Chonvenient, Arrius would say, whenever he wanted
To say ‘convenient’, and hambush for ‘ambush’
And then assume that he had spoken magnificently
After he had said hambush as much as he could.
I suppose his mother and his freedman uncle spoke like that,
And his maternal grandfather and grandmother too.
All our ears took a rest after he was sent to Syria:
They heard the same words, spoken slowly and lightly
And had no fear over such words from him after that,
When suddenly a frightful message arrived:
The Ionian Sea, after Arrius went there,
Is no longer ‘Ionian’ but Hionian.