A power in the air hears the last prayer
Of the desperate. Myrrha’s prayer to be no part
Of either her life or her death was heard and was answered.
The earth gripped both her ankles as she prayed.
Roots forced from beneath her toenails, they burrowed
Among deep stones to the bedrock. She swayed,
Living statuary on a tree’s foundations.
In that moment, her bones became grained wood,
Their marrow pith,
Her blood sap, her arms boughs, her fingers twigs,
Her skin rough bark. And already
The gnarling crust has coffined her swollen womb.
It swarms over her breasts. It warps upwards
Reaching for her eyes as she bows
Eagerly into it, hurrying the burial
Of her face and her hair under thick-webbed bark.
Now all her feeling has gone into wood, with her body.
Yet she weeps,
The warm drops ooze from her rind.
These tears are still treasured.
To this day they are known by her name – Myrrh.
Meanwhile the meaty fruit her father implanted
Has ripened in the bole. Past its term,
It heaves to rive a way out of its mother.
But Myrrha’s cramps are clamped in the heart-wood’s vice.
Her gagged convulsions cannot leak a murmur.
She cannot cry to heaven for Lucina.
Nevertheless a mother’s agony
Strained in the creaking tree and her tears drench it.
For pity, heaven’s midwife, Lucina,
Lays her hands on the boughs in their torment
As she recites the necessary magic.
The trunk erupts, the bark splits, and there tumbles
Out into the world with a shattering yell
The baby Adonis. Nymphs of the flowing waters
Cradle him in grasses. They wash him
With his mother’s tears. Bittermost envy
Could only glorify such a creature.
A painter’s naked Cupid to perfection –
The god’s portrait without his arrow quiver
Or his bow. Here, subtlest of things,
Too swift for the human eye, time slips past.
And this miraculous baby of his sister,
Sired by his grandpa, just now born of a bush,
Barely a boy, in the blink of an eye is a man
Suddenly more beautiful than ever –
So beautiful the great Venus herself,
Hovering over the wonder, feels awe.
Then the boy’s mother, pent by Venus
In that shrub of shame, finds her revenge.
The goddess falls helplessly for Adonis.
Venus plucking kisses from her Cupid
Snagged her nipple on an unnoticed arrow
Sticking from his quiver. She pushed him away –
But was wounded far worse than she feared.
Pierced by the mortal beauty of Adonis
She has forgotten Cythera’s flowery island,
Forgotten the bright beaches of Paphos,
Forgotten Cnidos, delicate as its fish,
Amathus, veined with costly metals. Neglected
Even Olympus. She abstains from heaven
Besotted by the body of Adonis.
Wherever he goes, clinging to him she goes.
She who had loved equally the shade
And her indolence in it, who had laboured
Only as a lily of the valley,
Now goes bounding over the stark ridges,
Skirts tucked high like the huntress, or she plunges
Down through brambly goyles, bawling at hounds,
Hunting the harmless; the hare who sees best backwards,
Hinds with painful eyes like ballerinas,
Tall stags on their dignity. She has nothing
To do with fatal boars. She shuns wolves,
Their back teeth always aching to crack big bones.
Bears with a swipe like a dungfork. Lions,
Lank bellies everlastingly empty,
That lob over high bomas, as if weightless,
With bullocks in their jaws. ‘These,’ she cried,
‘O my beloved, are your malefic planets.
Never hesitate to crush a coward
But, challenged by the brave, conceal your courage.
‘Leave being bold, my love, to the uglier beasts.
Else you stake my heart in a fool’s gamble.
Let Nature’s heavier criminals doze on
‘Or you may win your glory at my cost.
The beauty, the youth, the charms that humbled Venus,
Feel silly and go blank when suddenly a lion
‘Looks their way. They have no influence
On whatever lifts a boar’s bristles,
Or on the interests or on the affections
‘Of any of that gang. The tusk of the boar
Is the lightning jag that delivers the bolt.
The ignorant impact of solidified
‘Hunger in the arrival of a lion
Turns everything to dust. I abhor them!’
‘But why should you abhor them?’ ‘There is a lesson
‘These coarse brutes can teach us. But first,
This hunters’s toil is more than my limbs are used to.
Look, that kindly poplar has made cool
‘A bed of shade in the grass, just for us.’
So Venus pillowed her head on the chest of Adonis.
Then, to her soft accompaniment of kisses:
‘Once the greatest runner was a woman – so swift
She outran every man.
It is true. She could and she did.
But none could say which was more wonderful –
The swiftness of her feet or her beauty.
‘When this woman questioned the oracle
About her future husband
The god said: “Atalanta,
Stay clear of a husband.
Marriage is not for you. Nevertheless
‘“You are fated to marry.
And therefore fated, sooner or later, to live
Yourself but other.” The poor girl,
Pondering this riddle, alarmed,
Alerted, alone in a thick wood,
‘Stayed unmarried.
The suitors who kept at her stubbornly
She met
With a fearful deterrent:
“You can win me,” she told them,
‘“Only if you can outrun me.
That is to say, if you will race against me.
Whoever wins that race – he is my husband.
Whoever loses it – has lost his life.
This is the rule for all who dare court me.”
‘Truly she had no pity.
But the very ferocity
Of this grim condition of hers
Only lent her beauty headier power –
Only made her suitors giddier.
‘Hippomenes watched the race.
“What fool,” he laughed, “would wager life itself
Simply to win a woman –
With a foregone conclusion against him?
This is a scheme to rid the world of idiots.”
‘But even as he spoke he saw the face
Of Atalanta. Then as her dress opened
And fell to her feet
He saw her dazzling body suddenly bared.
A beauty, Ο Adonis, resembling mine
‘Or as yours would be if you were a woman.
‘Hippomenes’ brain seemed to turn over. His arms,
As if grabbing to save himself as he slipped,
Were reaching towards her, fingers hooked,
And he heard his own voice
Coming like somebody else’s: “What am I saying?
‘“I did not know, I never guessed
What a trophy
You run for – ”
And there, as he stammered and stared,
His own heart was lost.
‘Suddenly he was terrified of a winner.
He prayed that all would fail and be executed.
“But why,” he muttered, “am I not out among them
Taking my chance?
Heaven helps those who give it something to help.”
These words were still whirling in his head
As her legs blurred past him.
Though her velocity was an arrow
As from a Turkish bow of horn and sinew
The shock-wave was her beauty.
‘Her running redoubled her beauty.
The ribbon-ties at her ankles
Were the wing-tips of swallows.
The ribbon-ties at her knees
Were the wing-tips of swifts.
‘Her hair blazed above her oiled shoulders.
And the flush on her slender body
Was ivory tinted
Through a crimson curtain.
‘And while this hero gazed with drying mouth
It was over.
Atalanta stood adjusting her victor’s chaplet
And her defeated suitors, under the knife,
Sprawled as they coughed up her bloody winnings.
‘Hippomenes ignored the draining corpses.
He stepped forward – his eyes gripping hers.
“Why do you scry for fame, Atalanta,
In the entrails
Of such pathetic weaklings?
‘“Why not run against me?
If I win
You will not be shamed – only surpassed
By the son of Megareus, who was sired by Onchestius,
Who was sired by Neptune, god of the sea.
‘“I am Hippomenes –
A great-grandson of the god of the oceans.
I have not disappointed expectations.
If my luck fails, by the fame of Hippomenes
Your fame shall be that much more resplendent.”
‘Atalanta was astonished as she felt
Her heart falter. Her legs began to tremble.
Her wild rage to conquer seemed to have kneeled
In a prayer to be conquered.
She murmured:
‘“Which god, jealous of beautiful youth,
Plots now to slay this one?
Putting it into his head to fling away life.
As I am the judge:
Atalanta is not worth it.
‘“It is not his beauty that makes me afraid
Though it well might.
It is his innocence, his boyishness
Touches me, and hurts me.
He is hardly a boy. He is a child.
‘“Yet with perfect courage,
Contemptuous of death.
Also fourth in descent, as he claims, from the sea-god.
Also he loves me
And is ready to die if he cannot have me.
‘“Listen, stranger,
Get as far away from me as you can
By the shortest route.
Marriage with me is death.
Go while you can move.
‘“My bridal bed, my virgin bed, is a sump
Under the executioner’s block.
Go and go quickly.
No other woman will refuse you.
The wisest will do all she can to win you.
‘“Yet why should I bother myself?
After so gladly killing so many
Why should I care now? Die if you must.
If these poor corpses here cannot deter you,
If you are so sick of your life – then die.
‘“They will say: because he dared to love her
She killed him. I shall have to hear:
Her thanks for his fearless love was a shameful death.
This will bring me fame – but ill-fame.
Yet none of it is my fault.
‘“You cannot win, Hippomenes,
Forget me.
If only your insanity could shrink
Into your feet as a superhuman swiftness!
Look at him. His face is like a girl’s.
‘“In me there sleeps evil for both of us.
Do not wake it up. Go quietly away.
You belong to life. But believe me,
If Fate had not made my favour lethal
You alone would be my choice.”
‘Atalanta knew nothing about love
So she failed
To recognise love’s inebriation
As it borrowed her tongue to pronounce these words.
She was hardly aware of what they meant.
‘But her father, and the crowd, demanded the race.
And Hippomenes was already praying: “O Venus,
You gave me this great love – now let me keep it.”
A quirk of air brought his prayer to my hearing.
Moved, I moved quickly.
‘The most precious acre in Cyprus
Is my temple’s orchard. A tree grows there
Of solid gold. With leaves of green gold
On boughs of white gold. Among those leaves
Hang apples of red gold. I picked three.
‘Visible only to Hippomenes
I taught him the use of these apples.
Then at a blast from the trumpets
Both shot from their marks.
Their feet flickered away and the dust hung.
‘They could have been half-flying over water
Just marring the shine.
Or over the silky nape of a field of barley.
Hippomenes felt the crowd’s roar lifting him on:
“Hippomenes! You can win! Hippomenes!”
‘And maybe Atalanta
Was happier than he was to hear that shout
As she leaned back on her hips, reining back
The terrible bolt of speed in her dainty body,
And clung to him with her glance even as she left him
‘Tottering as if to a halt, labouring for air
That scorched his mouth and torched his lungs,
With most of the course to go. This was the moment
For flinging one of my apples out past her –
He bounced it in front of her feet and away to the left.
‘Startled to see such a gorgeous trinket
Simply tossed aside, she could not resist it.
While she veered to snatch it up
Hippomenes was ahead, breasting the crest
Of the crowd’s roar.
‘But Atalanta came back in with a vengeance.
She passed him so lightly he felt to be stumbling.
Out went the second apple.
As if this were as easy she swirled and caught it
Out of a cloud of dust and again came past him.
‘Now he could see the flutter of the crowd at the finish.
“O Venus,” he sobbed, “let me have the whole of your gift!”
Then with all his might he hurled
The last apple
Past and beyond her – into a gulley
‘Choked with tumbled rock and thorn. She glimpsed it
Vanishing into a waste
Of obstacles and lost seconds.
With two gold apples heavier at each stride
And the finish so near, she tried to ignore it.
‘But I forced her to follow. And the moment she found it
That third apple I made even heavier.
Lugging her three gold prizes far behind
Her race was lost. Atalanta belonged to the winner.
So their story begins.
‘But tell me, Adonis, should he have given me thanks
And burned costly perfumes in my honour?
Neither thanks nor perfumes arrived. He forgot my help.
‘Anger overtook me. I was hurt.
I swore I would never again be slighted so.
My revenge would scare mankind for ever.
‘Now hear the end of the story. This fine pair
Worn out with their wanderings, in a deep wood
Found a temple
Built long since for Cybele, Mother of the Gods,
Whose face is a black meteorite.
‘Both thought they were tired enough that night
To sleep on the stone paving. Till I kissed
The ear of Hippomenes
With a whisper. As my lips touched him he shivered
Into a fit of lust like epilepsy.
‘Under the temple was a cave shrine
Hollowed in solid bedrock and far older
Than the human race. An unlit crypt.
It was walled
With wooden images of the ancient gods.
‘This was the sanctum doomed Hippomenes
Now defiled,
Sating himself on the body of Atalanta.
The desecrated wooden images
Averted their carved faces in horror.
‘And the tower-crowned Mother of All, Cybele,
Considered plunging both
As they copulated
Into Styx, the tarpit of bubbling hell.
But that seemed insufficient to her.
‘Instead she dropped maned hides
Over their sweating backs. Hardened and hooked
Their clutching fingers into talons. Let
Their panting chest-keels deepen. Let them sweep
The dust with long tails. Gargoyle-faced,
‘And now with speech to match, these godless lovers
Rumble snarls, or cough, or grunt, or roar.
They have the thorny scrub for a nuptial chamber
And are lions – their loathsome fangs obedient
Only to the bridle-bits of Cybele.
‘O dear love,
These and the others like them, that disdain
To give your hounds a run but come out looking for the hunter,
For my sake, Ο dear boy, let them lie.
Do not ruin our love with your recklessness.’
Her lesson done, the goddess climbed with her swans
Towards lit clouds. Meanwhile, as Adonis
Pondered her parable to find a meaning,
His hounds woke a wild boar in a wallow.
When this thug burst out his boar-spear’s point
Glanced off the bone into the hump of muscle.
The boar deftly hooked the futile weapon
Out of the wound and turned on the hunter,
Overtook the boy’s panic scramble,
Bedded its dagger tusks in under his crotch
Then ploughed him with all its strength as if unearthing
A tough tree’s roots, till it hurled him aside, mangled.
Venus, afloat on swansdown in the high blue,
Still far short of Paphos, felt the shock-wave
Of the death-agony of Adonis.
She banked and diving steeply down through cirrus
Sighted her darling boy where he sprawled
Wallowing in a mire of gluey scarlet.
She leapt to the earth, ripping her garment open.
She clawed her hair and gouged her breasts with her nails,
Pressing her wounds to his wounds as she clasped him
And screaming at the Fates: ‘You hags shall not
Have it all your way. Ο Adonis,
Your monument shall stand as long as the sun.
‘The circling year itself shall be your mourner.
Your blood shall bloom immortal in a flower.
Persephone preserved a girl’s life
‘And fragrance in pale mint. I shall not do less.’
Into the broken Adonis she now dripped nectar.
His blood began to seethe – as bubbles thickly
Bulge out of hot mud. Within the hour
Where he had lain a flower stood – bright-blooded
As those beads packed in the hard rind
Of a pomegranate. This flower’s life is brief.
Its petals cling so weakly, so ready to fall
Under the first light wind that kisses it,
We call it ‘windflower’.