I kind of love that poetry is such a, an integral part of the oracular response.

Yeah, you gotta drink deeply from the Castalian Spring, don't you? It does seem sort of, uh, sad that they eventually go to prose.

That just seems like not really committing to the bit.

It's like-

Yeah

... and holding these reins to horses that don't exist anymore.

You can't beat that.

I think that's just the most terrific thing in there.

that's,

you know, it just ends, according to these Hellenistic scholars, with the happy ending of Penelope and Odysseus going to bed.

You know, this is, that's one ending.

And there are other endings to the adventures of Odysseus.

Even within the poem, there's a prophecy that he's going to die a sort of peaceful death very far from the sea, and he's going to wander so far inland.

that villagers or whatever are going to think that the oar over his shoulder is a winnowing fan because they've never seen a ship or an oar.

So even within the poem, there's this idea of other ways that things might end.

not going well yeah

Mm-hmm.

And like, what if I continue down that road? What happens? I mean, again, it's, it's very experimental.

But by saying I can only have nine syllables in a line, and I get it, I run into a line where it seems to have to need, you know, it has to have 10 syllables.

Um, that's when something really interesting is gonna happen.

Like, it turns out that I'm being stubborn, and I don't have to say that.

I could say something else entirely.

I've simply, you know, written myself into a corner.

Yeah.