Almost Every Tragedy Is Lost

Even the famous catharsis

Is a hapax legomenon

In Aristotle’s Poetics.

Who knows how the goat songs started,

And why uniquely Hellenic?

Sad stories, legends of failure,

Aristocrats and magicians

Destroyed for challenging the gods,

And so forth, are common enough.

Everyone has their horror tales,

Ghost stories, wonder tales, and myths.

Why did the Greeks need tragedies?

Why should you trust Aristotle,

Who never practiced tragedy,

As first and last word on that art?

Because he was at least thorough

And systematic, and a fan,

Unlike Plato, and he’s what’s left.

Middens and fossils, coprolites,

All your memories of the past

From which to reconstruct your lies,

They’re not you’re fault. What can you do?

Vernacularly, tragedy

Means anything unfortunate

Enough to grieve that it happened,

With a sidecar of suggestion

It needn’t have happened at all.

Tragedy’s a real tragedy

On this head, since it’s mostly lost

And needn’t have happened at all.