Verses Starting with a Phrase out of Plato’s Republic
ἀληθῶς φιλόσοφον
Your dog’s a true philosopher,
Your cat’s a libertarian,
Your rabbit is a sophist, or
A wild surmise in Darien.
Your hamster is a heretic,
Your goldfish is an anarchist,
Your error is a ferret—sic—
Your parakeet does not exist.
Your gerbil is Pythagoras!
Your tortoise, Zeno’s paradox,
Your snake’s a Latin tag, or is
A Hegel, with cream cheese, and Locke’s.
Your hermit crab’s ad hominem,
Your squirrel is scurrilous, your toad
Is paranoid, or one of them.
Your penguin is a palinode.
Your Shih-Tzu is a shibboleth,
Your aardvark’s alphabetical,
Your skunk I would not quibble with,
Your hippo’s hypothetical.
Your hedgehog’s the hypotenuse,
Your duck’s antediluvian,
Your python may have gotten loose,
Your guinea pig’s Peruvian.
Your cat is Schrödinger, or not,
But I can tell you, officer,
Before Descartes, your horse was thought,
Your dog, a true philosopher.