if the world would like to hear how Rabi’a
gained courage or her strange immunity
to fear, for friendship, i would explain. yet,
a friend is not a purveyor of shallots; nor

pinned apples, by the donkey’s tale. her debt
of tears she brought with her most carefully.
this baggage carries me, her dogged ass;
my nag for recollection married with

my nap of opportunity. fresh dates
don’t pluck a prophet from the fetching tree.
a footfelt softness is velvet delivery
under her bending limb, and broken news

is armor. what teeming droplets, but by winter?
what is the desert, if not her country of birth?
what is her coin, if not the cake she gives
right back, the moment she has tasted worth.


//

Phaedrus: (as Lysias, cont.)

and not as many as
will enjoy the gain (apo-lauein)
of your season (hora)

but those who will give after (meta-didonai)
of their own goods (ton spheteron agathon)
to one born older (presbuteroi genomenoi)

// 234α

οὐδὲ ὅσοι τῆς σῆς ὥρας ἀπολαύσονται

ἀλλ᾽ οἵτινες πρεσβυτέρῳ γενομένῳ τῶν σφετέρων ἀγαθῶν μεταδώσουσιν

//

in this, changed “dense” to “rich”.
have also reworked the (tricky)
first few lines of the Lysias speech.