'I have found it: heureka! heureka!'
I cried. 'Now the riddle is solved.
When before has so neat, so unique a
Solution as this been evolved?'
With a hand that still shook with elation,
The words in the margin I wrote,
Then I gazed at my great emendation,
My marvellous critical note.
Though it flashed on my mind in a minute,
No force would suffice to express
All the wealth of Greek learning that's in it—
I've got the Greek spirit, I guess.
The Greek spirit—Professor G. Murray,
At least as he seeks to imply,
Thinks he has it; he'll just have to hurry
To get it as badly as I.
Where were Scaliger, Porson and Bentley?
And Housman—ah! where wandered he?
(Yet with him I should wish to deal gently,
That he may deal gently with me.)
Has he e'er in his books or his lectures
Once chanced on a comment so fine?
(But I'm ready to praise his conjectures,
If he will do justice to mine.)
When the study of classics is ended
(And many to end it now seek),
And the line I so grandly emended,
Has gone the long road of all Greek;
Yet my fame shall abide even then, and
These words on my tomb you shall see:—
'He inserted a comma at μέν and
Deleted the colon at δὲ.'
~Typhlos
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