my confidence. The Kuretes—who showed
us how to violate a mountain lode
and melt it into statues, bowls, and swords
then showed us how to tax the bees’ sweet hoards—
they’ll tell me how to keep my boy alive.
I will not lose. At sunup we will drive
a herd of my best sheep, a sacrifice,
to father’s cave and capture their advice.
Polish my earplugs and my chariot!
When the king’s horses, refusing to submit
to further flaying, neighed and died, the guards
shouldered the beam and trudged the final yards
across the ridge to Rhea’s hideaway,
where Zeus did not become his father’s prey.
Ten boulders underpropped the Kuretes,
whose deft fins tapped the tablets on their knees,
causing the cave to imitate a host
of soldiers banging shields—a sonic ghost.
The Kuretes engorged their jagged trunks
to rip the sheep and drop raw chunks
into their mouths, which privatized the herd
from hoof to horn. The Kuretes conferred
on how to resurrect the footless prince.
Their clanging vowels made the king’s guards wince,
but tone-deaf Minos never dropped his smirk
till he reached Knossos in the moonless murk.
At sunup Minos reconvened his court:
They say that Polyeidos will abort
my poor boy’s death—or no one will. The bard
discovered him—a simple task too hard
for all you losers. He must see it through.
A long bow gave enough time to subdue
the facial tokens of the bard’s surprise.
He answered: Lord, you were extremely wise
to seek the advice of local diviners.
The people prosper when their king abjures
foreign intelligence. That Cretan sheep
should warm Greek witches in their winter sleep
or fill the bellies of their bloated priests—
hucksters whose rites are merely perfumed feasts—
and just for words! Bards yet unborn will sing
how Minos ended Delphi’s swindling.
But they won’t mention me. It was pure luck
that led me to the prince. Though I can pluck
the rousing lyre, I’m not Orpheus,
who wheedled Hades, not Asclepius,
who needled him by bringing back the dead.
Let me stand by to sing your odes instead.
Minos replied: The Kuretes know best.
They hoodwinked Kronos. Luckily, the quest
you must complete won’t take you far from here:
in just one day, this tongue-tied engineer—
never a slouch, despite his many flaws—
desperate to hear once more my faint applause,
has turned that wine-cellar where you found
my poor boy into a tomb, which will resound
with Argive tunes. The Kuretes advise
locking you in, where you may rhapsodize
until my boy wakes up. I think we’ll see
you carry out a living amputee,
letting you taste a little of my glory—
unless their loud advice was allegory.