intelligence: so long as father preserves
the purple lock upon his head, this war
will probably continue dribbling gore.
But here’s one goal I know I can achieve:
who else if not his daughter can bereave
the old man of his lock, which I will thread
through the yawning gates to my conqueror’s bed.
Night, who nurses our dejection, dropped,
and Scylla’s budding treachery—popped
in the mute spell when sleep begins to drink
the hearts day melted. . . . Scylla felt a chink
in the parapet and pulled until a shard
broke off. She kept it in her palm. No guard
found anything amiss when Scylla came
to kiss the king goodnight. The hearth’s flame
guided her shard’s quick business, while his snores
muffled the lithic hiss, and boyish whores,
swaddled in wine, continued their sound sleep.
No one opposed the thief who dared to reap
hair on the man who sowed her. Scylla took
the lock away. Megara’s ashlar shook,
waking the king, who touched his stub and knew
his reign and life were done. His retinue
seemed wide awake, but by then Scylla’d reached
the fallen gates, whose half-crushed watchmen screeched
as she scampered across the rubble. One
watchman saw her wave the lock and run.
He launched an arrow through the longshot night,
which nicked her neck but didn’t slow her flight.
Seeing the blood, the Cretans would respect
the bravery she summoned to defect,
she told herself. They brought her to their king,
whose nailless, puny fingers were wriggling
above a cup his palms hung near his lips.
The woman’s right hand raised a purple ellipse;
her neck’s blood specked the carpet like spurned fear:
Love is evil. Love has brought me here.
I took this off my father’s head to endear
myself to you. The gates are down! Our gold,
our land, our slaves, our gods all yours! I polled
father’s weird head—the only thing that stopped
you from defeating him. If I had chopped
his neck in two, it would have hurt him less.
Your love is all I want for this dear tress.
She knelt and lifted it above her eyes.