The Aeneid

Now I'm reading The Aeneid, by Virgil.  It's about Aeneas, one of the Trojan losers who lost to Achilles and Ajax and the other winners.  The Trojans are the stupid ones who let the giant "hollow" wooden horse into the city, thinking it was a gift.  Baha!  Looks like your vanity got the better of you, eh, Trojans?   Virgil is writing his story about 700 years after Homer wrote his.  They are comparable because what Homer did for Greek writing, Virgil did for Latin. 

The story is narrated by The Muse, and there is so much divine intervention in it, and foreshadowing, and so many characters, it's epic.  My life is similarly epic.  I know so many characters, and I'm psychic, and I can telephone the gods.  There is also a wee fairy (invisible) who sets atop my shoulder and narrates what I'm doing at all times.  It gets so annoying! 

Aeneas, sounds a lot like Anus.  If Aeneas was my friend or enemy today I would call him "Poop Shoot", or "Bunghole" or some other variation.  Since his mother is Venus, I would probably be smote.  Whilst burning in flames, or whatever, I would shout, "Not very friendly of you, is it, Brown Starfish!"  Oh, I would get the last word.  Oh yes. 

Shouting last words under torture was a popular thing for the French to do when they were under rule of a sovereign.  They would have an audience, and before dying, would tell the King what they really thought of him.  This was the "spectacle of the scaffold".  That was when power was concentrated in one person, the sovereign.  Now we are under rule of disciplinary power which takes the form of surveillance mainly through writing.  Famous last words are no longer as effective.