Ralph Windle

You’ll know the story, I suppose,

Of how Odysseus and his men,

Vanquishing their Trojan foes,

Hit problems getting home again;

With loyal Penelope beginning

Those formidable feats of spinning.

The way old Homer hypes the story 

-  Wily Odysseus in the running

   For the epic heights of glory,

  And unprecedented cunning –

Belies what all the facts suggest.

This hero was a fool, at best!

His saga is an endless list

Of stumbling blindly into scrapes;

Depending, as is blithely missed,

On gods or sheep for his escapes.

The gods, of course, can share the glory,

But sheep – well, that’s another story!

And yet, could anyone deny

Odysseus narrowly survived

That Cyclops of the baleful eye,

Because resourceful sheep contrived

To give this stupid Greek a ride,

Clinging to their underside?

Take Jason with his Golden Fleece.

It shows, too, the same old deep

Unwritten truth of Ancient Greece –

Scratch the Man, and there’s the Sheep!

Though men, in that as every age,

Have hogged the centre of the stage.

So, what a difference there would be

In how the chronicles might show it,

If all these tales of history

Were written by some ovine poet!

And if we had the sheep-side view

On what blind Homer thought he knew.

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 (  from ‘Bertie and the Younger Set’ )