Gay gods and merry mortals: some excursions in verse

Robert J. Shores turns the solemn pillars of Olympus into a comedy club in this gleeful early 20th-century collection. Here, the gods shed their marble dignity: Actæon makes an unfortunate wrong turn at Diana's bath, Adonis bumbles through yet another entanglement with Cupid's arrows, and Dido's passion for Aeneas becomes a masterpiece of romantic mismanagement. Shores wields rhyme and wit like a satirist's rapier, puncturing the pomposity of ancient mythology while clearly delighting in its stories. These aren't mean-spirited parodies but affectionate lampoons, the kind where you suspect the poet loves his source material too much to leave it unmocked. The verse snaps with clever wordplay and bouncy rhythms that make these millennia-old tales feel urgently, irresistibly funny. Whether you're a mythology aficionado tired of reverent retellings or a reader who simply appreciates a well-turned joke, Shores offers the rare pleasure of seeing the classical world through eyes that refuse to be awed.