Ariadne

Titian - Ariadne and Dionysus (Bacchus)

by Brett Rutherford

I’ve walked this edge
of solitude full circle now
a hundred times —
how long before I realized
I was alone, on an island,
a state for which no word exists
but “uninhabited.”

With no one above or below me,
this thing upon my head,
a corona fringed with many jewels
means nothing. If I call,
“Bring nourishment!”
I am my own servant and cook.
Of what am I princess?
Beach, beach, and cliff,
and rocky beach again
and nothing on the horizon.

Sometimes peninsulas appear,
suggesting a path to land,
but sunrise never fails to find
me here, astride the same rock,
the tide withdrawing
or coming in, the beach
a mere arc of a closed circle,
draped with the shorn clothes
of ocean, the false hair
of a reddened jellyfish,
the ribbon green of seaweed. 

Am I not still a missing person?
Does no one search for me?
I launch some fragile bottles —
gourds sealed with wax
or tiny jetsam offerings
I seal with sea-grass and commit
to the receding waves.

Inside them, my tree-bark letters
beg for a hasty rescue.
Others address the gods,
beseeching Poseidon
to dash and drown 

that traitor Theseus —
the man who brought me
to this nowhere,
who lured me with promises
and sea-foam oaths,
who then abandoned me
for his sailors, for the first
prevailing wind to Greece. 

My bottles dash
against the coral reef —
they break too soon,
or fall to the hands
of illiterate fishermen.

From the crown King Minos,
my father, gifted me,
I pick away some diadem gems
and add them to the sea-gift.
Even these bribes
cannot attract a rescuer.
One diamond returned
on the back of a dolphin! 

Here where this jagged mount
of Naxos scrapes sky,
harping a stone calliope
with fingers of wind, I wait,
far off the route of ships.
Someone below the horizon shall hear
the somber moan of this unpeopled place.
Some ship must turn toward me —
before my hag-years are upon me.
I am still young, and worthy of love. 

Is there a spell upon me? Are thousands here
invisible to me, going about
their daily lives, invisible to me?
Am I invisible to them as well?
Why do I find things to eat, and wells
not one of which is dry, at every turn?
Why are there grapes, and olives
if no one tends them? “You'll be fine,”
the lying Theseus assured me. “Naxos
will welcome and honor you.”
Am I a ghost, the walking dead?
Have I already become
A mythological person?

Only a hero can avenge me.
No, only a god can cancel
the vacancy of Theseus
that pulls inside of me
like an inverted birth.
In my dreams I begin to see another,
the purple sails of his galley,
his laughing eyes, the wreath
of grape leaves in his golden hair.
What better bride for an unknown god
than a nearly-forgotten princess? 

Even before he knows my name, at sight of me
he proclaims his undying affection.
No worldly treasures attract him:
as proof of love he hurls my Cretan crown
into the starry vault of heaven.
Strange pipes and cymbals sound, Satyrs
and Maenads attend our wedding.
Whole forests are torn asunder,
and no Greek from this time forward
shall have a sound night's sleep. 

Ungrateful heroes! New gods come out of nowhere,
and the age of Dionysus is upon us!

To Spring

Nature poems per se are rare in The Greek Anthology. This, one of Meleager’s longer poems, is an attempt at a nature poem, anticipating Virgil. It includes one biological error, the ancient belief that bees spring from rotting cow carcasses. I have done this up in blank verse, and if it mixes a little Shelley in, well, so be it. The Greek word “euoi” is  a variant of “evoe” or “evohe” and is a Dionysian cry of rapture. 

TO SPRING

 by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, I, 363

The Cynic, too, is happy in springtime.
How could it be otherwise? Departed
the howling winter is, and now the sky
gives way to smiling, purple-flowered days.

Out of dark earth a green garland rises
as dried-up meadows break out in tresses,
willow green-bud, the tender, up-sprouting grass
the emerald hair of the new season. 

What had been frost is now the dew of dawn,
laughing as the rose-bud in lurid red
blushes. Shepherds break out their shrill-toned pipes
trimming and tuning them to summon forth

The he- and she-goats and their new-born kids.
Already mariners, by tide and moon
called out, puff up their sails with Zephyr’s help.
Somewhere on distant slopes, the revelers,

heads wreath’d with berry’d ivy cry euoi!
to him who blesses grapes: Dionysus!
An old bull-carcass spews forth the black bees,
decay engendering intelligence

as the swarm swells and divides its labors
as wondrous as the pyramids in Egypt.
those ever-refilling white honeycombs.
Kingfisher and cormorant, the ibis

and crane, stern eagle and high-flying kite —
how all the birds exult and sing, down to
the humblest of sparrow. Swan glides, swallow
flits round to bless the homes of rich and poor.

The mournful nightingale, in gloom of grove,
takes up its station. Dire ravens roost there,
and crowds of crows await the crops to come.
O what a world for those with pinion’d wings!

If there is joy in all green uprising,
if there is joy as gold wheat flourishes,
if there is joy in the flocks’ frolicking,
and in those never-ending Pan-pipe calls,

if there is joy in sailing out to sea,
then somewhere always dances Dionysus.
Birds, bees, the swelling earth, the cloud-blessed sky,
how should a poet not sing of these, too? 

Hands joined, come one and all, and dance! Euoi!