Metaphor and simile have been with the human race for thousands of years. This is my English translation of an excerpt from an ancient Egyptian poem estimated to be around 4,000 years old:
Excerpt from "Dialogue of a Misanthrope with his Soul"
(ancient Egyptian poem circa 2000 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Death lies before me:
like a sick man’s recovery,
like entering a garden after an interminable illness.
Death lies before me:
like the fragrance of myrrh,
like sitting beneath a billowing sail with a favorable wind.
Death lies before me:
like swimming in the course of a stream,
like a man’s return from the slave-galley to freedom.
Death lies before me:
like the sky when it clears,
like a man's longing to see his home after countless years of captivity.
Keywords/Tags: Egyptian, translation, dialogue, dialog, misanthrope, soul, death, illness, sick, sickness, recovery from, myrrh, sail, wind, freedom, sky, captivity, slave, slavery, soulmate
Mister Misanthrope had given up hope
On the entire human race
He'd bark and he'd bleat as he walked down the street
With a grimace on his face
Each day he would howl with a snarl and scowl
Most folk scurried as he neared
He'd chortle of death with foul rancid breath
Which was exactly what they feared
The skies became gray the birds flew away
Even rats would turn their backs
The locals weren't dreaming went running and screaming
To avoid his verbal attacks
One day in the valley down tornado alley
There formed a massive cyclone
With joy they saw Mister riding that twister
Into the great unknown
He had a "hate/like" relationship
with the world. His usual reactions
were always critical, mostly negative,
and his scarce grudging approvals
were, at best, luke-warm. He judged
everything and everyone immediately,
contrasting them with his own imagined
greater beauty, strength, experience, knowledge,
skills, possessions, courage, heritage, and taste.
Anger was his armor and his weapon,
and he wielded it mercilessly and without pause.
A collective great sigh of relief was heard
when he was no longer around.
Everyone he will ever see
Will notice him and flee
To the sky he starts to plea
Why does everyone hate me
Now cast out from society
He has lost all hope
Now a misanthrope
Longing for his neck to kiss the rope
He wants his life to end
Deeply he yearns for a friend
But up around the bend
Walks a godsend
She talks to the man
His feelings she understands
Now the misanthrope stands
And blissfully roams the lands.
The power to heal is within our hands
Keep a firm grip
Don’t let your fellow man's mind slip
(Being a song for misanthropes, or people who have just had a really bad day.)
I hate the world and everyone in it,
I hate the world and everyone here,
I hate the world and everyone in it,
I hate, yes, I hate the world.
I hate the world and the busy-bodies,
I hate their words, they’re so full of crap,
nothing but sound with no wisdom in it,
I’ve hear more than enough crap.
I hate the world and all the dang hipsters,
pretentious bands and unruly beards,
I hate those fools downing in irony,
and I really hate their beer.
I hate the world and its politicians,
lying scum-bags, power-hungry gits,
they do nothing but get in a man’s way,
I’m so tired of their sh-t.
I hate the world and all the damn hippies,
socialist fools detached from the world,
say they want peace but kill if they’re questioned,
their smell make me wanna hurl.
I hate the world and those dumb professors,
in their tower they can’t see how things are,
turning our kids to socialist zombies,
doomed to not go very far.
Ugh…what a world, am I right?
Hey, wait—here comes my German Shepherd!
I love the world and all the dogs in it…
MISANTHROPE
For Mel, my wordsmith
I miss you my misanthropos
My groucho cynic hermit
But I’m glad you left my life
For now I love a man called Phil
And he loves all that you abhor
Mankind, marriage, me
My kind-hearted Philanthropos
Who I can’t fault for misogyny
Or misology or even misogamy
Misanthropos, I wish you well
I am not the person to misein
And you are still an anthropos
I promised once to love forever,
My doubter, mocker, pessimist,
My sexist anti-feminist…
But:
Enough is finally enough
My Phil and I wish you well
You sourpuss, killjoy, gloomer
I’m off to better futures
You stay here in your shell.
I was born as you all were
I am all the same that
All are in some way or the other
I used to love the things that you loved
I was the same branch of the that tree
And was fed with the same roots
As you, you and you were
But
But I was a step ahead
Or they were some step back
The difference that was made
A cloud overhead
Shared some tears with me
And all the non living things
That the creation has made
The way was not meant to be
The way I am now
The way that I was ought to be
I don’t want it anyhow
The race is falling and let it be
For I do not care
A burden that the world slipped in my pockets
Hence never should I bear
I not care about the one
Left and were about to leave
I distrust the kind of men we are
And hate the way we find
I live a life along with me
And never care who’s beside
For they have a selfness around there self
And to my eyes, somehow they hide
I am an end, with out the other
Hanging by a rope
I am a shadow of my self
Living as a misanthrope
Allowing awfully awkward arguments to arise
Self-doubt secludes, so sequestered, sadly... sans surprise
Madly muttering melancholy mottos
Odius, obtuse obligation on auto
Deftly denying deteriorating destruction
Somehow sickly surrendering Soul's suction
Humbly hemming-n-hawing, half-assed heretic
Dejected densely dimwitted dumb ass derelict!!
Cautiously cradling cuddly collected captions
Abandoning all assertive able action
Forgetting forlorn feats, fastidiously folding
Meandering movement mutates morals molding
Leering looks like loathsome lovers lying
Forsaken feelings foster festered fish frying
Eating every emotion equally
Fantasizing freefall freedom frequently
Evenly eviscerate existential existence
Ruefully relish relinquishing rancid resistance
A Misanthrope
The shape I am
Whom you reflect upon me
And where we actually belong
In times of prejudice
In times of conflict
You exacerbate the lives we live
In demolition, you retrograde all
And in conclusion
You eradicate many.
You.
Eradicate.
Many.
Naively
You made me a Misanthrope
And everybody else
Where we hate
And distrust mankind
Of our own humanity
Sad, isn't it?
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