A Trespass of Swine

the Porkopolis blog

Considerations of humanity and hogritude, because an insufficiency of pigs is one of the great faults of all that the gods have made manifest to man.

Learning smells of grass and pigs

I am a learner, and until recently neither Adam nor the furthest foraging pig had ever pissed here in this primordial meadow where I now stand.

Learning smells of grass and pigs

The swineherd smells the wild pig smell of grass, and smelling it she learns the weight of time. Stretching, she reckons the burdens of a plighted troth to meaning, loneliness, mortality and mirth.

Then rising, she wafts away the fates and flies that fuss close-in around her. She convenes her charges, and hastens the herd toward a remote path she expects they will soon find.

the Porcine Oracle

Student, suitor and stranger. I remain deterred a while in the meadow of these remote lands, but it’s all provisional, and a proper pig knows when to root on.


Additional information:

From the Porkopolis Archive:

  • Hale Chatfield explains how Porky Pig articulates our condition with an odd and awkward grace.
  • Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin considers a retiring swineherd
  • In a strange country… wild peasants driving swine
  • Painter, Jacek Malczewski, includes pigs and swineherds among the symbols and allusions in his fantastic visions of Polish realities and myths.
  • In his poem, Sooey Generous, William Matthews tells us that Emmaeus, swineherd to Odysseus, fattened pork with all the love and dignity that husbandry has given up to be an industry.

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