Panaōrios
 

"But even to Peleus the god gave some evil; He would not leave offspring to succeed him in power, Just one child, all out of season.  I can’t be with him To take care of him now that he’s old, since I’m far From my fatherland, squatting here in Troy, Tormenting you and your children."                                                                       (The Iliad Book XXIV; Stanley Lombardo tr.)

 
“What does that mean?” a young voice asks.  I start,
Pushed unexpectedly to scan the Greek.
“‘All out of season’?” –  acting up the part:
“Ah, panaōrios!”  Strange word, unique;
Plausibly rendered by Lombardo’s phrase.
Wholly untimely.  All not of the hour.
“Wrong,” I say, finally.  “Achilles says:
Ten years a squatter, and it’s all gone sour:
I see now I’ve been wrong – wrong all along.
Think of my hero father, old, alone;
Think of yourselves, poor Trojan kids; your loss
And his, bad luck, ill fate – and add my own,
Beached, far from home, truant and torment.  Wrong.
All out of season.  Panaōrios.”

Julia Griffin

If you have any thoughts about this poem,  Julia Griffin would be pleased to hear them