her unrepentant loveliness offset
his indignation, or her dignity
sway his advisors. So Pasiphaë
remained inside her tower as a trial
arrayed sufficient traitors to revile
all doubt away. The king decreed that she
would die together with the obscenity
her lust engendered. Daedalus started trembling,
but not beyond the range of his dissembling:
Lord Minos, conqueror of Greece, you’ve shown
wisdom eclipsing the eminence of your throne:
the queen deserves a crueler death than I
can fabricate. Her crime will horrify
good women born in ages yet to come,
but Pasi. . . . Polyeidos dared to strum
his lyre, then spoke: Lord Minos, Daedalus
should keep his mouth shut: he’s more treasonous
than anyone in Crete: some say he gave
the queen a pharmakon, which made her crave
the bull’s white rush. Perhaps that isn’t true,
but this I know: it was his trick that drew
the white bull to the queen: she hid inside
a false cow any bull would die to ride.
Daedalus rebutted this accusation:
My lord, this fucking poet’s imagination
is the only pharmakon you have to fear.
The queen cast spells to make herself appear
attractive to the bull. It wasn’t me!
Her sister taught her all her sorcery!
Hupakoë said nothing. Minos knew
Daedalus had taught the queen to brew
the pharmakon that gave her strength to endure
the king’s virility, and he was sure
Daedalus was liar: his mazy beard
collected snot and spittle; something weird
about his ears annoyed him, and his hands,
forever gray (despite the king’s demands
he wash them till they bled), were trembling.
It’s true that Polyeidos used to sing
for the monster’s mother, but his honesty
was indisputable. The king could see
the poet kept his beard well trimmed, his ears
covered by hair, his hands unstained by gears.
He held his lyre steady till he played.
Waiting for Daedalus to be conveyed
out of the megaron, the king disclosed
a jiggling belly as his back reposed
on the gypsum throne. He told Hupakoë
to put that geek to death the following day
beneath the queen’s top window. They’d delay
her hanging and the monster’s till her father’s
power was weakest, when he barely bothers
to drive his horses overhead. The queen
imposed her body as a living screen
across the window lest Asterion
see Daedalus hanging, but his orphaned son
wailed so loudly at the gallows’ brink.
Her luck might turn out better than you think:
she had another son, who liked to drink.
Deucalion asked the general to come
a few days later to a symposium.
But much to his surprise, Hupakoë
was the only guest to watch Deucalion spray
the large libations of an emperor’s heir.
Deucalion’s hetaera flourished rare
talents. Her name was Panthea. She said
she was King Pandion’s daughter, but she’d fled
Athens before her uncle banished him.
Nisos, already old, on a drunken whim
gifted his father a krater so encrusted
with pearls that you could taste them. Pandion lusted
for Panthea’s mother rarely after she
bore him a daughter, and generosity
deserves reciprocation, so he gave
Nisos Athea, his most intelligent slave.
Panthea’s lavish breasts were barely arcing
over her ribs when she ran off, embarking
on a merchant ship that never reached Megara.
Her beauty plus her skill at the cithara
distracted the mariners, who didn’t spot
the pirates’ boats. Her fingers failed to unknot
the ropes that kept her in the sunless hold
until the pirates came to Crete and sold
her to Pasiphaë. Deucalion
announced that he was having too much fun
and proved it when he passed out. Panthea stirred
water in the wine that brimmed the evening’s third
and final krater, filled her guest’s raised bowl,
then leaned on him and whispered: You control
whether we live or burn. Pasiphaë
is not a witch and can’t cast spells to free
her from the tower where she waits for death.
The king’s a fool, and you would waste your breath
cajoling him to grant her clemency.
The solstice makes no difference: the degree
of the sun’s zenith can dissimulate
his power: Gaia’s axis isn’t straight,
and that’s why winter makes the sun look weak.
Seeming’s not always being. He can wreak
ample revenge whenever he desires.
Soon as the killing of the queen transpires,
he’ll come right toward us. Act. It’s not too late.
All Crete relies on you to assassinate
that man: his fear of weakness will reduce
his kingdom to ashes, though his father’s Zeus.
Hupakoë said nothing. Minos took
great pleasure in his memory of the look
Daedalus gave Pasiphaë’s bard when he
connected him to her adultery.
Minos esteemed one kind of treachery—
the kind that ruined others. So he made
the queen’s bard his bard. Polyeidos played
paeans to Zeus or to his patron’s greatness.
He followed Minos everywhere. The lateness
of the sunrise marked the impending execution,
and Minos never mused on absolution.
He did his daily exercise: a walk
through the east garden, where many a lily stalk
bowed to his scepter when he felt frustrated.
Holding a spear, Hupakoë awaited
the moment when the king walked past the stone
Zeus behind which he stood. They were alone,