to cultivate hives and harvest honey.
The Kuretes, the truth-tellers,
will advise me how to revive Glaukos.
Round up a flock, my finest sheep—
an offering. Rinse my earplugs,
and ready my chariot! They rescued my father,
they can rescue his grandson! Where the road ended,
the Kuretes’ clang clotted their will,
but the guards kept carrying the king and his chariot
along the ridge. Rhea’s hideout
gaped at the sky, whose castrator
had unfortunately sired its secret inmate.
Each of the Kuretes crested separate
boulders. Their fins busied tablets,
which provoked the cave to vomit percussion:
no need to dance or dent their shields
or blunt their swords. They descended the boulders,
and their snouts ripped the raw sheep,
and they drooled blood and debated how
to resurrect Glaukos. Reaching consensus,
they told the king, and he returned home.
Jiggling again on his gypsum throne,
he instructed Polyeidos to step forward:
Since the glory of finding Glaukos fell
to the Argive singer, they say no one
else can abort my boy’s burial.
The bard lowered his brow to the tiles
before he replied: May it please King Minos
if I dare to agree that your greatness was wise
to deliberate with local diviners.
Why should this kingdom give its wool for words?
Or its lambs fatten foreign priests?
And why endure a Delphic monopoly?
The only problem with your plan is me.
I can’t revive him. The Kuretes
should know I’m a harper, not the Healer.
The king insisted: It’s absurd to doubt
the Kuretes: they tricked Kronos.
They know best. You’ll bring Glaukos
and the sword I lent you, and we’ll lock you in the tomb
Daedalus built during my journey
to the Kuretes. I foretell that you both
will come out alive—unless their advice
was an allegory. But the gods give us just
one way to find out. Eat well, Argive!
We’ll feast till midnight. Tomorrow you’ll fast.