The Shipwreck's Grave

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Archias, The Greek Anthology, vii, 278

Why here, within the sea’s
ear-shot, have you buried me
in this godforsaken place
where the tide crashes
on the rocks below, and winds
echo the wrath of Poseidon
endlessly? Low surges
that never sleep, the groan
of tides coming in
and going out,
the hiss of salt spray:
it's all enough to drive one mad
for even though I am dead
in distant Hades, I hear it all.


If foot-treads come
and someone offers flowers
I would never know it,
for the ocean’s roar
drowns everything.

Don’t waste a prayer here:
Words are blown back
into your throat,
your utterance a moving mouth
without a thought behind it
for all I know.

My name was Theris,
and all you know of me, it seems,
is that the waves delivered me,
an eyeless corpse, fish-ridden,
after my father sent me
with dowry and serving maids
for an arranged marriage.

Now on this brine-salt hill
whose soil sprouts no flowers,
right next to the sea that killed me,
some stranger saw fit
to dig this grave,
and with a paper’s shroud
deposit my remains
into this noisy cacophony.

Oh, be assured, I joined
the lonely dead in Hades,
but here I walk about,
alone, unspoken-to,
two howling sea-shells glued
to my agonized ears.

Until the ocean dries
and the sea becomes
an object of literature and legend,
I shall have no repose.

The Beached Dolphin

by Brett Rutherford

     After Archias, The Greek Anthology, vii, 214

Mammal among the fishes,
darting and flying atop
the salt-rich sea, dancer
to the sailor’s reed pipe,
up for your own sounding air
alongside the welcoming
sailboats, hail, friend Dolphin!

You carried the fabled Nereids
upon your high-arched back,
ferrying blithe spirits to Tethys.
You nestled lost boys to harbor,
shoving aside the hungry sharks.
Ever have you shown yourself our friend.

But now to see you here,
on land, I tremble. One wave
you never saw coming, leapt up
behind you and dashed you here
on the headland beach of Malea,
where no returning tide comes, ever.

With our own hands
we would have carried you
back to the churning waters,
if only we knew!

Who heard the song you gasped
beneath the unrelenting sun?
Does no god or spirit
look after you?
Who comforted your death?

Behind me, someone calls out,
“It is only some random dolphin,
and not the one you knew.”

I heed this not.
In the death of one
     we partake in the death of all.
In the friendship of one
     we partake of all friends, ever.
All tears and groans
     are universal.

Death of the Cicada

by Brett Rutherford

     After Archias, The Greek Anthology, vii, 213

The molting cicada,
immobilized,
is overcome by ants.
Soon legions arrive,
and, lifting it up,
bear off the pine’s
shrill singer, beloved
by shepherds. Mouths
feast, and fierce clamps rend
carapace to penetrate
the tender core.

No more the song
shall issue forth
from the cool, dark branches.
Sweeter than lyre-song
to those in the fields
was his compound melody.

O Hades, relent!
Undo this undignified
abduction!
That so mighty a singer
could be laid low
by these riddling pests
is cruel. Mandibles
are not musical,
and to be prey —
life’s juices sucked
by idiot drones —
unthinkable!

Has any ant, ever,
had one original thought?
Should not some Muse instead,
reach down and take
the joyous maker of song
into her protection?

A second horde arrives.
They will take hours
to finish off the cicada.
Inedible themselves,
the ants fear nothing.
Have you not seen enough?
Oh, look away!

From the Magpie

 

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Archias, The Greek Anthology, vii, 191

Shepherd, attend!
Woodcutter, put down
your axe and listen!
Fisherman, pay mind
to the sirenless rocks.
Now, when you call,
who answers? No one.

Your unseen friend,
the reliable magpie,
I no longer keep
     you company.
I’m on the road,
legs up, eyes white,
beak issuing
     not even a breath.

Do you not miss
my familiar screech,
the comfort I gave
to your solitary work?
No crumb I sought
for all the cheer I gave.

Will one of you at least
     come find me?
A decent burial is not
     too much to ask!

 

Fly Away! Fly Away!

 by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Archias, The Greek Anthology, v, 59 

You, above it all, tell me
“One should fly from Love.”
You, neither philosopher
     nor naturalist, seem not
to know I have no wings.

Birds flutter up
at the slightest alarm;
even from hawks
the small prey
dart away. 

So what am I to do?
Two legs I have,
     and short ones at that.
It is easy for you
with lamp and stylus
to advise the love-lorn.
Have you even seen daylight
since all that scribbling started?
That crowd around your gate,
offering coins for counsel,
do they think you an oracle?

I am doomed, I tell you.
By day I slink along
     house walls in shadow.
By night I avoid
     big, open spaces,

but I know he is up there,
     that sly one,
wings wider than eagle-span,
eyes keen, my name
already inscribed
on his dread arrow.

How fly, as helpless
as a barnyard chicken,
when Eros flaps about?

Oh, what’s the use? By dawn
I’ll be in love with someone!

The Madness of Ajax

Death of Ajax, Henri Serrur, 1820

 

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Archias, The Greek Anthology, vii, 147.

Only you, Ajax,
when all Greeks fled
to the beach in total rout,
stood firm; that shield
as broad as an oak tree
blocked their way.

The stones they hurled,
the arrows raining down,
were as nothing to you.
Even when swords and spears
came at you, you held
the Trojans back. One shout
from your great lungs sufficed
to send them scurrying
to regroup and come again.
Just as some crag above the main
holds back a hurricane,
you the enemy daunted.

Re-armed and driven wild
with courage from seeing you,
we were not vanquished
that day.

                  Troy fell,
and all you asked
was one great boon:
the armor of Achilles.

This Pallas Athena
refused to grant you.
It wasn’t as though
you could wear it:
a stripling one quarter
your girth he was.

Prizeless, you raged,
and rage became madness.
All who came near
to reason with you,
you slaughtered as though
we had become enemies.
Your tent was your madhouse.

Cruel were the Fates
who willed this, leading astray
the good intent of Athena.
As we learned to our woe
you were indestructible,
a killing machine
who could clear the whole world
of its inhabitants if rage,
that rage, kept growing on.

Ares had opened War
and could not put the lid back on,
and so, at last,
the hand that killed you
was the only one that could:
your own.

 

 

Atys and the Lion

Sculpture of Atys, Ephesus Archaeological Museum.

 by Brett Rutherford

    Adapted from Dioscorides, The Greek Anthology, vi, 220

Running as only an acolyte can run,
the step and spring that scarcely touches
earth before one foot follows
the other, a single-purpose run
not in Olympic chase, and free

from erotic distractions, gelded
Atys, the self-castrated worshipper
of unrelenting Cybele, flew
up and beyond the treeline, wild
hair tossed every way by winds,
a Boreal restraint as legs leaped
free of the ground. Sardis he sought
in Persian Lydia, a long run,
from Anatolian Pessinus
on the Turkish high plateau.

No matter food, or thirst, or fall,
one frenzy would carry him onward.
But then, in a vale, as the dark
of night came, his hot blood cooled
somewhat, and, spying a shelter spot
beneath an overhanging rock
he climbed there, forsaking the known road.

But lo! There came a Lion, lord
of the forested waste, broad as oak
and huge of maw. Men swallowed
whole were his meat and morsel.
Atys stood still, his eyes to the eyes
of the ravening beast. Then he pulled ’round
the ox-skinned tambour he carried
(one of two gifts for the Sardian temple)
and struck it hard. And again, and again,
he beat with both hands the smitten skin.

Then off as fleet as a frightened deer
the full-maned lion bounded — gone,
and nevermore to trouble the traveler.
And Atys cried out, “Great Mother,
when I reach the banks of the Sangarias,
I shall dedicate to you this dread tambour,
whose roaring saved my life, and this
one other gift, the leather thalame
in which I offer up to you that which
my own blade removed in your honor.”

And on the wild man fled. Others,
like him, followed, thrall
to the all-demanding goddess,
those holy, mutilated madmen
in quest of the dark fire
at the heart of creation.

Less Said, Best Said

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Archias, The Greek Anthology, vii, 140

Tell, O column, whose son he was.

     He was the son of Priam.

Tell us his name and country.

     Hector, the pride and prince of Ilium

Now tell us how he came to die.

     Say of him only
     that he defended his country.

 

Diogenes the Cynic, Dead

by Brett Rutherford

     After Archias, The Greek Anthology, vii, 68

Weeping is your delight, O boatman of Hades
Tears from above are like wine to you
as you convey the dead
upon Acheron’s undrinkable waters.
If but one tear descends
with my name upon it, give heed
and add me to the manifest
for this night’s passage. With all
the dead weight of war and famine
you bear, my little bulk is as nothing.

I’ll not be left behind.
Call me “Diogenes the Dog”
if you wish to diminish me
even further. I do not mind.
Baggage have I none:
my staff, my smelly cloak,
this seldom-used wallet,
in which one obol,
down here as heavy
as a lump of lead,
that one thin coin
you are obliged to take
as my ticket. What’s here

is all I had above,
unless you count memory
of sky and sea, harvest
and the occasional
kindness of strangers.

True, most who knew me
wished me here. A shrug
greeted the news of my passing.
The best of my sayings
already twist this way
and that on the tongues
of rascals and old wives.

Here, the coin.
Let’s get on with it.
I left nothing in daylight,
anyway. Take it, boatman!

Three Spinning Sisters

by Brett Rutherford

     After Archias, The Greek Anthology, vi, 39

From the dark we come;
to the dark we go.
We were three of Samos
Euphro, Satyra, and Heracleia,
daughters of Xuthus and Melite.

To gray-eyed Athena
we have bequested these
unworthy offerings,
the implements with which
we staved off poverty:

The spindle, weary
of its long service making
fine, spidery thread,
and its long distaff;
the musical comb
that pulled the close-weave cloth
together, and this worn-out
basket from which the wool,
wadded and piled up high,
passed from one sister’s hand
to another’s.

Our eyes have failed,
our fingers stiffen,
and so we gather up
this last offering,

with which a poet,
taking pity, added
these suppliant lines.
Some of our work
is already in Hades:
shrouds we have made
for rich and poor.

From the dark we come,
to the dark we go.
Down there,
if asked,
we will mend and sew.

The Dented Trumpet

 by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Archias, The Greek Anthology, vi, 195

Athena, scorn not
this dented trumpet placed
before your temple. This
is no token or plaything.

Miccus of Pallene offers it.
You heard its brazen tune once
as soldiers, passing,
raised shields and shouted
in your honor. And then
the enemy turned pale
as Ares the god’s anthem
roared out and their blood
ran cold with the fear of death.

At your feet, goddess,
here, an instrument of civil pride
and there, of doom to foes.

An Offering to Priapus

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Archias, The Greek Anthology, vi, 192

Worn out, the old fisherman
drapes on the Priapus
figurine all the tools of his trade:

remnants of his seine
through which the fishes
large and small, swam free;

the baskets in which
he carried his catch to market;
the conversation-hook
on a horse-hair line
that had never failed him;
the well-made trap
that lured the beauties in;
the trusty float, ever
and always upright atop
the water, marking for all
his hidden casts below.

Round rocks the tide reveals
no longer bear his tread,
nor does the kissing tide lull
his slumber on the soft sands
where this one or that one
siren-sighed, “Phyntilus,
     Oh, Phyntilus!”

Now, from a hilltop
he just watches.
The flat and finless

sea is done with him. 

Introduction to the Poems of Meleager

We know the Greek poet Meleagros by his Latinized name Meleager, and under this name classical scholars recognize not only a fine lyric poet, but also the compiler of the first major anthology of Greek lyric poems, epigrams and fragments. Because he was proud or vain enough to pack the anthology with his own works, we have enough to get a sense of his life and passions. And passions he had in abundance. 

We do not know when Meleager was born, or when he died, only that he wrote his works in the first century BCE. The landmark anthology he edited, the Stephanos (or “garland”), was completed no later than 60 BCE. The poet was born far from the Hellenic world’s literary center, in Gadara (now Umm Qais in present-day Jordan). He spent his school years and middle life in Tyre (in present-day Lebanon), emigrating not quite to the Greek motherland, but to the Aegean island of Kos, where he spent his last years as a grateful resident. 

Reading the poems scattered at random through The Greek Anthology, whose initial kernel of poems Meleager himself compiled, one perceives this fine poet only in fragments, a broken mirror. Assembled together, however, the works form a self-portrait of a man swept from one fervent attachment to another. For Greeks of his era, the worship of beauty, and attaining possession of the beloved, were daily pursuits for all who had the leisure and taste to do so. 

Two women claim Meleager’s deepest love. Heliodora, literate, accomplished, was probably a  hetaira, one of that class of independent, unmarried women who mingled freely with men. She is Meleager’s great love, but she is scandalously unfaithful, so he takes comfort in the arms of a second woman, Zenophila. This lesser mistress, equally unfaithful, seems not too bright despite her wonderful singing voice. Meleager’s insecurity, jealousy, and sarcasm make his love poems true to life in any era. Any of us who have gone through adolescent obsessive crushes will recognize the emotions and language. When, some years later, Meleager learns of Heliodora’s death, his lament for her is a touching elegy and a cry of grief.

The most common theme in the love poems is Meleager’s claim that men and women have no control over whom they love, and that physical desire is almost indistinguishable from love to those under its sway. The pop psychology of the day, an inverted introspection, personifies desire as an external force. Aphrodite and Eros are literal characters in everyday life, and go about compelling people to pursue one another in a state of near-possession. Eros/Cupid, sometimes a mischievous child, and at other times an alluring young man, is a two-faced demigod. While Eros with his bow and arrow can make men and women desire one another, he is just as inclined to make Greek men fall in love with idling young men, all too willing to play the game. Sex is a sport for gods and men, utterly divorced from the workaday world of marriage, property, and the begetting of children.

Indeed, for Meleager, after the disasters with Heliodora and Zenophila, he seems to have spent the rest of his days writing about, if not sleeping with, dozens of beautiful young men. I caution readers not to mistake these affections, whether they were consummated or not, and in what manner, for pedophilia. My distinct impression is that the ephebes, upper-class young men between seventeen and twenty years of age, with their characteristic costume and cap, the chlamys and petasos — the ancient equivalent of T-shirts, jeans, and baseball caps — were regarded as adults, engaged in studies, athletics, and military exercises. These were the customs throughout the Hellenic world. Sexual preference overall was a subject of humor, but was ultimately a matter of taste.

 Other poems of Meleager shed light on Greek myth, and the Greek world-view, in which short and sometimes brutal life ends for all in the cold darkness of Hades. The beautiful died young, or drowned at sea. Ghosts complained of the dark afterlife. Meleager narrates these gloomy outcomes, and expects no special reward below for having been a servant of the Muse. He earns our admiration for his honesty about himself, and for his essential goodness. He may be a lunatic for love, but he is an ethical lunatic, never cruel. Lied to, he does not lie. Deceived, he sheds light on all. 

Among the more literary poems here are his introductory prologue to the original Greek Anthology and its poets; the messenger’s speech bringing bad news for Queen Niobe of Thebes; and a beautiful tribute to Spring, a work that anticipates Virgil. I have included a sufficient number of these other poems to demonstrate that Meleager was more than a “confessional” poet. 

From Meleager’s 134 extant epigrams and short poems, I have chosen 70 for this poem cycle, in which I adapt, combine, and expand upon the originals. These adaptations and (sometimes) expansions are not a word-for-word translation. I claim the privilege of meeting Meleager poet-to-poet, his words and thoughts rendered in my manner, his rowdy Hellenic world akin to my New York City of the 1970s. One poem here, “Go To Elysium” is an invention “in the manner” of Meleager. If I have succeeded here, a reading of this collection will bring this timeless Greek back to life. He reminds you of yourself, or of some friend you know who is always in love, tossed this way and that by Eros. Like all great poets, Meleager is of his time, and for all time.

For the new book, By Night and Lamp: The World of Meleager.