As the UK’s ‘herd immunity’ approach to the coronavirus crisis has proven to be somewhat of a debacle, I would like to share how the farmer Sagaris protected his herd during an epidemic.

His story is recorded in a Greek verse inscription from Apollonia Mordiaion, datable to A. D. 162, i. e. around, or just before, the period of the so-called Antonine plague.

The text reads as follows (SGO 12/62/01):

ἔτους ζμσ’
γειαρότας δοιοὺς τούσδ’ ἐθέμην Σάγαρις
ἀντὶ βοῶν ζώντων τοὺς Δοκιμεῖς ἀρότας,
οὓς ἐσάωσε θεὸς ὅτε βούβρωστις κατὰ γαῖαν
σαρκοβόρος δεινή τε φόνον βρείθουσα ἄλυκτ[ον]
κόσμον ἐπέσχετο πάντα· ἐμοὶ φύγον έ(κ) καμάτ[οιο]
ἐργατιναί καλοὶ ξανθοί γαίης ἀροτήρες·
καὶ βόας ἐρρύσω ψυχὰς δὲ βροτῶν ἐσάωσ[ας]
καὶ Γαλατῶν γαίης ἤγαγες ες πατρίδα,
υὗά τ’ ἐμὸν κύδηνας ἐνὶ Τρόκμοις ζαθέοισι·
τούνεκεν οὐ μέγα δῶρον ἐγὼ τὸν βωμὸν ἔθηκα·
τίς γὰρ δῶρον ἄνακτι θεῶν ἀντάξιον εὕροι;

In translation:

In the…

Wiregrass

Poets in their youth begin in gladness
William Wordsworth

Many poets I knew in my youth went away and died.
Others disappeared – merely –
Me, I am hiding in a mobile home in the Wiregrass.

I am running from sorrow.
Running from madness.
Running from the Devil.

My days are spent cooking, cleaning,
doing laundry, praying.
Praying to stave off sorrow and madness,

but sometimes I think these twin demons

are waiting outside the doors,
waiting for blindness to set in,
waiting for gladness to fade.

I’m trying to outshine
and outwit the Devil.

I bicker with my mother at night,

cook nice foods for her when it’s daylight.
No more $100 dinners that someone else paid for.
Food and fighting keep us alive.

Gone are the expensive European glasses.
Gone, the costly clothes and shoes.
Gone, the extravagant Georgetown hairdresser

My hair stuck on top of my…

The mood is of drowsy delirium, anesthetized, an exhausted turbulence runs through you

SOUND | There is no sound. The soundtrack is silence.

---

Imogen Reid @vilmastuttle completed a practice-based PhD at Chelsea College of Arts, her practice being writing. Her thesis focused on the ways in which film has been used by novelists as a resource to transform their writing practice, and on how the non-conventional writing techniques generated by film could, in turn, produce alternative forms of readability. Her work has appeared in Hotel Magazine,LossLit, Gorse Journal, Zeno Magazine, Elbow Room, the KFB anthology: Not Your Best No. 1, and ToCall Magazine. She has participated in Steven J Fowler’s Poem Brut events, and has a pamphlet with Gordian Projects.

Page Design: Robert Frede Kenter.