The Classical Greek
Come sit down a while, and I’ll tell you a story
Recall famous glories and honour the dead
And hope that a smile will crack all of your faces
And cares and all worries go out of your head.
I’ll sing of some lads with exceptional qualities
All of them geniuses, truly unique
And a gambler who’d bet the last bill in his wallet
Would wager I’d sing of the Classical Greek.
Of philosophy mighty and pure cogitation
There’s none can compare with the Classical Greek
If thinking were drinking and jollification
An ocean of booze would have lasted a week.
Democritus, Plato and good auld Pythagoras
Socrates, Zeno, Prothagoras too
Don’t forget Aristotle, his blood should be bottled
Fair play to the whole philosophical crew.
Euripides wrote of the gods and goddesses
In sagas and dramas, their story he told
Their virtues and vices, eclectic devices
In mead and hot spices, the tale would unfold.
One girl who worked in the shipyard, called Helen
A brazen aul hussy, when all’s said and told
When she’d launched all those ships
For the bold Trojan heroes
She gave of her all to sweet Paris of old.
Now Homer composed a poetical potion
Of versification, the best in the world
He junxtaposed Greek with athletical Trojan
And to the equation he added a ‘ghowl’
He called it The Iliad, rhyming until he had
Filled up his brain with a ten-gallon hat
When he started The Odyssey, friends said, My God is he
Going to remember a mouthful like that!
Now Hippocrates surely the first of physicians
Gave medical science a shot in the arm
A doctor he said must obey one condition
Whatever you do, don’t you do any harm
His mother was proud of his fine occupation
Beguiling the thoughts of his friends far and near
But he secretly grieved that his earthly duration
Preceded the Golf Club by two thousand years.
Here’s a health to this classical civilization
May songs in its honour forever be sung
May each singer receive a standing ovation
And glorification from each leather lung
From an Age of pure gold reflecting its brilliance
Soon we have told the whole adventure plot ..
Though genius infected those Greeks by their millions
Not one healthy arm graced …THE WHOLE SORRY LOT !