A SHORT METER OF UTOPIA WRITTEN BY ANEMOLIUS,
POET LAUREATE AND NEPHEW TO HYTHLODAY BY HIS SISTER1
Me, Utopia, called in Antiquity,
void of haunt and harbor.
Now I am like to Plato’s city,
Whose fame flies the world through.
Yea like, or rather more likely,
Plato’s plot to excel and pass.
For what Plato’s pen has plotted briefly,
In naked words, as in a glass,
The same have I performed fully,
With laws, with men, and treasure fitly.
Wherefore not Utopia, but rather rightly,
My name is Eutopie:2 a place of felicity.
1. This poem was included as front matter in all four of the original editions of Utopia on which More had a hand in publishing, from 1516-1518. “Anemolius” derives from the Greek for “windy”– thus the “windy one.” The actual author is unknown and may very well be More himself.
2. A play on the word Utopia. In Greek, eu=happy and topos=place; thus “Eutopie” translates as “happy place.”