didn’t believe that he’d lead a revolt
and unseat the king, that Pasiphaë
would prepare a dinghy for Daedalus,
or that Phaedra would long to liberate
Asterion and would starve in the labyrinth
when her spool’s red thread thawed in the sun.
Hupakoë wondered why the prophet
could see the future, but failed to predict
the Ciconian Maenads would dismember him.
The prophet replied: The plectrum’s weight
kept my foresight from floating free.
In any case, the kinds of things
people believe are hilarious.
I admit I could make marvelous music,
but no stones stirred when I strummed the strings —
let alone danced to my lyre’s tunes.
When I still had loins, I’d let the foulest
hussy sip my hot seed
before I’d have thought of fucking a boy.
But what you’ve heard isn’t wholly false:
I saw Hades and Persephone
on their scrimshaw thrones and escaped to sing
about the wonders of aborted death,
but I’d never have done it to redeem a wife.
I can’t deny that my neck has felt
a blade’s rough work, but it wasn’t the Maenads
who reduced me to this, for Dionysus
knows that through songs and sacrifices
I honored him above all other gods.
Dionysian priests are my nurses now —
proof that I never annoyed the great one,
the Olympian born from a leg after Zeus
reluctantly revealed his lightning sinews
to Harmonia’s daughter, which dyed her spread
and sublime lap a blistering black.

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