The Statue Speaks

 by Brett Rutherford

     from Callimachus, Epigram 26

Stranger, your passing glance
diminishes me. Hero am I;
my weapon is drawn; beneath
my foot the serpent peeks out.

 No less a man than Eetion,
born of Amphipolis, has set me here,
beside the doors of this, his home,
a small bronze in a small
vestibule.

                    No mount have I;
my sword is made, not for
the downward-looking cavalry,
but for the upward lunge.
I am no less a warrior for that.

 Although of Trojan descent,
Eetion is not a man
of equine disposition.
“A horse outside my door?”
he scoffs. “Greeks made us
such a one betimes,
and look where that got us!”