Cloud Cuckoo Land by Antonius Diogenes, Folio X
Folio X is severely degraded. What happens next in Aethon’s tale has been long debated and need not be belabored here. Many argue this section belongs earlier in the tale, and points to a different conclusion, and that it’s not the translator’s job to speculate. Translation by Zeno Ninis.
the ewes lambing and the rain falling and the hills greening and the lambs being weaned and the ewes growing old and curmudgeonly and trusting only me. Why ·[did I leave?]·? Why this compulsion to be ·[elsewhere?]·, to constantly seek something new? Was hope a curse, ·[the last evil left in Pandora’s jar]·?
You fly all the way to the end of the stars, and all you want ·[to do is go home…]·
… creaking knees…
… mud and all…
My flock, some cheap wine, a bath, ·[that’s]· as much magic as any foolish shepherd needs. I opened ·[my beak and croaked, “In much wisdom is much sorrow, and in ignorance is much wisdom.”]·
The goddess straightened, ·[her head bumped a star, brought down a colossal hand, and afloat in the center of her lake-sized palm, there rested a single white rose.]·