versed
in the subtleties of old, cracked scrolls. Such things I
cannot be.
Though you teach horned owls to sing, by your cunning,
or make lambs laugh in the dragon’s nest,
I can speak only what Apollo speaks.
I can say to you:
The man of high estate will be tinder,
his handiwork a spark.
Both will burn together,
and none will extinguish them.”
“Explain!” Jason said. But the seer would say no more.
In her room, Pyripta, princess of Corinth, wept. The words of Jason
had changed her: for all the smoothness of her face,
the innocence
of her clear eyes, the tale had aged her, filled her with
sorrow
beyond her years. She clung to her knees, sobbing in the
bed
of ivory, and prayed no more for purity of spirit but mourned her loss. The princess had learned her
significance.
She spoke not a word; but I saw, I understood. No hope of clinging now to childhood, the sweetness of virginity.
Let shepherds’ daughters worship in the groves of the
huntress! She was
a wife already, sullied with the knowledge of
compromise,
faults in nobility, flickering virtue in the flesh-fat heart. She knew him too well, the husband each tick of the
universe
brought nearer, whatever her wish. She was no fool.
Admired
the courage of his mind. But she could not walk in
bridal radiance
to a future unknown and clean, the gradual discovery
of a past
sacred, intimate, hallowed by slow revelations of love.
Yet knew, because a princess, that she would walk,
wear white;
knew she would serve, covenant of Corinth, accept the
bridegroom
chosen for her, for the city’s sake. Perhaps she loved
him.
It had nothing to do with love, had to do with loss.
Her loss
of the limitless; descent to the leaden cage of enslaving humanity. Joy or sorrow, no matter. Loss.
The dark-eyed slave at her bedside watched in
compassion and grief
and touched Pyripta’s hand. “The omens are evil,” she
said.
“Resist this thing they demand of you. The city is
troubled,
the night unfriendly, veiled like a vengeful widow. Men
talk
of fire in the palace, wine made blood.” The princess
wept,
unanswering. I understood her, watching from the
curtains.
I remembered the tears of Medeia, lamenting her
childhood’s loss.
By the window another, a princess carried in chains out
of Egypt—
eyes of an Egyptian, the forehead and nose and the full
lips
of the desert people — whispered softly, angrily to the
night;
“Increase like the locust,
increase like the grasshopper;
multiply your traders
to exceed the number of heaven’s stars;
your guards are like grasshoppers,
your scribes and wizards are like a cloud of insects.
They settle on the walls
when the day is cold.
The sun appears,
and the locusts spread their wings, fly away.
They vanish, no one knows where.”
At the door one whispered — a woman of Ethiopia,
who smiled and nodded, gazing at the princess with
friendly eyes:
“Woe to the city soaked in blood,
full of lies,
stuffed with booty,
whose plunderings know no end!
The crack of the whip!
The rumble of wheels!
Galloping horse,
jolting chariot,
charging cavalry,
flash of swords,
gleam of spears. .
a mass of wounded,
hosts of dead,
countless corpses;
they stumble over the dead.
So much for the whore’s debauchery,
that wonderful beauty, that cunning witch
who enslaves nations by her debauchery,
enslaves the houses of heaven by her spells!”
Another said — whispering in anger by the wall, cold
flame:
“Are you mightier than Thebes
who had her throne by the richest of rivers,
the sea for her outer wall, and the waters for
ramparts?
Her strength was Ethiopia and Egypt.
She had no boundaries.
And yet she was forced into exile, sorrowful
captivity;
her little ones, too, were dashed to pieces
at every crossroad;
lots were drawn for her noblemen,
all her great men were loaded with chains.
You too will be encircled at last, and overwhelmed.
You too will search
for a cave in the wilderness
refuge from the wrath of your enemies.”
On the dark of the stairs an old woman hissed, her
wizened face
a-glitter with tears like jewels trapped:
“Listen to this, you cows of Corinth,
living on the mountain of your treasure heap,
oppressing the needy, crushing the poor,
saying to your servants, ‘Bring us something to
drink!’
I swear you this by the dust of my breasts: The days are coming
when you will be dragged out by nostril-hooks,
and the very last of you goaded with prongs.
Out you will go, each by the nearest breach in the
wall,
to be driven to drink of the ocean.
This I pledge to you.”
So in Pyripta’s room and beyond they whispered,
seething,
kindled to rage by the death of the boy Amekhenos, or troubled by some force darker. For beside Pyripta’s
bed
there materialized from golden haze the goddess
Aphrodite.
Sadly, gently, she touched Pyripta’s hair. Then the room was gone, though the goddess remained, head bowed.
We stood alone
in a pine-grove silver with moonlight. I heard a sound—