That Monster Child

The Victory of Eros, Metropolitan Museum

 by Brett Rutherford 

adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, v. 178, v. 177

So there was some lump-sack
of a woman, pounding
at my door. “Come quick!”
she cried. “The mistress
has had your baby!”

“You?” I said. “Maid
of what lady?”—

                                “Zenophila.” —

“Ha!” What mischief is this?
I saw her two weeks back,
her belly as flat
as a school-girl’s.” —

“Nonetheless, there is a child.”

More amazed than angry,
I set out.
Doubtless some prank this was.
There would be laughter later,
     and then wine.

I took my time arriving.
Let them fret, who thought
they could amuse themselves
at my discomfort. But then,
I reached her door, and hearing
an infant’s cry, I froze.

Pushing me in, the maid
rushed over and took
from Zenophila’s arms
a shapeless wad of bedsheets,
a ruby face wrapped tight
in them as an Egyptian mummy.

“Acknowledge your child!” Zenophila
now shrieked, not even offering a hand
or rising to greet me. The nurse,
meanwhile, embared her breast to feed
the red-faced, pug-nosed monster,
its lips a-pucker with a frightful greed.
He'd drain her dry, I warranted,
and squall for more.

                                         “This — this —
is not possible, “ protested I,
pointing to it, and then to her.
“Would you deny it?” protested she.
“Your child and mine. No one
was as surprised as me. I woke,
and there he was, all swaddled up.
I saw your face the moment
I looked at him.”

                                 “That’s not
the way it works!” I told her. “No one
delivers up a baby while she sleeps!
You would have been sick for months,
swollen like a behemoth. Old crones
would have been visiting, with charms
and baby-names.” The maid
regarded me and made the “crazy” sign.
But then this woman, in the bed
I had indeed shared with her, went on:
“You own a house. You need a wife.
There’s nothing to be done
but take us in.”

I was beside myself. “Sell it!”
I shouted. “If it has all its limbs,
some childless couple will take it.” —

“He’s perfect in every way.
A mother knows these things.”—

“He’s biting me!” the maid exclaimed,
pushing the bundle away from her.
“He has long fingernails and teeth,
and I swear he looked at me
indecently when I first showed my breast.”
The snub-nosed monster laughed at this,
and seemed to mumble in a unknown language.

I took a closer look. The cherub-face
bore no resemblance to my own.
It was an imp, a savage, an all-around
monster. “No, sell it this instant!
Ask any passing peddler if his house
is in the countryside, and if
his neighbors need a child to rear.
Let this one grow up to till the fields
or guard a flock of sheep or goats.”

Now came a flood of tears. Women
can be so monothematic when it comes
to matters of home and hearth, you know.
I wanted to prevaricate, to say,
“Already, poor woman, do I have a wife,
as barren as a salt mine, to whom”
I seldom speak, and wish to keep it so.”

But no, Greek weddings are anathema
to me, and as for infants, I view
them as a pestilence, best kept indoors
until they attain the age of reason.

Yet Zenophila was no schemer.
Investigation was called for. Ah, here,
the bed was aslant, one leg knocked off.
The coverings were ripped to tatters,
and oil-stains were everywhere.
“What happened here last night?”

I asked the maid. “Was she alone,
or was there a gentleman caller?”
Her fingers made the number “three.”
“Three gentlemen callers? Last night?”

Searching, I found
     a little pewter amulet
     Antaeus and Hercules encarved,
the kind that young wrestlers wear.

Waving the amulet, I accused her:
“Three! Three from the wrestling school!
Three in your bed! Deny it!”

“They offered a demonstration,”
the girl protested. “Since women are not
permitted to see the matches, how else
could I expand my learning?”

                                                             I bit
my tongue and did not say, “Try reading.”
“So they showed you their moves.
First on the floor where sandal scuffs
are rampant, and then they moved on
to the mattress — o wide enough it was
for three, and then for four.” —

                                                     “One thing
just led to another,” she said, not blushing.

“That neither they nor you have shame,”
I calmly conjectured, “reveals the truth.”

“Hand me the infant!” —

                                    “Oh, do not harm it!”

The maid complied. Slowly, I pulled
apart the folds of tight swaddling,
enough to see, at shoulder’s base
the thing I expected to find.

“You pretty fool! You have upended
the universe with your dalliance.
All is made clear. Attend and listen.
Just yesterday, in gloom of dusk
three boys stayed late to test
each other with their new-learned art.
They piled on one another grappling,
when who should come along
but that flying Eros, known as Cupid
to some, and seeing them,
and having one last lust-engendering
arrow, he set it loose at them.

A single love-shaft struck all three.
One said, in a passing sigh,
          'O Zenophila, in your arms
          I would expire tonight'
and the amatory accord was made.
Three yearned as one, and for the same
eyes, lips, breasts and belly.

So at your door they came, in amity,
intent to share one bed with you,
and, triple-charmed, poor girl,
there was nothing you could do.

So there they tangled their oiled limbs
and you fell in with all that flesh a-snarl
the same as Laocoön’s sons
amid the serpents of the Hellespont.

The little monster followed them in.
You did not notice him hovering there.
He likes to watch, you know. Doubt me?
Then look and see.”

                                        I handed it her.
She peeked where I had parted
the tossed-off bedsheet wrapping.

“A wing! A feathered wing!” —

“None other than Eros himself,
Son of Aphrodite by who knows whom.
The little voyeur was hovering
when up and around him the sheet
went flying. With every move
he netted himself until at last
he lay there, immobilized.

“What a houseguest you have here!
Not one but two stepfathers has he.
One the god of war, stern Ares,
the other volcano-belching Hephaestus.
His grandmother is the whole wide sea,
but father he has none, and so is doomed
to be the begetter of random loving,
the favored sport of our kind.

“Somewhere inside that mess of cloth
are his little bow and a quiver,
most certainly empty now, whose arrows
turn rational men to madmen
and make fools of wise women.”

The maid now took me to task.
“Your knowledge of the gods,
great Meleager, befits a poet,
but is there not a marvel here?
What if this is some demigod,
newborn of a poet’s forethought,
new under the sun and moon,
a winged child, to bring his mother
honor and to enhance your fame?
Why not adopt the child?” —

                                                    “Yes, dear,”
pled Zenophila. “A wonder child.
Will he not add to your fame and fortune?”

“No to both of you. We must release him.
The wrath of Aphrodite is not to be borne.
Unless you set him free, no love
will come unbidden to anyone.
No suitor will plead, no girl or boy
will be patted expectantly, or sought
for trade for this or that, to surrender.
There will be no affection for fun.
Sexless will the whole city go
except for the bored and dutiful
husband-and-wife coupling.”

And so, I unbound the cloth
and up and out the monster went,
two wings and a bow and a quiver,
a flash of pink flesh into the glare
of sun and the birds sang out for joy.