Reimagined parts of Homer’s forgotten ancient satire “Margites”: one man, many talents, zero success. In lofty verse, his heroic incompetence unfolds across war, farming, prophecy, and weaving.
I
Μοῦσα, σεμνὸν Μαργῖτιν ἀνάγειρε λέγων ἄνδρα κακῶς· Πολυμᾶθον ἀπαίδευτον, ὃν οὔτε εὗρον ἐν εὖ πράσσων· Οὔτ᾽ ἐν πτολέμοιο τέχνῃ πίστιν ἀμφοτέρῃ ὑπέβαλε· Οὔτ᾽ ἀρότῳ καὶ γεώργῳ λύσιν δύναιτο, πάντα δ᾽ ὤλετο πρᾶγμα·
English Translation
Muse, recount that solemn Margites, declaring the man so inept; A polymath uneducated, whom no task he could complete; In warcraft he won no mastery, his efforts both overwhelmed; Nor could he harness plow or farm—every venture altogether failed.
II
Μοῦσα, φθέγματος οὐδὲν ἐποτρύνασεν Μάργιτιν, ὅτε πετεινῶν πτηνῶν σκιρτώδη πτήσιν εἶδε· “Ὄρνιθες, σὺν θεοῖς νικᾶτε,” κράξεν· ἔπειτ’ ἀπώλετο μάντις ἀτέχνης, πᾶσαν δ’ ὁδόν ἐξηπάτησε κέρβερος.
English Translation
Muse, you urged no warning on poor Margites, when he beheld the birds’ capricious flight; “Birds, you conquer with the gods,” he cried—and then, that bungling soothsayer was lost, the watchman fooled astray.
III
τῷ δὲ Μαργίτι γεωργὸς ἀγαλλομένας ἐδόκει πρότερον ὰνίησα λόγους, ἀνέμους καὶ σιτηρά· ἐπεὶ δ’ ἄροτον ἔλαβε, μέλαν ὡς ἴρις ἀμέλειαν χόλον ἔρρανε, πηχὺ δ’ ἄχυρα ὡρπάσθη πανταχῇ.
English Translation
To the farmer Margites seemed a wellspring of knowledge on tillage, winds, and grain in every kind; but once he grasped the plow, dark as an eclipse, he scattered chaff in heaps, his fields laid waste around.
IV
Μᾶλλον ἀνὴρ Μαργῖτις ὑφάντρας τέχνας νομίσειεν, ὅτε λείβεν ἴτον πυκνὸν ἐπ’ ἀργυρέει πηδὸς· οὐδ’ ὀίμας ἔσχεν ἐν βελόνῃ καλοῖς ἀνισάμενος, ἀλλ’ ὑφάσας πέλον ὡς χαλαρωμένον αἵματος.
English Translation
Margites thought himself more apt than any weaver, as he poured thick thread upon the shining loom; nor did he grasp the pattern with his eager needle, but wove a cloth as slack as blood long cooled.
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This story was generated using Microsoft Copilot. (99% AI)
Prompt: Give a list of literary works that are lost (and still haven't been found).Lost Literary Works Still Missing
Notable Examples
Margites – a comic epic poem attributed to Homer, known only through brief references in Plato’s Alcibiades and Aristotle’s On the Art of Poetry, with no surviving manuscripts.
The History of Cardenio – a play credited to William Shakespeare’s company and performed around 1613; payment records confirm its existence, but its text has never been recovered.
Ur-Hamlet – a precursor drama to Shakespeare’s Hamlet (or a work by Thomas Kyd), staged in 1587 at The Burbages Shoreditch Playhouse; none of its script survives.
Memories – Lord Byron’s personal memoirs composed in 1819; by his own decree and subsequent events, every copy was destroyed, leaving no trace of the original text.
These titles represent just a handful of literary treasures lost to time. From ancient epic fragments to early modern dramas and personal narratives, countless works remain known only by reputation or fleeting references.
Prompt: Zoom in on Margites. What would it have looked like? If we were to reimagine a portion of it, what format and style should we consider? What themes?Zooming In on Margites
What Margites Might Have Looked Like
Margites would have presented itself as a mock-epic in hexameter, its grand opening invoking the muse in lofty diction only to undercut itself with comic absurdity. The first lines likely introduce Margites with epic reverence—cataloguing his lineage and traits—before immediately lampooning his utter incompetence. Its tone would oscillate between heroic pronouncements and sardonic commentary, creating a playful tension between form and content.
The verse itself blended dactylic hexameter with sudden bursts of iambic trimeter, a meter shift used for punchlines or ironic asides. This metric mixture heightened the comic impact by treating mundane follies with the gravitas usually reserved for divine exploits.
Reimagining a Fragment: Format and Style
When reconstructing a portion of Margites, consider these formal and stylistic choices:
Use six-foot dactylic hexameter lines that mimic Homeric cadence, complete with repeated formulaic epithets applied to the hero’s blunders.
Interject short iambic-trimeter couplets at climactic moments—such as Margites boasting or encountering disaster—to deliver a punchy comedic beat.
Adopt elevated vocabulary (“bronze-buckled sandals,” “star-gifted wisdom”) contrasted with slapstick imagery (churning soup over his head, misreading a plowshare for a lyre).
Include self-aware narrator commentary that breaks the fourth wall, gently chiding Margites for his “vast ignorance” even as it celebrates his overweening confidence.
Core Themes to Weave In
The folly of pretension: Margites embodies the boaster who confuses jargon for real skill.
Hubris versus reality: each grand declaration invites a spectacular failure.
Satire of polymathy: the mock-hero who “knows many things, but all badly” becomes a vehicle for poking fun at false expertise.
Social parody: through Margites’s misadventures, the poem critiques elite claims to wisdom and the absurd lengths people go to appear learned.
Further Explorations
Examine later mock-epics—like the Batrachomyomachia—and trace how they inherit Margites’s tone.
Adapt the reimagined fragment into a dramatic reading, alternating between a declamatory soloist and a small chorus offering ironic commentary.
Illustrate a modern graphic-novel version where every hexameter line is paired with a cartoonish panel, visualizing Margites’s disasters in real time.
Explore parallels in medieval fools’ literature or in contemporary satirical verse to deepen the thematic resonance of exaggerated incompetence.
Prompt: Let's write a portion of Margites as good as we can. Use themes and style elements that could have been used in the original, based on what we know. Use the original language, but also provide an English translation.