Fire Is Not Easy

Coustou, statue of Vulcan/Hephaestus (Louvre Museum)

 

by Brett Rutherford

     After Callimachus, Aetia, 48

Why did mankind
in dark and cold endure
so many eons without fire?

Fire is no easy thing.
Rock does not yield it easily,
and zealous Zeus
strikes seldom where a blaze
survives the onslaught
of rain and hail that follow.

There was a time
before bronze, before
the metals coursed
like water in the smithy’s forge.

Once the Olympian father
had the thing in mind,
he had to make a personage
whose job it would be
to lord it over volcanoes,
and be the patron god
of weapons-makers.

Three hundred years it took
on top of Hera, laboring
at the sweaty act of love.
The cosmos shook as though
some vast machinery
of pistons and gears
warred with itself

in gasp and groan,
laughter and love-cry
until we got, full-grown,
and unapologetic for the pain
he caused his mother,
that sour grump god
they call Hephaestus.

 

 

Killing the Lion at Nemea

Hercules and the Nemean Lion, Francesco de Zuburan (1634)

by Brett Rutherford

     After Archias, The Greek Anthology, xvi, 94

It was not much of a place,
     where wasted ploughmen tilled
          an always-reluctant earth.

He was not much of a lion,
     either. He had no wife, no pride.
          Last of his kind, he was starving.

Some days he barely raised himself
     on spindly legs, to seize a lamb
          fresh born from a protesting ewe;

some days he menaced the farmers’
     sons, but not in memory
          had he tasted the sweet man-flesh

that is the Lion’s high delight;
     and as for bulls (he counted four),
          they tossed him up and over them

and snorted in contempt. Now who
     should come to annoy his rest
          but that club-wielder, Heracles!

Cudgel discarded, the hero stalked
     in circles around the somnolent
          lion, kneading his iron-strong fingers

palm to palm. “With my own hands, dread
     killer of the Nemean plain,
          I plan to strangle you. Rise up

"and offer fang and claw, that I
     may interrupt your best attempt
          at fatal leap with one fore-arm,

“for I am Heracles, killer
     of monsters. Up, I command you!”
          The lion only flicked his long tail.

“That is my brother’s coat you wear,”
     the Lion responded. “Does the skin
          of a lion make you a lion?”

The foe with shoulder broad as ox
     tossed off the pelt to face him nude.
          “Lion! I am a son of Zeus!

“No more the lamb need fear the day,
     no more shall Echo hear thy roar
          and mimic it to chill the blood.” —

“Oh, no more speeches, Heracles!
     All know that Hera despises
          her husband’s half-human offspring.” —

“Fight me, thou sluggard cat!” shouted
     the outraged demigod. Instead,
          the Lion sighed — rolled over — died.