Tragedy

The story is that an eagle mistook 
Aeschylus' bald head for a rock, 
and dropped a tortoise upon it. 
Did it shatter his skull or give
him a giant concussion? In any case,
he was supposed to have died instantly. 
Aeschylus, described as the father of 
tragedy, wrote: He who learns must suffer. 
And even in our sleep, pain that cannot 
forget falls drop by drop upon the heart. 
What of the tortoise— did it incur any 
injuries? In Maso Finiguerra's pen-and-
sepia-ink drawing of the scene, the idea 
of catastrophe makes a light impression. 
There's the writer, seated placidly by 
a stream, book on one knee, nodding off 
perhaps because of the leaves rustling in 
the grove. Strangely, the before and 
after of the turtle's fall is rendered 
in the drawing. One moment it hovers 
mid-air like a cartoon alien ship. 
In the next, it's landed smack 
on its back on the artist's head. 
The eagle itself wears an expression
of mild dismay, perhaps having just 
then realized it aimed at the wrong 
target. But such is the nature of tragedy— 
how the small, seemingly inconsequential 
thing leads to the undoing.