Of the Same Name

Praxiteles' Eros - Roman Copy

by Brett Rutherford

     After Meleager, The Greek Anthology,  xii, 56

How dare anyone so fair
have such a name as
     Praxiteles?
Should not the name
have been forever retired
after the Athenian carved
from Parian marble the gods
themselves? He made an Eros,
of Aphrodite born, by hand
and eye the gods permitted to see
without the punishment
     of blindness. 

Now Eros torments us,
endows today’s Praxiteles,
an idling son of no one
in particular, a youth
   among us watched
as he grew perfect,
who now, at twenty,
despite his indolence
looks fit to scale Olympus. 

Or will this living
     statue proxy be,
dispensing love affairs with ease,
while god-born Eros attends
the needs of the distracted gods?

It might be a good arrangement.
When there is much tedium
in Heaven, the gods come down
to bother nymphs and shepherds,
to woo away our mistresses,
and abduct by night the lads we adore. 

When there is too much intercourse
with those above, the crops
grow unreliable. Mountains smoke.
The rival temples demand
expensive sacrifices.

And oh, the demigods
     the poor maidens bear
to the despair of mortal
     relatives! 

With two love-gods about,
one here, and one above,
Hera will be vanquished,
and old wives silenced.

From the son of Cronos down
to the lowest demigod,
all heads will turn;
all beds will be fair play.

And as above, so below,
each one in turn shall love
and be loved, till all
fall down exhausted,
and die of old age, smiling.

There will scarcely be time
for the begetting of children.