Maria Tsatsou

Song Of A Rattlesnake By A Soft Spring Night

Krotos is a rattlesnake
he’s unsociable and odd
Children see him and trot
away, saying:
"what an impossible playmate
and so cold".

Krotos feels the cold no doubt
he’s no beauty all in all.
With company he’s silent
Or at most he nods.
But at night when he’s lonesome
he composes odes,

To the frog-lady of the river
Hence the verses he sends thither
such as those:

"Phryni, so young and pretty
flattered but aloof,
went by the other evening
without a look.
And disdainful and haughty
mounted the cart

of that ghastly man Toadoroff,
which wrang my heart.

Ra-ttle-Ra-ttle-Rattle-Rattle
Ra-ttle-Rattle-Ra

You will never find a lover
half as steady as tha(t)"