Gaze Not Upon Her

by Brett Rutherford

after Callimachus, Hymn V, 56-130

Whom the gods bless

     they also blast,

heedless of hurt

     and frail mortality.

What maid would not want

to be Athena’s girl-friend,

to idle afternoons

in sheltered forests, and dine

on fine fruit and ambrosia?

Even so, one nymph of Thebes

was beloved by Pallas.

Hither and yon, to Thespiae,

Corneia and Boetia,

she rode the goddess’s chariot.

In every place the maidens dallied,

inhaling the altar offerings

or watching the ritual dances,

favored Chariclo always led them.

Although a mother she was,

neither her son nor husband dared

be jealous of an immortals’ favor.

One day Athena led her,

overlooking Thebes,

to the sweet-water fountain

of Pegasus on Mount Helicon, 

where they undid their robes

and, never blushing, bathed.

In the stillness of noon,

     not even a bird sang —

O silence ominous

     in which the splash of water

and its spray alone prevailed.

If only some young huntsman,

oblivious of the place made holy,

had not come charging through

to the very brim of fountain,

high on his horse, and looking down

on the faces, breasts, and bellies —

all taken in, in one astonished

glance, by a  nearly beardless

boy, quiver and bow and fletched

arrows behind him lie an aureole

of tiny, angry spear-heads.

The hounds came up behind;

the horse reared, the young man

choked back his cry of astonishment.

Athena’s wrath flashed out as quick

as the glance of a Gorgon.

Just as a boiled egg goes white, 

so blanched the orbs of the intruder.

He fell to the ground, and only foam

came from his still-opened mouth.

Such is the punishment

for any mortal who looks upon

a god when he is uninvited.

Chariclo, wrapped fast in her discarded

robes, now rushed to hold the fallen youth.

Athena raged: “What thirst or madness

made you come up to this flowing madness,

servant of Thebes? Did some dire spirit

compel you and your dogs to ride this way?

Still he lay speechless. “What have you done,
Athena — goddess of power supreme! — you

must undo this very moment. Not servant

of my husband lies before you — ah, no! —

but his own son, my errant son, whom you,

the goddess, have blinded! ”

                                               “Foolhardy he

came, and he has seen the breast and body

of Athena, the closest thing to Zeus

that has ever ranged the earth and heavens.

That even one doe or one gazelle should fall

to an arrow while we bathe here in peace —”

Here the companion wailed aloud in grief.

“Sad hill, sad Helicon, sad Thebes! Goddess

of inhuman pride and malice! I’d give

a hecatomb of deer if I could this avert!

With this, you have destroyed my life. No more

shall I to this fountain come, but share

in the night eternal to which you curse my son.

No more have I to do with goddesses.”

With keening voice the nightingale might

study for a lesson in mourning, she fled,

leading the stiff and stumbling victim away.

Athena, startled, drew up her raiment,

and, putting on her Pallas-wise helmet,
the opposite of her war-like demeanor,

strode after them and spoke again.

“Take back, o noble lady, these angry words.

I did not will his blindness. Think you I love

to take the sight from some mother’s son?

This law goes back to Kronos and is inbuilt

into the interplay of Titan, god and man.

Those who look upon a god unbidden,

see not; as one who overhears the counsel

of gods is stricken deaf and mute. As fixed

into the scheme of things as threads of Fate

is this cruel law. My anger triggered it,

and I cannot call it back.”

                                          “Then I,”

Chariclo said, “must never look again

on she I loved beyond all others.” 

Her eyes she then averted, nevermore

to look on those grey orbs she cherished.

“I can do this, Chariclo, so that you may

not curse me and my memory entirely:

Know that your son shall honored be,

so that his name shall echo in history.

I will make him a seer whom poets name,

and when he speaks from deep inside

the well of wisdom and foresight I grant,

priests will kneel and kings tremble.

He shall know the birds and their omens,

from their mere shadow falling on

his otherwise unseeing eyes. An oracle

shall he be, and live to many years beyond

a normal human span. Boetia shall know him,

and Cadmus, and the Kings of Thebes.

His feet shall not stumble, for a seeing staff,

taller than his own head, shall he bear,

and it shall guide him on land and sea,

and when he joins the shades, he shall not

be there among the ones made sightless

or speechless by their own evil doings.

He shall dine at the table of great Hades.”

The goddess spoke, and bowed her head, by which

great sign her Father Zeus was likewise bound,

for this was the power he gave her, since

no mother gave her birth, but from the brow

of the mighty Olympian she was delivered.

Fitting that Wisdom had no mother, nor did

she stumble childish on the way to power.

With thunder above, Zeus gave assent.

Thus ever were Wisdom and Power

in true accord. Hail goddess, and hail

to Chariclo and her god-empowered son.

Where shall fame take him, and who

shall tremble when his low voice speaks

the truth that those with eyes deny?

Who shall know and hear Tiresias?