The Satrapy
How unfortunate, though you are made
for great and beautiful deeds
your unjust fate always denies you
encouragement and success.
Worthless habits, pettiness
and indifference distracts you.
And what a horrible day when you give in
(the day you let yourself give in),
and you set out on the road to Susa,
you approach the monarch Artaxerxes
who favours you with a place at his court,
and offers you satrapies and such.
And you accept them in despair.
These things that you don’t want.
Your soul craves other things, yearns for other things:
the praise of the people and the sophists,
that difficult and priceless “Well Done”
the Agora, the Theatre, and the Laurels.
Will Artaxerxes give you these things?
Can your Satrapy provide them?
And what sort of life will you live without them?
Manolis Aligizakis 