Distraught Philosophers Woo Aletheia (Truth).

Distraught Philosophers Woo Aletheia (Truth).

          

  ‘Quos Deus vult perdere prius dementat.’

Philosophers, chained fast in Plato’s cave,

At times glimpse Truth unveiled and forthwith crave

A closer union; on scholastic knees

They seek to woo her thus, with desperate pleas:

“It’s systems breakdown time since we lost you;

Unanswered queries, problems posed in vain,

Pythagorean secrets spelt out plain,

Logic confounded, Beauty raped anew,

Justice locked up, the Psyche down with flu.

It’s hemlock happy hour since we lost you;

Socratic tea-parties we wish we’d missed.

We’ve tasted nothing like it since we kissed

The Forms goodbye. Our paradigm’s askew.

We’re draped with wilting rosemary and rue!

It’s bit between the teeth since we lost you;

Astride a bolter, dreading every hedge

And five-barred gate, we’re too close to the edge

Of Language Games to sound our ‘View Halloo!’

We’d rather ride chimeras round the zoo.

The furies spur us on since we lost you;

We climb mount Olympus, backwards, in foul weather,

Or tackle Hydra, legs lashed fast together.

Did you inspire such madcap daring-do?

Not so! We do it to impress the Few.

Pedantic panic reigns since we lost you;

We pore over dull textbooks, sore perplexed.

Our theories skulk; won’t tell us what comes next

Or what we must, or should or mustn’t do.

Some say we’ve sprung a leak in our I.Q.

The Intellect’s run wild since we lost you;

Heat wave, cold snap, dead calm and hurricane,

Such philosophic tempests in the brain!

Antarctic cold and global warming too;

Our disputes bubble like a witch’s brew.

Virtue is drunk by noon since we lost you;

The Good sprawls on her bed till half-past nine

(Our cave’s so dark it’s hard to tell the time).

We squabble. “Is the One puce, pink or blue?”

Prattling of propositions, P and Q.

Crazed French Idealists turn things upside down.

Aletheia! You keep knitting like the girls

Around the guillotine, all plains and purls,

While Marxists lose their heads all over town.

Grant us Platonic friendship, or we drown!”

Jabbering philosophers, a noisy band,

Throng around Truth, all clamouring for her hand,

But Truth, who loves the wise, disdains the clever;

Scorning their pleas, she quits their cave forever.

COPYRIGHT (C) 2010 J D FRODSHAM