Lorenzo Costa, The Argo
by Brett Rutherford
After Callimachus, Aetia 7, 19-21
Wronged men always
have gods on their sides.
Invoking ancestral blood
and the cities founded
by men of the same name,
they suppose Apollo,
or Zeus, or quick-to-ire
Poseidon, will aid them.
But the one with the Fleece,
the stolen daughter,
the rifled treasures
is far at sea already.
Do the same gods protect
the absconding lovers?
Do prayers from pretty things
outweigh the laments of princes?
Medea’s father breathes his last,
gasping on unfettered poison.
The Colchian ships sit idle,
limp and windless. The Argo,
rich in treason and betrayal
vanishes over the horizon.
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