Theodore Metochites’s Poems “To Himself”

Famous today mostly for his patronage of the decoration of the Monastery of the Chora, Theodore Metochites had wanted to be remembered for his literary works. Prime Minister by day, scholar by night, he was called a “living library” by his protege Gregoras, but mocked as a corrupter of belles lettres by such friends as Xanthopoulos and enemies as Choumnos alike. None of Metochites’s writings better prove both these assessments than his twenty Poems in hexametre. The present work presents a first edition and English translation of the last seven of the Poems, addressed by the author “To Himself”. Written on the eve and after his fall from power in 1328 and preserved for us in the very copy Metochites pored over during the years just before his death, these verses reveal thoughts common to many an exiled statesman, but also provide a glimpse – appropriately obscured, to be sure, with excessive preciosity – into the Late-Byzantine view of the world.