In Your Myths

Creative Commons Image: Guillaume Coustou the Elder

INVOCATION

THEBES:  I II III IV V VI VII VIII

CRETE:  I II III IV V VI VII VIII

SICILY:  I II III IV V VI VII VIII

DELPHI: I II III IV V VI VII VIII

The Meters

Glossary

Come, you nine old whores, recreate the old days;

Pan enjoyed you free, not that pimp, Apollo.

Yeasty Bacchus hadn’t yet sapped your beauty.

Tell us what happened.

THEBES

I

Creative Commons Image: Annibale Carracci [Public domain], via Wikimedia

Yikes! They’re scourging Pan in his sleep to extort good

game and pasture, beating his weathered image.

So the god himself gives a shout and wakes up,

Startling Daphne.

Daphne, half nymph, laughed at the god’s arousing;

Laughed, yet pity dampened amusement;  and ’cause poor

Pan was pouting, Daphne relinquished garlands

Meant for her mother.

These, she cooed, "should hang on my mother’s altar,

But they look far sweeter on you, my bleater."

Thus she comforted Pan with whom nymphs get on

Famously – mostly.

Walk with me, Pan gladdened, then asked, inspired,

"Could the seer Tiresias call you daughter?"

Could and does;  but mainly he calls me Daphne.

Pan took his pipes up.

Steam came pouring out to show all

Air were cold compared to the warmth of Pan’s breath.

Cloven-hoofed, he pranced as he played his hot tune,

Trilling the climax.

Piping down the goat-studded hills and up paths

Thick with bee-warm spring afternoon in flower,

Pan bestrayed her;  willingly, Daphne followed,

Wordless, never

Humbled walking with him, the Great God, the Horned One,

Ambling near this Pan, in whose pointy footprints

Grasses, clover, buttercups sprang up swiftly.

Daphne exulted.

Dumb with joy, not once did she think of her mother.

Should she have?  Not once did she think of her father.

Should she have?  Forgetting herself, she stumbled –

Fortunate Daphne!

Since her ankle twisted in finding a snake-hole:

Would not hold her, Pan picked her up.  Her legs wrapped

Tightly, longly, gamely around his wool-soft

Flanks.  Then she rode, white

Tunic streaming.  Daphne was like a new-grown

Head.  She rested her chin on his curls, and humming,

Rode the garlanded god to the grove she’d never

Seen – or believed she

Had not known, though actually, she’d been born there,

Under these rare cherries that grew where Cadmus’

Men had sprung from a dragon’s dental

Legacy.  Themis,

Hermes’ sometimes consort, the river Ladon’s

Daughter, famous for prophecy, nymph of Arcadia,

Pan’s own land, had dallied with young Tiresias

Here on the strong soil,

Black with dragon’s blood.  She’d returned to bring forth

Daphne here.  The ground had been crimson with burst fruit,

Red with labor.  Daphne, the Bloody One, thus

Themis had named her.

Daphne’s hair was red, and her eyes were emerald.

Themis left the child, after adequate suckling,

Right at Dad’s door, squalling and wet on his front steps.

Dad gave her goat-milk.

Strictly speaking, goats gave her milk, besides which,

Slaves and servants reared her and taught her reading,

Writing, numbers.  Dad spent his days at the temple,

Listening to sparrows,

Larks and doves.  All sang with Athena’s neat tongue.

Only sea-birds scorned to reveal their knowledge.

Neither albatross, halcyon, gull nor crane

Called to the wan priest.

Nightingales whirred shyly and swallows answered.

Tactless cuckoos, too, flew into the temple,

Rudely yodeling, just like the one that Pan heard

As he was mounting

Daphne.  Bravo!  Blood in the grove again;  lewd

Song of the virgin’s passage, her aching pleasure.

Pan, his tongue accustomed to nectar, licked bright

Blood from her soreness.

Ah, indeed.  So that’s revelation, Daphne

Sighed.  I’m hungry.  So, to oblige his new

Love, Pan caused cherries to drop to Daphne’s

Ripe, somewhat buss-buffed

Lips.  She rolled red fruits in her mouth, and biting,

Kissed her god, who greedily sucked the wet stones,

Moaned, and swallowed, swelling where seeds grow.

Dozens of mouthfuls

Passed between them, juices distilling, dribbling

Down vermillion chins while the pits slid firmly

Through contracting throats till they sank to their bellies,

Lying like words there:

Hard and heady knots.  Then the sated pair lay

Quietly entwining their glances.  "Eros,"

Pan declared, I owe you for this.

And me, too,

Daphne assured him.

Drowsily, she wondered how the gods paid

Favors back.  Present one another offerings?

Gently stroking the place on his tummy where flesh

Yielded to curl-kinked

Fur, she found no navel.  Perhaps it was hidden.

Probing fingers found nothing to speak of, but stirred up

Something not for speaking.  This time the dear god

Liked being woken.

Bruised by overuse, she began to whimper.

Pan desisted.  Merciful god!  The spent day

Threw down shadows, teasing and mottling their faces,

Darting through branches.

Placid Pan pipes eulogies praising departing

Time’s discoveries, mourning its passing.  But Daphne

Clutched her stomach.  Cherry pits caused her discomfort.

Ugh, was her comment.

Creative Commons Image: By Python [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Pits were dragon eggs in her mind, her entrails:

Filling with lizards.  Oh my gods, she whispered,

Dragons gnaw my innards!  She saw them swim, swarm,

Slash her with bright scales,

Burnished crimson.  Each made a claim to a different

Organ.  One took her liver, another, lungs;

One, his arrow tail in his teeth, his claws spiked,

Crouched in her cramped heart.

Silly, Pan scoffed, "nothing like that should happen.

Look how birds flock, gobbling the cherries as we did,

Pits and all.  The grove is the gift of Pallas.

That’s how the brave birds

Know her secrets."

"Oh, so will we be prophets,

Too," she queried.

"Maybe.  My first prediction:

You’ll succumb to goat-footed love again, kid.

Starting tomorrow?"

What did Pan care whether he knew the future

More than this, so long as the rhythms, hills, sky,

Smells and naps he loved were unshaken by time’s winds?

Pan had no time-map.

Nor did empires, cities and kings that seers read

Mean much.  Daphne, oracular bones in her mortal

Body, cared.  She anxiously feared the mantle.

Awk, said the birds. Tweep,

Cheep, so rudely forced as they vied for choice limbs;

Twirp,  turoo, competing for bedtime branches.

Through the squawked, cacophonous vespers, a message

Broke, tossing fragments

Into twilight…  Phoebus…  a crown…  Omphalos…

Time to go, urged Pan with a shudder, brushing

Leaves from Daphne’s hair.  She was trembling, exhausted.

Pan said he’d walk her

All the way to Thebes.  Her new crotch made riding

Worse than footfall.  Pan couldn’t cure a wound caused

By his own deed.  Still, he had healed her ankle.

Dove-breasted dusk dropped

Earthward, gently felled by the night-driven moon’s shafts.

One late herder stopped to salute the perfect

Goat who gamboled next to a gingerly treading

Girl.  But ecstatic

Ewes and kids fairly purred to approach their pastor.

Rooted, they stood long after the god had frisked past.

Bucks in mangers shouted huzzahs and mated,

All in his honor.

Then the idle god had an urge to grab green

Acorns off their branches.  He tossed them skywards

One by one.  He seemed so absorbed, she asked him,

What are you doing?

Nothing:  want to play?  She had no idea how.

Games that have no goal and no purpose aren’t human.

Pan adapted.  "Here are some nuts.  I’ll throw one

Up, and then you try

Hitting that with yours.  I won’t throw mine too high."

Daphne’s marksmanship was atrocious.  Pan did

Better, but not much.  She was secretly saddened.

Gods should be perfect.

Aimless, aren’t we?  Pan was an awful punster.

Never mind.  She was grateful to have a friend who’d

Walk her home in the dark.  And she liked his style.

No one was like him.

Hand in hand they waded Athena’s knife-chill

Stream.  They paused midway for a kiss.  Delicious.

Pointy-eared Pan pricked up his channels, Listen.

Aieee...! cried a baby.

Cleaving, Pan and Daphne discerned the infant

Rage made rigid, hunger and cold made bitter.

Barely born, he lay on a distant hill whose

Yews gave the flocks shade.

Maybe herders would find the abandoned baby

Dead tomorrow.  Riveted, still in Athena’s

Water, Pan and Tiresias’ daughter shivered,

Gasping with pity.

"What do you see that your breath grows hotter than Etna’s?"

Blind as a bone, Thebes stumbles and breaks into brotherly battle.

What do you hear in the child’s cries?

"Innocent murder and incest.

Oh, that The Fates’ too steady hands could sever this fresh thread!"

Chills and chattering teeth overcame her.  "Take me

Home," she wept.  Pan lifted her up in his human

Arms.  His eyes asked, Leaving the child?  Because what

Good could she do him?

Feed him, warm him, hold and postpone his sorrow?

All the world would say that the boy was Tiresias’ grandson.

Daphne buried her face in the god’s broad chest.

Gently, sublimely

Borne to bed, she slept until violent Phoebus’

Rays disturbed her.  Shyly, she thought of the dragon’s

Grove and giggled, wondering how to fulfill Pan’s

Pleasant prediction.

II

Tiresias – who bit his nails – now nipped or drummed

Raw fingers on his breastbone.

Stone-faced, he paced the courtyard

Outside his daughter’s window;  shuffled, minced, paused.

She watched him grope along, one oratory style

Arm outstretched to guide his awkward

To and fro.  No shadow

Dogged him.  Noon already?

Why would he be home so late?

She threw her tunic on and hurried to escape

To Pan before her father made her lose the day

Doing boring things for him.

No such luck!  He heard a hasty brush

Electrify her hair.  So there you are, he turned

And called.  "Come here, my girl.  You’re more elusive than

Justice, more furtive than some

Startled crab.  Come here so I can touch

Your dimpled cheek, child."

Coming, father.  So, she went.  And had she really

Wanted to rejoin priapic Pan?

Relief dispersed itself from limb

To loin, from brow to solar plexus.  Pan was too

Potent, too ecstatic, too divine.

A sudden pang brought back the stream…  too keen….

She fairly called recalling, not the scene, but what

Was sharper:  seeing.  Still, she took her father’s arm.

Here I am.  He stroked her face.

There you are, he patted, "you’ve become

A woman lately, haven’t you, my crowning prize?"

By the horns of Pan, could Daddy tell?

Have I? she attempted, noting

With dismay that spots of blood beflecked

Her tunic hem.  But surely he did not

See them, did not know?  A seer,

He frequently lamented, could not peer in things

Which most concerned him:  blind to fate of flesh and blood.

"Are you coming down with something, child?

Something’s odd about your voice."

Is there? she croaked unwillingly.

"Yes.  But let’s go in before the sun

Smites us or is smitten

By your fairness.  You resemble

Shade-loving, Themis, Daphne."

Then she led him to his favorite

Bench, asking for the thousandth

Time to hear how Themis found him

Half-dead, a serpent’s tooth stuck

Thorn-like in his swollen thumb.

She’d sucked the broken fang and poison from his flesh.

Then Themis nursed wiry young Tiresias

Tenderly for days among

The dappled shadows cast by sacred trees, their fruits

A fertile pharmacopeia of vigor – and

Of love.  The tale stopped.  The teller dropped one

Sentimental tear from one stone eye.

This familiar pause seemed fresh to her.

Deflowered Daphne wondered newly why her Mom

And Dad would not continue meeting every so

Often….  After all, she noticed now,

Dad was rather trim and handsome still.

Also, as that male protagonist

Resumed his story, Daphne realized that the grove

Had been the dragon bower.  Now she knew the joy

Of her engendering.  Something else she knew:

How, leaving, he had crossed the cold

Pellucid water Pallas loved;  was there ordained

To see his eyes violate the goddess,

Stumbling on the naked truth

Of her ablutions.  Daphne’d seen calamity

In swaddling clothes.  Tiresias had looked on what

Held higher terror:  perfect

Wisdom without stain, unveiled, incarnate.

"My senses failed.  My disbelieving mind went blank.

No image stayed imprinted on my mortal mind,

As if the accidental act of looking proved

Corrosive.  All her features, every contour fell

Apart, dissolved.  Can I say I’ve seen her?

Yes.  Blindness keeps her vivid.

That’s her gift.  Daughter, now I know

All eyes are empty which do

Not behold her, always present,

Ever there before them.  Still I

Struggle after something definite,

A form, a face, a residue, a smaller thing

Than blindness’ realm;  some part to grasp, to shape the bare

Boundless void in which I wander since.

From time to time, a figure seems emerging out

Of light.  It’s always Themis, gorgeous Themis, whose

Beauty is conceivable – whom

You resemble – not Athena.  No."

Happily, her father could not see

Her smile, or smirk, as she imagined her contrasting

Pan, in all his naked glory, pure

In native ease, the pipes his only ornament.

She, for one, could never love a god she feared,

A god the sight of whom belittled all

Else, eclipsing every earth-begotten joy.

She wished she could be with her god this afternoon

To nudge him amorously from the nap he must

Be taking even as they spoke.  But yesterday…

Daphne sighed.  Her father sighed.

Chaerias the servant entered,

"Begging pardon, but the message

Master’s been on pins for’s come,

And eke another."  There he held, awaiting some

Signal such as, Well, what does it say?

Silence.  So Chaerias cleared his throat,

"Beg your patience, but the boy

Who helps, er, get about has squashed a foot nor could

Not come so sent his little brother, but the tyke

Sucks his thumb and squalls until

I leave him taste some honey.  Off he falls in sleep."

"Daphne, you will have to lead me.

Run, put on your finest garment.

Laius and Jocasta summon me

To soothe the grief of their posterity.  Their harsh

Heredity, preserved in dire perversity

Now wails for all the world to pity, fear, abhor.

What deeds this infant must perform, I cannot say –

Nor silent abject hopes I might not live to see

Such prodigies of fate.  Shall I rebuke the king

For siring such an heir?  The queen for bearing him?

The pair for saying, it’s as gods have chosen,

so the newborn must be left exposed?

My counsel was to live in quasi-abstinence.

The compromise I thought a kindness turns the blame

On me, imperfect and unhappy seer."

Daphne scarcely listened –

Too excited now.

Wait till she told Pan about

Going to the palace!

Well, she reconsidered, hurrying

To change to something more immaculate, and bind

Her hair, perhaps irreverent Pan

Wouldn’t think so much of Cadmus’ house.

At least she’d get to meet the queen.

Jocasta’s sixteen years ran only one

Ahead of Daphne’s own.

Young queen, poor thing, already given birth?

Must have been a hard one?  That’s what Dad

Had rambled on about?  The royal couple must

Have been expecting for a while, and yet,

Come to think of it, she’d never

Heard the populace should wish the palace joy.

Daphne donned a golden chain

To cinch her waist, then rejoined

Tiresias.  He took her arm,

Full of gloom, while Daphne’s cheeks

Dimpled pleasantly.

Silence gnawed their slow

Steps until – by chance it seemed at first –

Shrieks and shouts broke out

From across the marketplace just

As Daphne’s foot touched to start their crossing.

A goat had broken loose.

Panic reigned.  The beast, amuck,

Upset the carts, people, baskets, vats, jugs

And sundry stuffs.  Horses shied, and pots smashed;

Grain spilled, and sheep quivered;  pigs squealed, and olives,

Oiled, loudly rolled, twirled like beads beneath slick

Shoes, flailing feet.  Help!  My wine!  It’s mine!  Ouch!

Oof!  Gods!  Get that goat!

Ejaculations bobbed above the din

As, monstrous, big and black, the buck

Dashed, awnings crashing, colors

Clashing, new wine splashing,

In his wake – and dribbling down

His dark goatee.  From here to there, he’d halt,

Smack his lips, and look extremely

Pleased.  People hurled shrill threats from

Safe distances.  But children

Laughed, applauding.  Daphne, on the hard

Cusp, not yet mature,

Not young, described the riot

To tense Tiresias while trembling half with fear,

Soon with mirth.  She burst out

Laughing – at which moment

The goat came charging right between her legs and swept

Her off her feet.  Fast and far away Pan

Galloped, Daphne riding happily,

Horns in hand, exhilarated –

She, unlike Europa, never even turned,

Never once looked back.

III

Daphne astride, the god jumped into a lake and