08 Apr Petrophonus Sings for Scylla
Once I had heard of a cyclops reciting a marvelous, lonely
Serenade; named Petrophonus, he loved and sang for the ages
Scylla, the ghastly-beheld, so I write to record as he rendered it only:
Mine is the love in the cleft by the channel where Charybdis rages,
Scylla enchanted my heart, oh I heard of your deeds, how your lips peck
Ships in the strait, and the hounds of your girdle are loosed from their cages,
Joined by the snakes on your pearl-pink shoulders, and gorged on the ship’s deck;
Fortunate sailors are they who are graced to have fed all the sharp-fang
Lovers comprising your body, to gape as your beautiful hips wreck
Wood on the rocks and untether the flax in their ropes, oh my heart rang
Hearing of this, by my sister in Charybdis gave correspondence
Sharing your concerts in narrows afar, is my longing for your harps’ twang,
Reed-pipes’ quaver, and lyres’ high cadence by touch of a modest
Love; as the sea-smoked thrum of the waves are in tune with the tidal
Thrust of Poseidon, I sway to the beat of your heart in a fondness
Yearning your everything; that for the nymphs of the spring it is vital
Work to maintain its waters: so bathe in the spring of my soul! it is ever
Yours, oh my Scylla; I seek your embrace in a glorious bridal
Night, to behold soft skin wrapped parcel in scales, to endeavor
Years by my flock for amenable Scylla, that I consider
Braving the staunch waves grasping at these oars nothing, whatever
Fates have ordained, I accept to behold dear Scylla aglitter
Hearth-side, watery beads on your flesh; to untangle your salted
Locks; and to never again gaze heart-struck over the bitter
Waters dividing us two, for us both to behold it in halted
Breath and remember no longer the days it had meaning for you, great
Scylla, exhausting the words of my language; am I to be faulted
Coming to you, for the chance to deliver a nymph to a new fate?