A Secret Birth

     by Brett Rutherford

     After a Callimachus fragment, Aetia, 48

Three hundred Titan years old Kronos slept
while young Zeus and his enamor’d Hera
coupled without let-up, nights — and days, too!
Nectars narcotic they sent
     to the watchful and jealous father,
by the hands of garlanded Dryads,
and, from the lips of Iris, distracting
rumors of some trifles and petty strifes
whose answered he could delegate, then turn
his pillows over for another nap.

Then from Zeus’s labors
     and Hera’s womb’s machinery,
with clank and clatter,
     there came such a birth,
red-light the sky from pole to pole, a cry
as loud as a factory whistle, a smack
as of the first bright anvil, ever, struck
by the world’s first hammer, forged from ore.

Hera, whom Zeus hung upside down, cut cord
with her own sickle knife and cried the name
of their dear new Olympian:
“Hephaestos, the gods’ armory, be born!”

The Ox of Dryops

     by Brett Rutherford

     After a Fragment from Callimachus, Aetia, 24

Now Heracles, in company
of his young son, was slowed
when a thorn, which pierced
the boy’s tender foot
made him unable to walk.
The way was long, across
the plowed fields of Dryops,
and the solar disk seemed
uncommonly hot upon them.
Hungry and out of sorts,
young Hyllus tore at Heracles’ hair.

Just then came Thiodamus,
spindly on nimble feet,
yet still a mighty man
from the looks of him,
into the might hero’s sight.
Across the deep, dry fallow
the old man goaded on,
a ten-foot snapping pole
in one arm, a lazy brown ox.

Hailing the stranger, Heracles,
the generous donor of so many
deeds and labors, and once
he had praised the land and the fields,
and the beneficent orb
whose heat beat down upon them,
inquired, “I great pray a boon.
This wounded child calls out
for nourishment. If anything
your shoulder-bag can spare,
a mouse-size morsel, bread,
or a mouthful of fruit or nut,
would make our moving on
more swift, and quiet him.
I shall always remember you,
how amid your labors,
you were kind to another.”

The arrogant ox-herd
whipped out the floating pole
from ox-back to the very nose
of Heracles. “You, beggar,
and a fool to boot, know
ye not I am King of these parts?
Only a knave can claim
to hunger here. Pass on,
and may the burning noon
     finish you.” The King spat
and turned his back to them.

So what was a demi-god to do?
He seized the howling ox
and hurled it so far up
it looked no bigger than
a starling in silhouette,
and when it came down, its back
was broken. It bellowed. It died.

As Thiodamus fled
to summon his forces,
or hide beneath his blankets,
father and son devoured
the beast from tongue to tail.

Thus, ever and anon,
the uncharitable must pay.

Envy and Apollo (After Callimachus)

by Brett Rutherford

    After Callimachus, Hymn to Apollo

And Envy whispered
into Apollo’s ear,
“Who cares about the writer
     of mere epigrams?
What matters it that some comedian
     sends jokes into a thousand ears
         and laughter propagates
               like mushrooms gone mad
               in a spring sweat?
What matters is that someone swoons
    while playing a harpsichord
          or that high C’s bounce off
             the opera house balcony?

Give favor instead
     to only the grandest things:
arches imperial and gold pavilions,
fights to the death on an even bet,
treasures piled up beyond account,
and the kind of art that goes along
with a thousand-year reign.
Give favor instead to heroic sagas,
to lines that outlast
the tuning of the lyre,
to epics long-lined
and even longer-winded.
Embrace Hyperbole.
Bless nothing that’s not as big
as the world-girding Ocean.”

Apollo turned, and with one foot,
he stamped on Envy’s pretty neck,
just as he had once crushed
the mighty Python.
“Wide is the torrent wild
of the great Euphrates,”
the god explained
    to Vanity’s idiot daughter,
“Yet half its flow is silt and muck.
And not from any common flow
do priestesses fill Demeter’s bowl.
From one small stream
whose origin is a holy fountain
from there the best of waters come.

“Look here, at the world’s navel,
at the blessed spot of Delphi.
None come in chariots,
     but one by one, on foot,
         each must ascend and wait.
Do horns call out
     if something that calls itself
          a king arrives here? No!
Does some triumphal arch offend
     the sight of sea and cliff and sky?
Again, Envy, no.
That which is least, is best:
Greeks hurl their epigrams
as well as I my arrows.

“Temples may come and go.
No glint of gold spells out
my name upon the pediment.
One Doric column suffices."

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.

Night Vigil

 by Brett Rutherford

After Asclepiades,
     The Greek Anthology, v, 189

It is night.
The dead of winter.
Her rooftop grinds
against the setting
     Pleiades.
She is no gift
from the love-goddess;
these icy pangs I feel
resemble bee-stings
     or tiny thunderbolts.
The more she betrays me
behind those bolted doors,
the deeper it cuts at me.
The more I pace,
the longer the dawn delays.
Whose hand will emerge,
whose hooded head pop out
from the gaping entryway
at cock-crow, and skulk away?
Does it even matter?
Sea-salt, tear-salt, heart-jab —
love is an open wound.

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 Unexpected Guest

by Brett Rutherford

     Why now? And why you,
     darkening my doorway?
                                       — Apollodorus

You, that man-shaped shadow,
threshold-hovering,
what is your business?
Old comrade, come to stay?
Or new one, heaven-sent
in search of the night-joys
my house is famous for?

Who sent you? Oh, that one --
my name inscribed, I see,
on the back of his calling card.
You'd might as well come in,
as a storm is brewing.

You are of age to choose.
Why hesitate, just like
some indecisive cat?

What now, you wavering
phantom, or play of light?
In? Out? Make up your mind!

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.]

 

Money Was Made

 by Brett Rutherford

      After Callimachus, Aetia

Some kings will do anything, once
tempted by a good prospect.

“Drain not the blessed lake
     of Camarina!”
an oracle proclaimed. What then
some foolish elders did,
to someone’s profit, was just that.

Of course, the city fell.