The Silliness of Men
“He ran naked to the supposed site of Achilles’ tomb at Troy, while his male lover, Hephaestion, crowned the tomb of Achilles’ beloved Patroclus.”
~ Robin Lane Fox, The Classical World: an Epic History from Homer to Hadrian
Forget about the evils men have done.
They’re far too awful and depressing, yes?
Instead let’s have a little bit more fun
By thinking of the sappiness and mess
That is the mind of masculinity.
The son of Philip ran around a tomb
Supposedly in the vicinity
Of Homer’s hero. No one with a womb
Would do a thing as daft as that. The man
He loved from adolescence, his boyfriend
Until death ended all that, also ran
To crown Patroclus’s grave. That toy friend,
This Hephaestion, he was just as mad.
But then it’s better to be mad than bad.