Old Nisos tries to ignore his knees,
mixing his wine midnight to midnight.
When winter comes, and the wine runs out,
and the war starts boring his boyfriends, how
will he keep them loyal? It can’t tarry.
Our granaries are already echoing,
and his men have no more bulls to butcher.
How long will they stand on starvation’s fringes
to defend Nisos, a nobody?
Think of Theseus, a third his age
yet ten thousand times more accomplished!
And think of Minos — his mighty labors!
To avenge his son’s assassination,
my man has humbled the whole Aegean!
Father, by contrast, cooped in his palace
since the day he was crowned! Calm down, Scylla.
That purple-haired freak could pop off any
moment. Don’t rush. Your man will prevail.
Impatient Boreas was puffing harder,
and he glazed Apollo’s parapets.
But the princess despised his purple wings,
and while winter whittled daylight,
no glare impeded her passion’s gaze.
The birds who came from Crete each year
returned before the first frost.
(Athea knew numerous avian
languages, which Melampus had taught her,
having recognized her innate wisdom.
But decent masters will die cruelly:
his first-born son failed to inherit
his father’s wisdom, but fetched an excellent
price for the girl. So began decades
of involuntary voyaging
around the sea that slaves united.
She never saw her son again.)
There were many birds who remained all winter,
favoring the parapets where Apollo had played.
They usually talked about trivial things
(like how the weather worsened each year),
but Scylla overheard an old scandal
brought by Cretan beaks in the summer:
that the queen lusted for a quicklime bull,
whom she managed to woo in a wooden cow;
that the son she bore him combined their species:
two horns, one hand, two hoofs, one foot.
The princess blamed the birds for lying—
or if they weren’t liars, they’d let themselves
be deceived by humans, then circulated
insidious rumors. No sane woman
would betray Minos, the measure of manliness.