The Mouse God
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An owl teaches cats the art of catching mice. Unknown Lombard artist, ca. 1700.
“Hear me, you of the silver bow, protector of Chrysē
. . . , who rule with might over Tenedos—
Smintheus* . . .”
—Homer Iliad 1.37–39
Say something, even if it’s only good-
bye! Humans’ bounden duty is to speak,
to come up with an answer. Yes, they can!
Apollo Smintheus, that lovely god,
whose temple is a house where mouse is man,
and Mickey gnaws the harnesses of time,
so well this serves: repeat and rhyme,
no matter multiplicity, things let stand,
the future’s snarl, the present's loopy band,
Minerva's bird's far-ranging beak,
Sminthe's foot upon a mouse, squeak! squeak!
Decapitating at the speed of light,
like the well-seasoned hack he is,
the Lord High Executioner says: “OK,
Just nod! Next time, you'll get it right!
Remember, you're the mouse; I'm the owl,”
spreading my wings in the falling dusk,**
but unpresciently—like Elon Musk!"
*Smintheus, “an uncertain epithet, but most probably ‘mouse-god,’” Peter Green notes in his translation of the Iliad, from which I draw these lines (Oakland: University of California Press, 2015), 26n4.
**"The owl of Minerva spreads her wings only at the falling of dusk" / "Die Eule der Minerva beginnt erst mit der einbrechenden Dämmerung ihren Flug."—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts (1821).
Sunday, February 15, 2026