I shall try to help. Song has that gift, a gift nothing else has: to give the lost or hold it in suspension.
P
I feel utterly ridiculous, the greatest hypocrite: that is how it seems as I urge Alcaeus to curb his resentment for Pittakos.
I have tried reason but it isn’t reason that moves Alcaeus. When he feels my sympathy, he listens: if he conceives of us as he used to be, his hatred subsides. Let him feel alone, he thunders, bends toward me, drags his fingers through his beard and sputters:
“To hear you talk, I’d think you were never mistreated by this man!”
“But you know better.”
“You’re a traitor to yourself!”
“That’s not true. You want to have him killed and I say we lose through violence. I’m no traitor to myself—or you. You can be traitor to justice.”
“Let’s not say anything about justice, when we’re fighting tyranny.”
I recalled days with Aesop and said: