Further advice for surviving in the world of Classical Mythology, by Paul Burgess
If you’d prefer to not become a bear,
Do not let Jove remove your underwear.
[Callisto’s “crime” was having a child after being raped by Jove. For this crime, Hera turned the girl into a bear. A moral we see throughout the classics is: Do not let one of the Universe’s most powerful entities rape you…]
Further advice for surviving in the world of Classical Mythology, by Paul Burgess
If Zeus decides it’s you he’d like to woo,
In time, you might be saying only “Moo.”*
*Zeus/Jove turned his love interest Io into a cow to hide her from his wife.
“Sirens” [Morals from Mythology, or Practical Advice from the Classics] by Paul Burgess
To safely hear the song that Sirens sing,
You must become a legendary king.
To wound a god or goddess’s fragile pride
Is deadlier than committing suicide.
You will become your canines’ food
If, by some chance, you see a goddess nude. *
*In classical mythology, Actaeon, separated from his hunting party, accidentally comes across the goddess Diana while she is bathing. The kindly goddess immediately turns him into a stag, and his friends and hunting dogs kill him when they see him.
“An Aspiring Cardinal”
A man whose behavior’s absurd
Insists he’s becoming a bird.
“In Rome, by the sea,
A card’nal I’ll be”
Says that man whose behavior’s absurd.
“Mr. ________, Teacher of Middle School English”
There was once a man whose career
Induced him to drink lots of beer.
Whenever he’d teach,
There were bottles in reach
To help him endure his career.
“Tithonus of Dell”
There was an old miser from Dell
Whose age no person could tell.
He was freakishly old
And all covered with mold
And was better to see than to smell.
“A Boring, Moral, and Clean Limerick”
There was once a man who enjoyed
To do what most others avoid.
To repay what he’d owe
And be kind to a foe
Were some things that this person enjoyed.
“A Less Boring, Moral, and Clean Limerick–About a Beaver [Castor]“
I saw once a beaver so big
It could swallow the whole of a pig.
It knew lots of tricks
With berries and sticks.
What a sight was that beaver so big!
Miscellaneous Inanities 