Auguries

The idea for this poem came from Montaigne’s essay on prognostication. Agammemon will slip in later.

 

The ancients put tremendous matters

On oracles and auguries.

When godhood speaks, the priest agrees.

Glib cunning fails when trouble batters.

Calculations have a thousand ways

To err, while chance can cut the odds

To one in ten, or more if gods

Drop hints about our dossiers.

Augurs read events to come

From entrails, bones, and scattered sticks.

Their guesses are arithmetics

For problems reasoning can’t sum.