Persilere's Daughter, Dead

by Brett Rutherford

     After Theocritus

Seven, just seven, when Fate
saw fit to hurl her down
to Hades! What do they say below
when a mere child comes among them?
Will she drink the black wine,
and will her young lips curl back
at the sour bite of cornelian cherries?
Will she have leave to search
for the infant brother preceding her,
himself not even three years old?

Nurse them, Persephone, and place
some honeyed water near them,
that they, poor bees, may slumber.
Send some consoling dream at least
to Persilere, their mother.

The Stranger's Tombstone

by Brett Rutherford

     After Theocritus

I did not live out my days.
Too young I died, among Greeks
who scorned my Syracusan accent.
Subsisted, I, and borrowed not:
small point of pride for a man,
but I did not return in triumph
to an arbor’d rest, and a grave
with native soil around me.
Here, even the gnawing worms
avoid my humble shroud and say
to one another, “A foreigner!”

An Ox-Herder's Holiday

by Brett Rutherford

     After Theocritus

Camped in the hills
to get away from it all,
on a leaf-bed hastily made,
the beauteous Daphnis slumbers.
Such arms, such legs, such line
of neck and shoulder
ought not be bared
beneath the snitching stars.

You might, at least, flap closed,
conceal yourself within that tent
so artfully constructed, but no,
the warm night air seduces.

No rest for you, fair Daphnis,
for wicked Pan has got your scent,
and not far off, Priapus springs
to full attention in his own lair,
and hearing the pan-pipe summons
primps all his attributes and dons
his yellow ivy garland. The game
is on as fleet-hoofed feet
bound this way and that
among the somnolent sheep.

Wake up! Wake up
and get away,
poor Daphnis. Sleep
holds you down,
while lust makes mighty leaps
in your direction. Oh, flee!
You’ve not a moment to lose.

The underbrush stirs.
The pipe of one
draws the tread of the other.
A long priapic shadow
precedes the intruders.
Flee, Daphnis! No lad
should have to endure
what they might do to you.
No witnesses, for even
the oxen will avert their eyes,
embarrassed.  Unless,
of course, you’d rather stay.
Unless all along
this is exactly what
you meant by camping out.

Muses the Roses Love

by Brett Rutherford

     After Theocritus, The Greek Anthology

Muses the roses love
and thyme grows thick
where nervous poets lean
into sweet-clotted air
around Mount Helicon,

but where I climb
for healing and inspiration,
pulling behind me
some reluctant goat
dumb to the sacrifice
ahead of him — there,
no simpering flowers bloom.

Bay trees, leaves dark and sharp
cover the cliff entire.
Delphi means business.
Apollo expects no less than blood
as the horned billy-goat
quelled by the branch he gnaws
would understand
if he had half a brain.

Against Love

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Alcaeus of Messene.
         The Greek Anthology, v, 10

I hate the love-god,
I really do.

Animals need none
of his interruptions
and do what they do
in time and season.

Why shoot at me
with those piercing arrows
when I am empty-pocketed
and all the streets are drenched
with rain and clotted mud?
I make a sorry sight
courting, all limp and soggy.

Must I go out
blind-folded now
so that my sight
of any bright-eyed
person does not
concur with the fall
of some random arrow?

What profits it to him
to burn so many mortal hearts?
Does Love have a quota to fill?
Or does he pursue me
with a particular relish
so I will write a poem
that will win some prize,
and, named in it,
the little god smirks.

The Dark Lady

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Asclepiades, The Greek Anthology, v, 210

Dark as dusk the lady was
when she waved a branch at me.
By myrtle, by palm, by ivy green,
by oak, by pine, by olive, be black
or brown or tawny from too much
sun, what matters it to me?
Like wax I melt before the heat
of love, though she be sent
by fierce Hannibal or Africa’s
proud Dido, Queen. Coals burn,
and what was black as night
throws red and amber light
upon the bedroom walls.
So tremble, Europe, now
beneath the slippered feet
of the beautiful Didyme.

Oh, Give It Up

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Asclepiades, The Greek Anthology, v, 85.

You, virgin still? Oh, why?
Small dam against a torrent,
frail barricade defying love,
why grudge it when a line
of suitors would un-Sphinx
your riddles and reduce
your silly girl talk to a sigh
of most sweet surrender?

If I may be so rude:
Just think on Hades, dear,
and its loveless eternity.
There, no one will give you
a second glance. In Acheron,
upon its acid river shore,
one lies not down for love
but to lament, in ash and dust,
the bygone days one wasted.

Wrong Rub

 

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Anonymous, The Greek Anthology, v, 82

Girl of the bath,
you rubbed so hard
I thought my skin would peel.
This is no way
to make a man ready
for the hot and cool
waters. Sun-burn,
hot coals, the bite
of Medusa’s head-dress —

Off with you, then.
Go practice your art
on someone who merits
such punishment!

 

[Note: The Greeks and Romans did not have soap. It was the custom, upon entering the public bath, to have a preliminary skin cleaning by an attendant who would apply oil to one's limbs, and then, using a special tool, scrape off the oil, removing dirt in the process. Only after completing this process would one enter the waters of the baths, alternating between hot and cold pools.]

 

The Beast

 by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Leonidas, The Greek Anthology, vi, 262

There was never enough meat for me.
Night after night the flock I slew.
By day I raided the cattle-pen
and sent the herdsmen running.
The howling of dogs did not deter me;
     by fang and claw
     I reduced their number.
(Unfit to eat, I left them
     for crows and scorpions.)

One night as I crept silently
toward a sheep-fold,
Eualces the Cretan
rose up and killed me.
Just like that!

Now from this pine I hang
     and rot. Winds
tear off tufts of my fur,
     and birds annoy me.

Each day there is less of me.
My shadow, four legs in leap,
a terror for all, thins out.
Now no one looks up
and cries, “Lion!”