I visited Pompeii and Herculaneum a few years ago and mused that somewhere in those cities, someone was just about to publish the insightful book they had just written, take the stage for their first lead role, or play a piece of music that might have tickled eardrums twenty centuries later. Meanwhile, someone else was planning a business takeover or the assassination of a rival. I started a poem about the poets and singers but couldn’t finish it, but after musing over the character of a certain prominent politician, I decided to put someone very much like him there on a cool evening in AD 79.
(1) Get me a drink and make it a big one
The best of your wine, you know I can pay.
Have the flute girl who brings it smile this time
Not like the last one that I sent away.
She’s lucky to serve me and luckier still
If she has the looks that I like in a girl.
She’ll be well paid for a night in the bed
Of the wealthiest man in Pompeii.
(CH) I’m the center of power in the center of power,
Natural master over people like sheep
Who think they’re awake while they walk in their sleep
Created to be used by me.
Today is my day and this hour my hour
Politician or artist or priest I can buy
Who barely taste life before dropping to die
Drops that compare to my sea
(2) So where is that wine, and some larks cooked with honey?
And send out two girls who will heed when I speak
What do you mean that your cook ran away?
Scared by some smoke from Vesuvius’s peak
Tell cowards and slaves they must hear my demands
Make a banquet for three, and start it all now.
These rumbles will pass, my desires will not
The wealthiest man in Pompeii so commands.
This was written as a song, and has occasionally been performed publicly. Copyright is to R. Foss.
