Tuesday, September 01, 2009

A pastoral interlude

Back from camping I reflect that the simple life with friends and family is the best, as the wise have known since the earliest times:

Gilgamesh, whither rovest thou?
The life thou pursuest thou shall not find.
When the gods created mankind,
Death for mankind they set aside,
Life in their own hands retaining.
Thou, Gilgamesh, let full be thy belly.
Make thou merry by day and by night.
Of each day make thou a feast of rejoicing,
Day and night dance thou and play.
Let thy garments be sparkling fresh,
Thy head be washed; bathe thou in water.
Pay heed to the little one that holds on to thy hand,
Let thy spouse rejoice in thy bosom!
For this is the task of mankind!

3 comments:

chris said...

epic!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAMRTGv82Zo
:-)

Nick Browne said...

For all my love of "They Might Be Giants" this was new to me.

Nice one.

chris said...

My kids love it, and consequently have a rough idea of who Gilgamesh was. Nice, eh?
(& Hammurabi)