Byron dying, Malcolm X, Sir Philip Sidney, Crapper's toilet, Alexander Pope, Catullus, Cicero the (very good) lawyer, Horace the recycler -- an unlikely crew

Why die: The poet Byron died fighting for Greek independence, having written:

When a man hath no freedom to fight for at home,

Let him combat for that of his neighbors;

Let him think of the glories of Greece and of Rome,

And get knocked on the head for his labors.

One of great moments of repartee: 19th-century literary and philosophical trend-setter Margaret Fuller to English author and stylist Thomas Carlyle: "I accept the universe." Carlyle: "By gad, she'd better."

Malcolm X would cab it between planes to a public library, rushing to look up a word in the reference section. Words had a fascination for him. His mind was working hard.

In his "Defense of Poesy," the 16th-century English poet Sir Philip Sidney speaks of the poet "freely ranging within the zodiac of his own wit."

Commodious word: In the 1860s Thomas Crapper, an English plumber, improved on the flush toilet of 1778, the work of an English cabinetmaker. Crapper's toilet was known as the Crapper, as Ford's auto was called a Ford. From that we got "crap" as merde, I once thought.

Not so sure about that now, having perused my desk Webster's and my Oxford Eng. Dict., where I see "crap" related to "crop," as to cut something off, and meaning chaff, or leavings on threshing floor or in the bottom of a brewing vat, with other meanings not as close to the one I'm looking for.

None of this says excrement, as "vulgar" use has it in my Webster's, which is much later than my OED in this matter. So maybe the vulgar, slang use was derived from the old, old word, once Mr. Crapper, or Sir Thomas as he became, the, ah, crapper.

Literary notes: In his Dunciad, a sort of gallery of literary dunces, Alexander Pope addresses one apparently bibulous writer as "like thine inspirer, beer: though stale, not ripe, though thin, yet never clear."

Using theology to get over a rough spot, the poet Catullus, betrayed by his woman, looked to Juno, who had stayed cool while her husband Jupiter (a.k.a. Zeus, Big Guy) was playing around. "Often the queen of heaven, mighty Juno,/ mastered her blazing wrath when her husband was at fault," wrote Catullus, learning from the divine lady.

Wounded in love, Catullus finally concluded: "What a woman says to an eager lover, write it on running water, write it on air." He was upset when he said that, OK?

Cicero -- "the best of lawyers," said Catullus -- defending Caelius, who had been wrongly accused by the wild and woolly Clodia, let slip a reference to Clodia's "husband," adding quickly, "I mean her brother; I always make that mistake." Clodia was widely known or rumored to have been her brother's lover.

Cicero turned as if to beg the jury's pardon as he said "I mean her brother." Caelius and his friends, knowing the slap was coming, roared with laughter. Clodia, a really mean critter, writhed wrathfully.

More literary notes: The 16th-century French poet Ronsard gave up on matching the inimitable Greek, Cicero -- "the best of lawyers” — who let his emotions all hang out, as opposed to the Roman Horace, who generally didn't. But in the process of trying, he freed French poetry from elaborate forms that confined a poet's thinking, thus liberating the French lyric, says Gilbert Highet, in The Classical Tradition.

Horace makes himself a bee, sucking "sweetness and light" from here and there, says Highet in another book, Poets in a Landscape. Pindar was a swan, flying "thru the lofty realms of cloud." It's the poet of great thoughts, Pindar, vs. one who flits about in a small space, Horace, acting not as parasite but distiller.

He sucks nectar, preserves it, from the flower soon to die. A conservationist, you might say, a recycler.