HOW POET RICHARD HOWARD IS AKIN TO MITHRIDATES
When I first had the immense pleasure of meeting RIchard Howard, I was a newly tenured Associate Professor at the University of Cincinnati.
Amazing poet Richard Howard was visiting the University to see if he could be lured to the mid-west from Manhattan as a visiting Elliston Professor. The hiring committee members were taking him out to dinner and I was part of the entertainment-- I guess!
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As I opened the back door of the car to sit next to Richard, I heard that the conversation was about the Italian restaurant we were headed towards. Being from Providence where you cannot buy a bad pizza and which has only excellent Italian restaurants, I chimed in "The food will not be good here--too few Italians"
Richard reached over to take my hand as I sat and said "Don't worry, my dear, I have been Mithridatized." SILENCE broken only by my laugh as I got the joke. "oh yes, I had forgotten you are from Cleveland." Everyone chimed in and we went on to our jolly dinner of mediocre food and a friendship had begun-- because I got Richard's joke
Some details about the historical figure MITHRIDATES:.
After Pompey defeated him in Pontus, Mithridates VI fled to the lands north of the Black Sea in the winter of 66 BC in the hope that he could raise a new army and carry on the war through invading Italy by way of the Danube.[10] His preparations proved to be too harsh on the local nobles and populace, and they rebelled against his rule. He reportedly attempted suicide by poison. This attempt failed because of his immunity to the poison.[24] According to Appian's Roman History, he then requested his Gallic bodyguard and friend, Bituitus, to kill him by the sword:
When I first had the immense pleasure of meeting RIchard Howard, I was a newly tenured Associate Professor at the University of Cincinnati.
Amazing poet Richard Howard was visiting the University to see if he could be lured to the mid-west from Manhattan as a visiting Elliston Professor. The hiring committee members were taking him out to dinner and I was part of the entertainment-- I guess!
,
As I opened the back door of the car to sit next to Richard, I heard that the conversation was about the Italian restaurant we were headed towards. Being from Providence where you cannot buy a bad pizza and which has only excellent Italian restaurants, I chimed in "The food will not be good here--too few Italians"
Richard reached over to take my hand as I sat and said "Don't worry, my dear, I have been Mithridatized." SILENCE broken only by my laugh as I got the joke. "oh yes, I had forgotten you are from Cleveland." Everyone chimed in and we went on to our jolly dinner of mediocre food and a friendship had begun-- because I got Richard's joke
- The poet A. E. Housman alludes to Mithridates' antidote in the final stanza of "Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff" in A Shropshire Lad:
AND RICHARD SHARES THAT LONG LIFE -- HE STILL PROSPERS -- STILL WRITING AND PUBLISHING HIS INTRICATE AND DEMANDING POETRY.
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