Zahra Fatima reports for BBC News about the sort of contretemps that I can imagine myself falling victim to, should I ever take up a life of crime:
A would-be burglar in Rome was caught after stopping to read a book on Greek mythology in the middle of a robbery, Italian media report. The 38-year-old reportedly gained access to a flat in the Italian capital’s Prati district via the balcony but became distracted after picking up a book about Homer’s Iliad on a bedside table.
The 71-year-old homeowner is said to have awoken and confronted the alleged thief, who was engrossed in the book. News of the failed robbery attracted the attention of the book’s author, who told local media he wanted to send the man a copy so he could “finish” his read. […]
Giovanni Nucci, the author of The Gods at Six O’Clock, which explains the Iliad from the perspective of the gods, told Il Messaggero: “It’s fantastic.”
“I’d like to find the person caught red-handed and give him the book, because he’ll have been arrested halfway through reading it. I’d like him to be able to finish it. It’s a surreal story, but also full of humanity.”
Thanks, Bonnie!
I like the detail at the end where Signor Nucci points out that Hermes was thought to be in charge of both thieves and literature. It of course put me in mind of some lines of Pound’s, viz.
“O God, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of thieves,
Lend me a little tobacco-shop,
or install me in any profession
Save this damn’d profession of writing” et cetera
Hermes was thought to be in charge of both thieves and literature
Hermes Plagiarius.
Hausa towns still have actual Chiefs of Thieves. I’m told that even now it can be possible to reclaim stolen property from them for a suitable consideration. I think there are too many freelancers about these days for the system to work as it once did, though. No respect for the Old Ways. Harumph.
Apollo (a nasty piece of work, even for a Greek god) was patron of my own lot, of course. Auden’s Under which lyre points the contrast with Hermes well.
https://allpoetry.com/Under-Which-Lyre
Reminds of that scene from Mike Leigh’s film Naked where protagonist Johnny, so far depicted as addle-brained and manic, is invited to someone’s home and some unexpected erudition and depth as he goes through their bookshelves.
shows some unexpected erudition, rather.
Under which lyre
I subscribe
to every jibe.
Thanks DE how did I not know of this?!
@jack: Thanks DE how did I not know of this?!
One reason is that there is not enough information in the past to determine the present.
Another is that DE is smarter than a certain intelligence I could mention. That know-it-all Laplace did not call a “demon”.
I’m told that even now it can be possible to reclaim stolen property from them for a suitable consideration
That was also true in Washington DC some decades ago. A friend of mine had audio equipment stolen from his apartment, was given the brush-off by the coppers, but was able to buy his possessions back from a pawn shop not too far away.
Nucci’s book is on my bedside table right now. I’ve been reading it for some time (actually, the publisher kindly sent me a copy when it came out last year); it is a nice example of popularising Homeric retelling. I am now planning to leave it there indefinitely as an anti-theft device.