As his contribution to A New Divan, the Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti responded to the challenge of ‘The Tyrant’ with a powerful poem called ‘The Obedience of Water’, while George Szirtes produced an English version that matches the subtle irony of the original. At this evening of poetry and discusson, Barghouti and Szirtes read from their poems and discussed the process of translation, the theme of tyranny, and reflected on Goethe’s time in the shadows of the Napoleonic wars and on the similarities and differences with today’s violent conflicts.