this is cheese aged 12 months. No, no more. David, who's your pro? My poet is Wallace.

Well, she is. No, no, Christopher Wallace. Who's that? He's from Brooklyn, New York.

Oh, he died early. Very young 24. Oh, right. Kind of like Poe.

What did he die of? Was it was a drinking? No, no, no. He didn't go in for that.

He did a little bit, but he was a corporate man. But a heart attack to do him. Somebody was jealous of his poetry, actually. And he was such a good poet that somebody shot.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Huh.

There was his. What's his. Are we just diving in right now? Well, what's just intrigued?

Oh, sure. So he, this poem was written in conjunction with another poet, then nobody respects me. Puff Daddy. Unfortunately, he was the co-writer of this poem.

The title is me and my big. Now, well, yeah. I'm assuming. I'm assuming Puff Daddy is my big.

That's a good assumption. Good assumption. I never asked you. You may have cracked this poem open for me.

I really appreciate that. He goes by something else nowadays. He was in the early 90s, a poet of middling the claim, but it's really thanks to Wallace's poetry that he became famous. Anyway.

I was just saying Puff Daddy, he and his girlfriend have been in the news lately. Go get Google Puff Daddy's romantic life. It's not pretty. Really?

I was kind of closeted. Well, let me just say there's a couple interesting vowels after the letter P. Oh, got it. Got it.

So who's going first? I think we should just start with yours. Okay. So I will read the first.

So this collection of poetry. We're like these play in this so straight. There's this collection of poetry. It's, it's, I can't find the.

Oh, okay. Album the album is going to tell you out. Is it the folks that don't know what the album is called? Yeah, I guess.

What was it? I decided to die, which I needed to die. It was a little prophetic given your previous remarks. Yeah.

So this was the debut collection of poetry by Christopher Wallace. And it was picked number 15 at the Billboard 200 of top homes in the country. What year would this poem come out? Oh, I remember.

Okay. Yeah. It went six times platinum, which very few poets are able to achieve six times platinum. One time platinum is amazing, but six times.

So I will read the first stanza. Are you guys ready? I'm all yours. When I met you, I admit my first thoughts was to trick.

You look so good. I stuck on your daddy's dick. I never felt that way in my life. It didn't take long before I made you my wife.

Got no rings and just my main squeeze coming to the creative even had a set of keys during the process. I admit I tricked a little, but you was my big one who never snitched. Love me when I broke or when I'm filthy rich. And I admit when the time is right, the wine is right.

I treat you right, but you talk slick. I beat you right. Whoa. Yeah.

It's just a little take a turn there at the end. I wasn't expecting that. Yeah, it is. Well, I mean, it was an interesting turn at the beginning, right?

Yeah. There's another one at the end too. This is, this is an example of one of Wallace's low phones. This is more.

This is about as amorous as it gets. And I just wanted to share that since we're doing, you know, the high and the low and Shakespeare's obviously on the low end and Wallace's poetry represents, I think, the peak of what human beings are capable of doing in this medium. So it ends with a sort of misogynistic violence. Is it?

No, no, that's just the first stanza. Oh, okay. That's just other's more. She dies for him, right?

She dies for him. Yeah. Yeah. Tell us the story.

Give us the story. Yeah. Tell us the story. Well, so he goes on to describe why the narrator, the narrator, why he loves this woman and why he trusts her.

He gives an example. She hits him on his phone. But first of all, she likes to play C-Lo and craps and she packs a gat in the coach bag, which is a high end kind of accessory that many poets' wives use. And so she'll give him a heads up if they're a police officer, the local constables about in Brooklyn and Bill Haid is gun in a bush.

That's not something every woman does. Is that a metaphor or is that that's a literal? No, no, that's something getting in the bush. Yeah.

Yeah. But when she gets mad, so this is, I think, what the poet Wallace is a real attraction to her. So he obviously is a, he's a spirited man. And so when he, when he upsets his lover, she gives it to him right back.

So he says, a real bitch is all I want, all I ever had with a bock just as strong as me. Toton guns just as long as me. The b**** belongs with me. And he plans with another b****, my b****, spoil it.

One day she used my toothbrush to clean the toilet, throwing my clothes out the window so when the wind blows I see my polos and timbos. I had my car keys so I can't leave. A real slick b**** keep a trick up her sleeve. And so I think therein lies the attraction.

It's based on the mutual respect between the poet Wallace and his lover. And anyway, yeah, so I don't want to ruin the poem, but yeah, she, she is shot by his enemies and he vows revenge. And so it's a classic tale of love and loss and inspiration, you know, was probably drawn from Shakespeare and, and it's just for a more modern audience. So that's my musical find stay poem.

That was beautiful. Thank you. You read that to your wife and sort of. I'll read aspects of this poem to my wife, yes.

Yeah. Yeah. And going through his, his, his book of poems, I'm going through his book of poems ready to die. There's really a poem for every kind of episode.

So when we do something on the Peloponnesian board or quite a few poems that I can read that I think touch on that extreme violence, help us understand what these are saying. So, well, that's, yeah, what'd you pick, right? I feel like since you mentioned Shakespeare, maybe, maybe Alice should go. And also it seems like we're going in an order of something like length.

We should go shortest the longest. Oh, right. Here's the shortest I forget. Yeah, I choose on at 73.

Bye. Especially Shakespeare, you're already seven. No, Billy. Yeah, Bill Shakespeare.

Also, also known as the notorious FB Francis Bacon. But, um, that is weird. It's 14 lines. It's quick.

I think you should just read it. Yeah. That time of year, though, I missed. This is kind of a great Nick Rayer poem because it's been an old guy.

So I was, I was, I was, I was, I assumed this is why you picked this. I'm not going to. No, actually, this is one of my favorite. Okay.

Okay. I literally, I read this. I'm like, okay, I'm ready for the jokes. I just realized that actually just right now.

I immediately was like, okay, well, that's for me. But now let me, let me say before I read this, because I don't want to read this once. Right. You get about an old man and his young love apparently.

But every image can be read in a, in a twofold way. One for an old person, two for an old book. You'll see this immediately when he talks about yellow leaves or not, or if you do hang. I think this is about, I think ultimately this poem is about Shakespeare thinking about what happens when his works are all destroyed and there's no evidence of their, their, uh, ever having existed.

And you're looking, let's say, imagine this, you're looking on the last copy of Shakespeare, one single page falling out of a crumbling book. And you can read this one son, it's on it's 73. This is how, this is how I envision this poem. Okay.

Oh, that's very beautiful. So that time of year, the amist in me behold, when yellow leaves or none or few do hang upon those bows which shake against the cold, their ruined choirs relate to the sweet birds saying, In me thou see us the twilight of such day as after sunset, fadeth and the west, which bind by black knight doth take away death second self that seals up all in rest. In me thou see us the glowing of such fire than on the ashes of his youth doth lie, as the deathbed we're on it must expire consumed with that which it was nourished by. This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong to love that well, which thou must leave air long.

That was lovely. Beautiful poem. Yeah. So what does he mean by that those last two lines, if you're going with this parallel verminable book?

So, yeah, so this is, that's one of my, so one thing I'll just notice, that time of year, I guess in me behold, that's the first line fifth line in me thou see us, right, then going on to the ninth line in me thou see us again. And then the 13th line this thou perceivest, so this idea that you're perceiving something in something. So you're looking into a book is my proposal, my interpretation. So he says, this thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong to love that well, which thou must leave air long.

Now that last line, I think is really, it has a double meaning specifically on the word well, well could be an advert. Right. So you see this old person dying, your old lover and you're seeing this, you know, shriveled relic of the young person you fell in love with. Or on the other hand, you see this book that's shriveling and it's the last remnant or the last husk of a once living poet, right, and bodies who put his songs, his choirs onto these pages.

So what does well mean? Is it the manner in which you are to love well, or is the book itself a kind of well from which you draw water, right? So, so another way to think about is you read these old poems about love and you draw something and from there, your love could grow more strong. So that I think there's a dual meaning here.

I think this is especially played up with the line death second self, where you, a lot of people, if you read people's interpretation, death second self, death sleep, right? Death is the real thing. The second self sleep, surely he's playing on that. The second meaning would be, well, you die.

And then every memory, every act you did, everything you produce that might have an effect on something will also die. Eventually Greg's book will be out of print. I think it already is. And then, and then all memory of Greg McBrayer will be extinguished, which is sadly close to the truth.

Right. So, yeah, but doesn't the last couple, this thou perceivist, which makes thy love more strong to love that well, which thou must leave air long. I mean, let me try and, so I think you're right at the second level, but the first level, isn't it simply saying that if it weren't the case that we would all die, we wouldn't love the romantic level, right? That something about immortality, and this is, you see this in Plato and everything, and I made mentions before, but one of my favorite new songs is by a guy named Jason Nisville, and it's called If We Were Vampires.

And it's a beautiful song. I mean, it's nothing to do with what you think. Oh, yeah, it's really, really awesome. Like my poet Wallace.

Well, I'll read the first and then the chorus and you can tell me, but it's, so it's, it's not the long flowing dress that you're in or the light coming off of your skin, the fragile heart you protected for so long or the mercy in your sense of right and wrong. It's not your hands searching slow in the dark or your nails leading love's watermark. It's not the way you talk me off the roof, your questions like directions to the truth. It's knowing that this can't go on forever.

Likely one of us will have to spend some days alone. Maybe we'll get 40 years together, but one day we'll be gone and one day you'll be gone. If we were vampires and death was a joke, we'd go out on the sidewalk and smoke and laugh at all the lovers and their plans. I wouldn't feel the need to hold your hand.

Maybe time running out as a gift. I'll work hard till the end of my shift and give you every second I can find and hope it isn't me who's left behind. And so I really do think that it's what Shakespeare seems to be doing and what I'd like about this as well is like there's something precisely in the fleeting character of love that is what makes it so powerful and that if we were a mortal or if we didn't fade and die, there just wouldn't be this erotic longing for another. No, I think that's, I think that's exactly what I actually was a nice song drag.

Thank you. It's one of my favorites. I realized that it's funny when I first heard like you like a few vampires and God is one of these like awful vampire TV shows theme songs or something. It's kind of sweet.

And I wonder if that musician, if the songwriter pivots to the vampire line, just because otherwise the song would be incredibly heavy. It's like a queen of the action of levity. Yeah. Oh yeah, it's definitely possible.

I mean his lyrics and a lot of his songs are very good. I think he's probably one of the best songwriters. What's the ring again? Jason Isbell.

I S B E L A. Okay. And I'm reading a poem by William Shakespeare that's S H A K E S. What edition are you reading?

R E. I don't know. I'm reading the Greg Steels, my Thunder edition. I'm trying to talk about this poem and he's the one.

I mean, he comes in with two poems, one on the net. That's right. A bunch of... Well, because Aeros is doing a reality.

Whatever you got. Yeah. But I think obviously the connection to mortality is here. And that's, I mean if you read Shakespeare's songs from the very beginning, it's about that problem, right?

Which is, I mean he's kind of addressing a young beautiful man. It seems like I'm saying, hey, your beauty's gonna go away. You better reproduce because this is just gonna get worse. You're gonna get old and wrinkly.

You need to produce something. Why are you pointing at me when you're saying you're gonna get old and wrinkly at the same time? I'm going to do it. Okay.

So that's why I loathe Greg. I hate Greg for a number of reasons, but 95% of my hatred is due to his beautiful quaff of hair. You do have nice hair. Shakespeare in a number of places talks about, well obviously this is...

I mean, we're gonna talk about hair. Beautiful hair. Just reminded me of the Tempest Prosper talks about drowning his book. I mean, they're these little hints everywhere of the artist and immortality.

Well, yeah, you're a Wallace poem. There's the mortality aspect, right? That's right. That's right.

We unwittingly hit on a bunch of poems about death and dying. Yeah. You know, let me just point out one or two lines. Yeah, of course.

There's something that you need. You ever have this experience of reading a book? Any book? Yeah, I have the experience all the day.

I read most days. That's kind of a silly question, Alex. I mean, I'm a professor for God's sake. Reading the ingredients label on the cheese to make sure it isn't pasteurized.

So it's up to your son. Sorry to actually homogenize as well. I always show forth. Actually, you like that.

Oh, my genized cheese. But you read a book and once one of my former teachers, he told me he went with Strauss to look at the dissertations in the University of Chicago. Oh, cheese. And the first thing Strauss said was, ah, the dead husks of once living thoughts.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah. But that's you read in old books. Sometimes you're like, okay, it's book is 500, 1000, 2000, 3000 years old.

It's a strange, like it's just been transmitted and translated and translated. And it's now just in front of you. And then there's a point where you start to figure things out and you see what the office done and it comes alive. Right?

So just to make that. When he says, when he says, when you look upon right, these yellow leaves, which I take you to the pages of a book hanging on the bow is that shaking that's the cold. They're not really exposed as bare ruined choirs where late to the sweetberg sing. There's like birds singing on the page, but it's barely they're not really there anymore.

But then a little later he says, in me, thou seest the glowing of such fire that on the ashes of his youth got lost. In a way, the poem is the written poem is a kind of dead husk, or relic, but there is something there. There is an ember there because there was a young person or an alive person long before this 500 years after the death or whatever that somehow preserved in it. And so Shakespeare's speaking, I think, to this youth, or the author, the character in the son is speaking to this youth.

But I think also Shakespeare's speaking to the reader and saying, yeah, I died. And if you can follow this, you can sense that there's still a little bit of me left behind in this, whether that's children or not is another question. But it's a... Jesus, these love poems are obviously love poems to their beloved, but in a way it seems like you're leading me to think that these love poems are away for Shakespeare to express his love to future readers.

So it's very widely loved, we're still together and have children. We've done, I think we did 24 episodes on Plato's Symposium, right? We know that there's something erotic about coming together and making a baby, but there's also something more erotic about trying to write something that will last the test of time. So there's something about writing that's trying to overcome our immortality.

Greg, you need to be honest with me. I'm the first episode on the Symposium to know there's something erotic about making a baby. He says, well, I just, 24 episodes on the Symposium, therefore we know there's something erotic about the kids. Well, see, I'm more Hobbesian.

I thought the only reason to have kids was to create a little army, actually. They'd never occurred to me that it could be deeply erotic. I see you're quite known that. Maybe I've done it.

I'm going to hear what you were saying. Yeah, I know. But these poems themselves are actually Shakespeare trying to create a love bond with later readers, if that makes sense. Absolutely.

There's this wonderful occasional experience, like I have where you have a question and you're reading this book, that book, and then you just chance upon a book, eventually that just speaks to you. It doesn't make me answer all your questions, but it takes you through the steps you've got to take and you're just like, wow, that's the book I needed to read. I've had that experience a few times. And it's just a great gratitude and great love for an author and for 3,000 years.

I mean, it's, but you feel like you're actually connected. It's all the time I have that. It's all the time I have to. But of course it's so natural when you're reading the greatest authors.

I hate to say that that's a mark, right? I realize this is not a run show. We actually don't have a run show, but honest question, have you guys ever written love poetry? Not in the series, right?

I tried my hand out. Yeah. When I was young, I wrote a sonnet for a girl from Mississippi. That's a true story.

Do you remember anything? It was a sonnet and it was dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, whatever that is, I haven't contaminated it. It's not right. It is right.

I've seen that to be so far away from my beloved, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. That's all I remember. Because she was in Mississippi, she and I was longing for her, so I was so far away. But, Greg, my question is how would the cow understand the range where the human being?

I assume the farmer would read it louder. Oh, that's true, that's true. Yeah. Greg, let's go to the Machiavelli.

Let's go to the Machiavelli. Let's go to the Machiavelli. Or do you want to end with the Machiavelli? Yeah, let's end with the Machiavelli.

Yeah. Okay, well, I don't... So, gosh, fleeting love in all this business. was a serenade by Machiavelli.

I've been talking about that. That's in the Bhopal edition. What do you both know? Both of these nuts.

Geez Louise, David. No, it's in the University, Duke University Press. It's too wrong with you. Okay, okay.

Geez Louise, get a hold of yourself. You can even execute it. You can eat like a mock-up. You can eat like on his own words.

I mean, that's right. He did choke on his own words. It's something that Duke University Press, edited by Ellen Gilbert, translator. Machiavelli, the chief works in others, volume two.

It's a serenade. We're just doing shows, poems. But I have taught the mandragula and the clitzia for Machiavelli's understanding of what love it. Why are you shaking your head at me?

What's what I do wrong now? I don't think that's how you pronounce that second play. I think it's clitzia. What?

What did I say? If the Bhopal edition has, again, led me at Stray Greg, strike me down Zeus, but I think I'm correct, it's clitzia, not clitzia, but common to understand. It's a very common error to fall. But let's go with the way you're pronouncing it.

Any events. So I, you know, this is Valentine's Day, and so we chose poems. So I was looking for something shorter by Machiavelli, and I found this serenade. Something I hadn't read before.

So I thought it would just be kind of fun. Looks like it was written around 1513 or so, 1513, 1514. And it seems to be cribbing heavily, as their translator points out, from Ovid's Metamorphoses Book 14. And it's funny, because it picks up on a lot of the themes that we've already talked about.

It's Machiavelli, let's see. I mean, Alex, feel free to jump in. I'm very late, I'm very tired. It's Machiavelli telling the story of a man who was telling the story of somebody else who tried to commit to a woman to fall in love with him.

And she didn't. And so like he's throwing apples at her, trying to convince, which is, by the way, how I always, I always use cheese. So maybe that's why I was less successful in Amher. Then Machiavelli, like I would just throw cheese at the women and be like, love me.

And they'd be like, no. But in the story, the boy is throwing apples at the woman to try and make her love him. And at the very end, Machiavelli says, don't be like this woman in the story. Fall in love with me.

So there's like two or three stories nested in. And the message seems to be the same. And I was trying to put together, what's the business about throwing the apples and the Play-Doh stuff that will come to just a moment, help me figure it out. I think the boy who's throwing apples at the beautiful maiden, he was like, fall in love with me.

And I'm like, why is he throwing apples at it? Like this is like just pulling the pigtails. And I'm like, no, it's actually, I think what he's doing is trying to point out that your beauty is like this apple. It's gonna fade, it's gonna fade.

Love me before your beauty fades just like this apple. So I don't really have a lot. It's pagan, it's a strange moment as far as he appeals to Venus and Aeros or Amor, if you will. I could read a little bit of it, but.

Yeah, please, it's not really. Yeah, why would you do it in this way? So the poem opens up with the speaker, which we assume to be Machiavelli. Roll good point, yeah, I'm assuming that.

I'm gonna tell you the story about an exurette. Which is. Yeah, which is a woman whose name is like, virtuous Lord or the Lord virtue or the virtue of the Lord, whatever it is. And but it turns out that before he gets the story of an exurette, he gets the story of Palatinus and Pomona.

And Pomona is so mean because she likes to tend to the gardens, the fruits, the pony. And so she just sits around in the garden and tends to it and has a big. Oh, she wants to do it, tend to her own garden. Yeah, exactly, yeah.

Just playing with her. Does anybody else plan on it? She wants to just tend to her own garden. Yeah.

Right. And plow a garden, whatever. Anyways, he, so she's in there, got a big wall. Can't get nobody can get in there.

So wall around her garden so that you can't get in there? Yeah, kind of built around her garden. There's the Palatinus, who's actually apparently can shift shapes. Mm hmm.

Wait, sorry, under, no, no, it's ever toonas. I've got it backwards. That's right. Yeah, for toonas who's coming in.

So he dresses up as an old lady. Right, right, right. And Pomona, and Pomona realizes this ain't no old woman. This old woman's a hallowed a kisser, right?

Right. I don't know how she'd know that. One can an old woman be a hallowed a kisser? Yeah, I mean, over a second.

So, yeah, so apparently she's kissed a lot of old women and young men and has a good sample size for which to judge. Right, right. New kisser, which. Yeah.

So there's already this awareness, right? So the old woman slash her toonas now tells the story of an exurette. Good. And an exurette is woman, has a lover.

Right, right. What's the lover's name of an exurette? I'm looking to it. David, not go so Freddy.

No. Ifus, ifus, ifus, ifus, ifus. Some of them. Yeah.

Now, so then that story is she rejects him, rejects him, rejects him. So she obviously hates him. He's like, well, the only gift I can give you is my suicide. Yeah.

Hanging himself himself and says, look at him. Doing it out front of your house so that you can see it. Hanging himself and he dies. And then there's a female procession.

They bring it and she doesn't hide and shame but looks upon it confirming that she actually did want this thing. Right. And so she's turned to stone. And the woman slash her tumness tells the story and is like, don't be like her.

And then the old lady turns into veritunas, sudden, right? So reveals the thing that she already knows. Right. And so she's like, you know what?

I'm a little afraid but also he's kind of handsome. So let's do this. Naturally. And then Machiavelli says, don't be like this.

And but he dresses both his beloved and anybody else who's listening. So he says to Machiavelli says, happy woman to whom we sing and play music and you round about who listened to this. Emmettate Pomona's example and not an exurette's cruelty. Here's your servant who weaves and argues and only to see your face he thirsts.

He's a thirsty boy. And I'm afraid that in the glass of another's ill, you'll see yourself into his prayers for a bit will lend your ears. He's not so old and so advanced nor in his life so strange nor does nature meet him so ugly that you should be averse to his desires. You see his starving body submit.

That's kind of what I got. That's a fine interpretation, Craig. It's a weird I mean, like the narrator Machiavelli is telling the story within the story. And there's usually one that usually have some numerological thing going on.

Anything with that? I probably had to read it two or three more times. I would and I didn't have time to check the source material. I suspect there's something going on kind of funny with the source material.

I suspect it was probably changing the original in some way. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But I just didn't have time to do it.

I mean, so one weird thing I'll point out is that the inner story is this guy gets revenge in the gods back him up by turning it to stone, right? Because he has to cross it. So she's filled with the kind of fear there plus the old woman turns into a young man. And this exposes the thing she already knows, which is that he's cunning, right?

So there's a kind of sublime fear she has before him, which is this is not a this is a guy who's with cunning, but also there's this this like the red of the gods, right? So there's two aspects and then also he's beautiful. So it seems like a lesson to what is it? Pomona or whatever?

The girl he's talking to or the girl. What's the name of the girl he's talking to? The fruit lady. Pomona, that's one of the plazar own field.

What's her name? Pomona. So Pomona is her field and she's like, okay, her sublocking. I'm a little afraid of him.

Also the gods might punish me. I'm just going to go with it. Right. So there's a bit of necessity.

There's a bit of virtue. There's a bit of fear of gods. I don't know what else to do. This is a curious level.

You don't want to be like that being to be turned into stone. So we should probably go out. I mean, I think in a sense, therefore it's obviously a typical mock-up guy like kind of comedy, but he does recognize the deeper truth he recognizes all the I think he's satirizing it here is that, I mean, I'll ask you, why do love poems work? I mean, like I assume you wrote a poem when you were young to a girl to try and win a row, that's what I was doing.

Right? And so somehow we had to, this will somehow demonstrate our love. And why does it mean to the extent that it works or to the extent that we think that it works, why do we think that? What are we thinking that?

You know what I mean? He had a great love poem. He used to spring. He just, you worked every time.

He'd say, let's just do what I'm going to tell everybody we did anyway. And that was his way of just getting out of time. It's not. God.

My question is serious. That's pretty good. I was you. How was you?

I was you. That's not kind of mad at anything. I think it just shows because we have to take some care. Even if you're, even if it's silly little rhymes, you're so it'd be no different than like I built you a birdhouse or like, putting effort in.

It's not just writing a simple like you trying to get words to rhyme. Right? who would demonstrate a kind of softness of soul. Oh, that's not bad too.

That sort of like, like, hey, I murdered this pig and brought it to you. Like, okay, that's not what I wanted. Like, that took care. I took a lot of work, right?

Like, whereas the, this shows that you're not, you're not sort of, not that I was ever mistaken for this, but you're not sort of just a tough manly man. That's funny, because for you murdering the pig is the beginning of the erotic experience. Well, David, you only wants to murder in the pig. No, but there's, I think, there's another aspect to it, which is you wait the problem.

I just snorted. There's another aspect. You were at the poem, which is supposed to show why you love the person. Really?

It's also compelled a person to love you. Yeah, yeah, you're supposed to show why you're lovable. So I think that's what Machiavelli is satirizing here. I think that Machiavelli is, he's amplifying what's going on in all love poetry, which appears to be all about, I love you so much, I love you.

I'm, you're great, you're great. But really what it is trying to do is compel the other to love you. Yeah. I mean, that's like, that's like, that's like, that's like, that's like, that's like, that's like, that's like, that's like, that's like, that's like, which is like, look, you know, the beloved has certain demands, he places on the lover, the lover fulfills them and makes himself level.

The way I always think of this is, you know, when you're in like, Millsville and you like somebody, you sort of start wearing the shirt of the band they like or liking the things they like and it's like, oh, well, they, I like that person. And she likes this band. I'll put the shirt on. And therefore, she'll like me via the band.

And you know, it's the most infantile logic. But in a way, that's operative in every poem in a very sort of, maybe splimes were stuck to rainy and incense is always that going on. So Machiavelli is bringing it to the surface as it were. That's interesting.

It's very open, right? Like, Vertunas reveals with the kiss early on, just so, you know, I'm not actually a lady. The whole conceit here is that I can run a ring around, I'm being gracious and let he know by the kiss in a way. But it just seems like she's figured it out early on.

He reveals himself. So she knows this already, but it's confirmed and it's a kind of like, openness about what he's doing, right? It reminds me a little bit of the Prince where it's like, here's my book on how, you know, to be really connising. But it actually ends up being sort of mutually beneficial to just be open about it.

Like, what do you want? What do I want? All right, let's just make a mutual agreement. Go on, work that.

Right. I've heard. So what's the Plato? There's a 45 minute special.

Sure. I've got three short poems by Plato. Very, very short. I'm gonna read in Greek.

Cause why not the first one anyway? I'll stop after that. Just so you can get a feel for what Plato's up to. And then Dr.

Soft can correct my pronunciation. Taein Suken Agathona, Ilon, Epekelesen, Escon, Elthagar, Hei Taelemon, Ost Dia Beis Omenet. And here's the English. My soul was on my lips as I was kissing Agathon.

Poor soul. She came hoping to cross over to him. Anything? So he's kissing and his soul wanted to go over and be with Agathon.

Yeah. Out of his lips. I mean, I sort of read it slowly, but like, is that? I mean, it is curious that we kiss, right?

What a weird thing. And is that is Plato giving voice to what you're actually doing? You're hoping to exchange souls with the person you're kissing them? You know what I hear?

This is why I remember kissing people. You know what I mean? Don't allow you to kiss them. You ever kissed your wife and you blow into her mouth, like, flayed her cheeks.

Yes. And he's saying, I'm joking. And he said, yeah, he's doing it again. Yeah.

It's just my soul baby. My soul wants to be with you. It's keeping my. All right.

Anything else? If not, I've got two more. I mean, reminds you of the Earth's office speech of the symposium. I assume this is Agathon, by the way.

Agathon from maybe not. It was probably a common name, but I assume this is the poet Agathon. I mean, Agathon got around. That was well known.

Poor Plato. That's what in, and have you read it or stop at least this before? Yeah, it's been a while. In the beginning, Agathon is, it's, it's, Euripides is going with his in-law.

We're going to see Agathon. He's like, who is this? And he's like, I don't know. You probably **** them.

Oh, geez. It's pretty ridiculous. And then he talks about how he imitates the behavior of women, including being ridden like a horse. It's a verb that's used exclusively for riding horses.

It pays something either. Something like that. Yeah. And he's like, oh, that way I can rip the characters back.