which he would choose. At last, he said, Great king,
no one can match your ability to fling
wealth at unworthy servants like myself.
I humbly pick the gold, the queen of pelf.
Pasiphaë observed the glance he snuck
when Minos launched a tirade. Whether luck
or wisdom prompted you, your choice was right:
if they contract a sexual appetite,
women are irredeemable: they’ll lust
after exotic cocks. How could I trust
a man who’d go for sluts instead of gold
when everything, including sluts, are sold
for that commodity? A man so dumb
could make up lies called poems and, maybe, strum
a lyre, but could never teach my son.
You chose right, bard. Let’s see how much you won.
Icarus rolled in the scales his father built
when Minos tried to measure his wife’s guilt.
They didn’t need the octopus to weigh
the bard’s reward. The king would really pay
him what he promised, though he’d make it hurt:
Polyeidos needed to exert
all of his will to keep his body perched
unflinching on one gilded pan, which lurched
upward as Minos broke his annual sweat
by hurling gold, whose loss he’d soon regret,
into the other pan. Most ingots hit
the wall or Polyeidos: royal wit.
Some failed at failure, and eventually
the beam and column spelled what we call T.
Then pointing at his target, Minos told
his slaves to triple that supply of gold.
The bard, dismounting, lost no time to praise
his benefactor. Highness, you amaze
your people daily with your eloquence,
but who knew your arm boasted such immense
might? If the Aloads decide to throw
mountains on your father again, you’ll show
them what one arm can do: deflect sedition
by burying rebels in their ammunition!
Highness, I don’t deserve to teach your heir:
I’m just a lucky harper, well-aware
meter and myth can’t make a boy a king.
Although a sycophant would surely cling
to every honor, I won’t let my pride
deceive me into thinking I could guide
a Cretan prince to wisdom. Argos calls
me home, my lord. To die within her walls -
I do not wish for any other prize.
Minos dictated a rare compromise:
I’ll let you go back to your dingy town,
which you’ll improve by spreading my renown.
But not until you’ve taught my son the art
of divination. Though I stand apart
from every other king—the first and best
child of Europa—no one ever guessed
conquering Attica was possible, but I
did it so quickly—people said don’t try
to build a labyrinth, it can’t be done,
and there it stands to baffle anyone
foolish enough to enter. Such a king
shouldn’t need outside help for anything,
especially the future. Once you teach
my boy that art, I’ll ditch the Delphic leech
for good. Won’t even need the Kuretes.
Doubting that Knossos harbored owls or bees
able to guide him through such ignorance,
but also fearing that he’d give offence
if he refused him, Polyeidos praised
the king’s great rule before he gently raised
what he believed should most concern them: Lord,
were you to bid me to teach him every chord
the lyre can produce, he’d learn them quick.
But the Fates don’t give me any strings to pick.
Becoming isn’t an arpeggio:
I cannot teach him what I do not know.
Minos compressed his lips before he spoke:
People who try get me to revoke
my word will always fail. When I say do
something, it will be done. And if it’s true
you can’t predict the future, well, so what?
In fact, there’s nothing that can undercut
a teacher worse than knowing what he teaches.
Watch poor Daedalus, watch how he beseeches
his king for mercy with each crooked grin.
His real punishment will soon begin.
There’s hope, however, in this dope’s despair.
I give you now one year to turn my heir
into a diviner; if you succeed,
you’re free to go; if not, I’ll watch you bleed.
So Polyeidos and his pupil met
right before sunrise, laboring to forget
they couldn’t learn what hadn’t happened yet.
There was one thing that Polyeidos knew:
the Pythia never tried to make it new
but always riddled in hexameters.
Sedulous form’s authority defers
contact with content; such deferral flakes
some of the future its polysemy fakes.
The prince’s diligence surprised the bard,
who thought he’d be reluctant to discard
his privileges and follow a common teacher.
And diligence was not his lone good feature:
dying had made him wiser than the king,
but since he never mentioned anything
that happened to him, one could easily
mistake his calm for imbecility.
The boys Pasiphaë dragooned to play
with Glaukos were too scared of him to say
what preoccupied them, so they stared
at the gray feet their repossessor aired
to keep the bristling sutures clean from sweat.
He worked through scrolls or chanted the alphabet
and took no interest in their balls or dice
and would not hunt imaginary mice.
Whatever happened, Icarus revealed
it to his father, not yet fully healed
from the consequences of his last defeat.
Now he feared the bard would make him eat
his pride again: could Polyeidos know
what he was doing? That the prince would show
a real scholar’s diligence surprised
Daedalus, who knew the king despised
studious people. Glaukos had returned
from the crypt months ago, and though he spurned
festivity, he’d have to celebrate
his first post-mortem birthday soon. That date
became a peg from which the Athenian hung
two schemes to vindicate his stuttering tongue.