Damon vs Pythias

Two better friends you wouldn't pass

Throughout a summer's day,

Than DAMON and his PYTHIAS, -

Two merchant princes they.

At school together they contrived

All sorts of boyish larks;

And, later on, together thrived

As merry merchants' clerks.

And then, when many years had flown,

They rose together till

They bought a business of their own -

And they conduct it still.

They loved each other all their lives,

Dissent they never knew,

And, stranger still, their very wives

Were rather friendly too.

Perhaps you think, to serve my ends,

These statements I refute,

When I admit that these dear friends

Were parties to a suit?

But 'twas a friendly action, for

Good PYTHIAS, as you see,

Fought merely as executor,

And DAMON as trustee.

They laughed to think, as through the throng

Of suitors sad they passed,

That they, who'd lived and loved so long,

Should go to law at last.

The junior briefs they kindly let

Two sucking counsel hold;

These learned persons never yet

Had fingered suitors' gold.

But though the happy suitors two

Were friendly as could be,

Not so the junior counsel who

Were earning maiden fee.

They too, till then, were friends.  At school

They'd done each other's sums,

And under Oxford's gentle rule

Had been the closest chums.

But now they met with scowl and grin

In every public place,

And often snapped their fingers in

Each other's learned face.

It almost ended in a fight

When they on path or stair

Met face to face.  They made it quite

A personal affair.

And when at length the case was called

(It came on rather late),

Spectators really were appalled

To see their deadly hate.

One junior rose - with eyeballs tense,

And swollen frontal veins:

To all his powers of eloquence

He gave the fullest reins.

His argument was novel - for

A verdict he relied

On blackening the junior

Upon the other side.

"Oh," said the Judge, in robe and fur,

"The matter in dispute

To arbitration pray refer -

This is a friendly suit."

And PYTHIAS, in merry mood,

Digged DAMON in the side;

And DAMON, tickled with the feud,

With other digs replied.

But oh! those deadly counsel twain,

Who were such friends before,

Were never reconciled again -

They quarrelled more and more.

At length it happened that they met

On Alpine heights one day,

And thus they paid each one his debt,

Their fury had its way -

They seized each other in a trice,

With scorn and hatred filled,

And, falling from a precipice,

They, both of them, were killed.