by Brett Rutherford
Adapted from Theocritus,
Idyll II
Dried laurel leaves, where are you? What shelf
did I mark as the place for love-charms? Thestylis,
help me find everything I need! I am not myself;
anger with the wretch who abandoned me
is making me forgetful. Yes, girl, those are the ones
I wanted. Now to girdle my best bronze bowl
with a garland of red amaranth, whose dried blooms
look ever so much like balls of yarn, redder
than blood and softer than love’s surrendering.
for slipping in at any time of night —
twelve nights, too, and nothing! For all he knows
I died here in my bed, from wanting him.
Be sure he has not died from wanting me,
for one bird says he is out and about,
sunning himself in a new, blue tunic,
led off by Eros, and where the little
Love points him, boy that he is, he follows.
Can Aphrodite be so far behind,
love’s calendar cancelled by one impulse?
I have a mind to go, disguised, of course,
for I can pass as boy when I need to,
to Timagetus’s wrestling school, where girls
are not permitted (as if that little
fence could prevent my seeing his presence!)
There, right in front of all the oiled athletes
I shall confront and shame the deceiver!
(Or should I not? What good will that do me?)
I may not be an adept at witchcraft,
but I learned much from a circle of crones
whose hearths I swept, and at whose knees I sat
to ken birth-secrets, and how to call death
down, and best of all, how to compel men.
but cusped as sharp as a brazen scythe, shine
me nevertheless in silvery light,
just bright enough that I may enchant thee,
raw moon of infernal Hecate, one
who makes even wild dogs whine and shudder
as you drift freely among the white tombs
and take as you please from the bony dead
whatever tokens of skulls and scraps
your rituals require, who in the dark
supine yourself in awe of greater Darkness —
Hail! from this unworthy acolyte, hail,
O Hecate, Hecate, Hecate!
Be with me this little while as my weak
hands cross and uncross, then blinder my eyes
as I tremble that you bless this love-charm.
Deign, Hecate, to make this spell as strong
as the philtres of seductress Circe,
or that of dread Medea, (as loving
as she was cruel), or strong as the love-spells
of our ancestress, yellow-haired Perimede.
And now I take the sacred iynx in hand,
(five carven birds on a wooden top)
and pull the strings to spin it, and it sings
the chanting of the heart-broken wryneck
as it turns round its head to seek its mate —
Que …. que …. que. Faster, slower, faster,
slower as my hands pull the motor twine.
Que … que … que.
Spin, five birds,
spin.
Que … que … que.
Birds in a wheel, turn, turn!
Bring the man back to me!
Bring the man back to me!
First we must burn some barley-meal. Come on,
Thestylis, attend me and throw it down
until the well-tended fire can char it.
Yes, burn it, burn it, no matter the smoke.
Can you not follow the simplest orders?
You, in your rags, you would smile and mock me?
Just wait till you see the magic outcome.
Now toss them in and say this after me:
May these be the bones of Delphis I hurl.
Birds in a wheel, turn, turn!
Bring the man back to me!
Bring the man back to me!
Take in your hand the laurel leaves, and throw
them into the heart of the flame. Just so
they crackle and curl and hiss to nothing,
up in a flare without a trace of ash,
Just so may the limbs of Delphis sting.
Bring the man back to me!
Bring the man back to me!
with hair of his head and seed of his loin
in waxen likeness with my kisses warmed.
Here, take it, girl, and do not shudder so.
On this same grate now let it melt away.
So melt with love, Delphis of Mindus born.
As my hands spin, so do the guiding hands
of Aphrodite, I swear it. Delphis,
return and beg admittance at my door!
Birds in a wheel, turn, turn!
Bring the man back to me!
Bring the man back to me!
Laurel, barley, doll and bran, so I recall
in order the ancient women taught me.
Now, slave, a handful of bran to the fire.
Step back, lest it singe your hairy eyebrows.
More! More! See how it takes the form of man,
with arms and legs and flaming hair like his!
O Artemis, this slender moon is yours,
with such a disk more dark than light
you could draw down even adamantine
Hades to do your will. Oh, so much less
I ask of you and Hecate, a boy,
one boy, one will, one love, and forever.
The goddesses hear! Up goes a howling
now from every she-bitch in the city:
from curs and hounds to the long-eared lap-dogs
in the cool, high-walled mansions of the rich.
I can almost see the crossroads. She comes,
surely she comes now to the abhorrent place,
where she will find the daytime offering,
the one I left by a suicide’s grave.
Now beat the pans as loud as possible
to signal her that I, attending her,
should have this one small gift bestowed on me.
Birds in a wheel, turn, turn!
Bring the man back to me!
Bring the man back to me!
What? Just Silence? Such silence, absolute,
that not a tree or blade of grass tells me
that Hecate treads the waste-place tonight?
The sea is within my hearing, yet not
a single wave slaps the stone quay, not one
o’erleaps the promenade and washes up
and then back again on the paving stones.
(such sighing we heard each night as the bay
rose and fell in time with our lovemaking).
What? silence now, and mockery to come
when I, who should have been his wedded wife
will now be scorned as an old castaway!
Birds in a wheel, turn, turn!
Bring the man back to me!
Bring the man back to me!
No matter, girl — they are just testing me.
Three times now I offer my libation.
Three times I say these words, great goddesses:
Whatever woman lies beside him now,
or even whatever man, if it has come
to that, may he forget their embraces
as soon as he takes them, oblivious
to them as once great Theseus forgot
his precious Ariadne at Naxos:
In loving me, he shall forget all else.
In loving me, he shall forget all else.
In loving me, he shall forget all else.
Bring the man back to me!
Bring the man back to me!
Something there is about that wrestling school
that seems amiss to me: who could resist
strong oil’d limbs and burning male eyes once
they had caught one’s fancy? Not I! Not him,
perhaps? What if the things I did with him,
the joys I learned beneath his embrace,
were already done to him by a man?
Hippomanes I need. Where on the shelf?
A lamp I need, Thestylis, a lamp!
Ah, here! “Colt’s foot” the herb is called
in Arcady, where mare and stallion
go mad for one another on eating it
and make such folly, lust out of season
that would make even fauns and centaurs blush.
Into my fire it goes, so Delphis mad
with animal lust may come to my bed,
and then, forgetting all, forsake the rest.
Birds in a wheel, turn, turn!
Bring the man back to me!
Bring the man back to me!
I have the trim I tore from his mantle,
a blue-and-gold souvenir embroidered
with blazing suns. Into the fire it goes,
sun after little blazing sun cindered
to trembling ash. What have I gone and done?
This was the ribbon I kissed each morning
just after he left me, the one I held
upon my lap as I day-dreamed of him.
Now it is gone, and he is gone, and I
have grown pale as though a leech were on me,
as though the sweet Eros had turned vampire
to drink away all the life inside me.
Birds in a wheel, turn, turn!
Bring the man back to me!
Bring the man back to me!
Delphis, beware! For I am witch enough
to have found and drained a venomous eft,
cold-blooded thing with adder’s potency,
and I will carry it on my person,
should things not work out between us. But no,
that is the last resort. Now, Thestylis,
we are done with the spell. Take up the bowl
as soon as it is cool enough, and fly
to Delphis’s home, the place I showed you,
and smear those ashes upon his lintel.
Spit once and say, These the bones of Delphis.
She goes, she goes; it is done. How long now
must I keep on with the sacred iynx? —
Birds in a wheel, turn, turn!
Bring the man back to me!
Bring the man back to me!
Que …. que …. que. Slower, faster, slower,
slower as my hands pull the motor twine.
Que … que … que.
Sleep, five birds,
sleep.
Que …… que …… que.
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