THE RETINUE OF ARES (AND SOME EXTRA MORRIS)

Fragment from a folktale retold by William Morris, explaining all the dire consequences of warfare, presented as the entourage of the god of war himself. If illustrated, the scene would be worth the paintbrush of a Goya in 1808:

A noise like echoes of a shout
Seemed in the cold air all about,
And therewithal came faint and thin
What seemed a far-off battle's din,
And on a sight most terrible
His eyes in that same minute fell,—
The images of slaughtered men,
With set eyes and wide wounds, as when
Upon the field they first lay slain;
And those who there had been their bane
With open mouths as if to shout,
And frightful eyes of rage and doubt,
And hate that never more should die.
Then went the shivering fleers by,
With death's fear ever in their eyes;
And then the heaped-up fatal prize,
The blood-stained coin, the unset gem,
The gold robe torn from hem to hem,
The headless, shattered golden god,
The dead priest's crushed divining-rod;
The captives, weak from blow and wound,
Toiling along; the maiden, bound
And helpless, in her raiment torn;
The ancient man's last day forlorn:
Onward they pressed, and though no sound
Their footfalls made upon the ground,
Most real indeed they seemed to be.
The spilt blood savoured horribly,
Heart-breaking the dumb writhings were,
Unuttered curses filled the air;
Yea, as the wretched band went past,
A dreadful look one woman cast
On Laurence, and upon his breast
A wounded blood-stained hand she pressed.

   But on the heels of these there came
A King, that through the night did flame,
For something more than steel or brass
The matter of his armour was;
Its fashion strange past words to say;
Who knows where first it saw the day?
On a red horse he rode; his face
Gave no more hope of any grace
Than through the blackness of the night
The swift-descending lightning might;
And yet therein great joy indeed
The brightness of his eyes did feed;—
A joy as of the leaping fire
Over the house-roof rising higher
To greet the noon-sun, when the glaive
Forbids all folk to help or save.

--------------------------------------------------------

In another poem by Morris, a retelling of the Psyche legend, warfare is also omnipresent:

Whose husbands wring from miserable hinds
What the first battle scatters to the winds;
............
   Thenceforth her back upon the world she turned
As she had known it; in her heart there burned
Such deathless love, that still untired she went:
The huntsman dropping down the woody bent,
In the still evening, saw her passing by,
And for her beauty fain would draw anigh,
But yet durst not; the shepherd on the down
Wondering, would shade his eyes with fingers brown,
As on the hill's brow, looking o’er the lands,
She stood with straining eyes and clasped hands,
While the wind blew the raiment from her feet;
The wandering soldier her grey eyes would meet,
That took no heed of him, and drop his own;
Like a thin dream she passed the clattering town;
On the thronged quays she watched the ships come in
Patient, amid the strange outlandish din;
Unscared she saw the sacked towns' miseries,
And marching armies passed before her eyes.
And still of her the god had such a care
None did her wrong, although alone and fair.
Through rough and smooth she wandered many a day,
Till all her hope had well-nigh passed away.

......................................................
So in a third homoerotic poem by the same author, where an overprotected teenage prince --just like Balder or Sleeping Beauty-- is exceedingly sheltered from an untimely fate, yet to no avail. Enter another, foreign prince, a twentyish exiled brother-slayer who has sought death on the battlefield and whose wartime yarns soon excite the younger prince... who is violently killed by chance by his more than friend. The whole story reminds me of Eugene Onegin or Apollo and Hyacinth:

The other one, that Atys had to name,
Grew up a fair youth, and of might and worth,
And well it seemed the race wherefrom he came
From him should never get reproach or shame:
But yet no stroke he struck before his death,
In no war-shout he spent his latest breath. 
   Now Crœsus, lying on his bed a-night,
Dreamed that he saw this dear son lying low,
And folk lamenting he was slain outright,
And that some iron thing had dealt the blow;
By whose hand guided he could nowise know,
Or if in peace by traitors it were done,
Or in some open war not yet begun.
 Three times one night this vision broke his sleep,
So that at last he rose up from his bed,
That he might ponder how he best might keep
The threatened danger from so dear a head;
And, since he now was old enough to wed,
The King sent men to search the lands around,
Until some matchless maiden should be found;
   That in her arms this Atys might forget
The praise of men, and fame of history,
Whereby full many a field has been made wet
With blood of men, and many a deep green sea
Been reddened therewithal, and yet shall be;
That her sweet voice might drown the people's praise,
Her eyes make bright the uneventful days.
So when at last a wonder they had brought,
From some sweet land down by the ocean's rim,
Than whom no fairer could by man be thought,
And ancient dames, scanning her limb by limb,
Had said that she was fair enough for him,
To her was Atys married with much show,
And looked to dwell with her in bliss enow.
   And in meantime afield he never went,
Either to hunting or the frontier war,
No dart was cast, nor any engine bent
Anigh him, and the Lydian men afar
Must rein their steeds, and the bright blossoms mar
If they have any lust of tourney now,
And in far meadows must they bend the bow.
   And also though the palace everywhere
The swords and spears were taken from the wall
That long with honour had been hanging there,
And from the golden pillars of the hall;
Lest by mischance some sacred blade should fall,
And in its falling bring revenge at last
For many a fatal battle overpast.
...
  Then did Adrastus rise and thank the King,
And the next day when yet low was the sun,
The sacrifice and every other thing
That unto these dread rites belonged, was done;
And there Adrastus dwelt, hated of none,
And loved of many, and the King loved him
For brave and wise he was and strong of limb.
   But chiefly amongst all did Atys love
The luckless stranger, whose fair tales of war
The Lydian's heart abundantly did move,
And much they talked of wandering afar
Some day, to lands where many marvels are,
With still the Phrygian through all things to be
The leader unto all felicity.
...
  And with that promise must they be content,
And so departed, having feasted well.
And yet some god or other ere they went,
If they were silent, this their tale must tell
To more than one man; therefore it befell,
That at the last Prince Atys knew the thing,
And came with angry eyes unto the King.
   "Father," he said, "since when am I grown vile?
Since when am I grown helpless of my hands?
Or else what folk, with words enwrought with guile,
Thine ears have poisoned; that when far-off lands
My fame might fill, by thy most strange commands
I needs must stay within this slothful home,
Whereto would God that I had never come?
   "What! wilt thou take mine honour quite away?
Wouldst thou, that, as with her I just have wed
I sit among thy folk at end of day,
She should be ever turning round her head
To watch some man for war apparelled,
Because he wears a sword that he may use,
Which grace to me thou ever wilt refuse?
   "Or dost thou think, when thou hast run thy race
And thou art gone, and in thy stead I reign,
The people will do honour to my place,
Or that the lords leal men will still remain,
If yet my father's sword be sharp in vain?
If on the wall his armour still hang up,
While for a spear I hold a drinking-cup?"
   "O Son!" quoth Crœsus, "well I know thee brave,
And worthy of high deeds of chivalry;
Therefore the more thy dear life would I save,
Which now is threatened by the gods on high;
Three times one night I dreamed I saw thee die,
Slain by some deadly iron-pointed thing,
While weeping lords stood round thee in a ring."
   Then loud laughed Atys, and he said again,
"Father, and did this ugly dream tell thee
What day it was on which I should be slain?
As may the gods grant I may one day be,
And not from sickness die right wretchedly,
Groaning with pain, my lords about my bed,
Wishing to God that I were fairly dead;
   "But slain in battle, as the Lydian kings
Have died ere now, in some great victory,
While all about the Lydian shouting rings
Death to the beaten foemen as they fly.
What death but this, O father! should I die?
But if my life by iron shall be done,
What steel to-day shall glitter in the sun? 
   "Yea, father, if to thee it seemeth good
To keep me from the bright steel-bearing throng,
Let me be brave at least within the wood;
---

But Atys drew the bright sword from his side,
   And to the tottering beast he drew anigh:
But as the sun's rays ran adown the blade
Adrastus threw a javelin hastily,
For of the mighty beast was he afraid,
Lest by his wounds he should not yet be stayed,
But with a last rush cast his life away,
And dying there, the son of Crœsus slay.
   But even as the feathered dart he hurled,
His strained, despairing eyes, beheld the end,
And changed seemed all the fashion of the world,
And past and future into one did blend,
As he beheld the fixed eyes of his friend,
That no reproach had in them, and no fear,
For Death had seized him ere he thought him near.
   Adrastus shrieked, and running up he caught
The falling man, and from his bleeding side
Drew out the dart, and seeing that death had brought
Deliverance to him, he thereby had died;
But ere his hand the luckless steel could guide,
And he the refuge of poor souls could win,
The horror-stricken huntsmen had rushed in.
   And these, with blows and cries he heeded nought,
His unresisting hands made haste to bind;
Then of the alder-boughs a bier they wrought,
And laid the corpse thereon, and ’gan to wind
Homeward amidst the tangled wood and blind,
And going slowly, at the eventide,
Some leagues from Sardis did that day abide.
   Onward next morn the slaughtered man they bore,
With him that slew him, and at end of day
Toward the king's palace did they take their way.
He in an open western chamber lay
Feasting, though inwardly his heart did burn
Until that Atys should to him return.
   And when those wails first smote upon his ear
He set the wine-cup down, and to his feet
He rose, and bitter all-consuming fear
Swallowed his joy, and nigh he went to meet
That which was coming through the weeping street:
But in the end he thought it good to wait,
And stood there doubting all the ills of fate. 
   But when at last up to that royal place
Folk brought the thing he once had held so dear,
Still stood the King, staring with ghastly face
As they brought forth Adrastus and the bier,
But spoke at last, slowly without a tear,
"O Phrygian man, that I did purify,
Is it through thee that Atys came to die?"
   "O King," Adrastus said, "take now my life,
With whatso torment seemeth good to thee,
As my word went, for I would end this strife,
And underneath the earth lie quietly;
Nor is it my will here alive to be:
For as my brother, so Prince Atys died,
And this unlucky hand some god did guide."
   Then as a man constrained, the tale he told
From end to end, nor spared himself one whit:
And as he spoke, the wood did still behold,
The trodden grass, and Atys dead on it;
And many a change o’er the King's face did flit
Of kingly rage, and hatred and despair,
As on the slayer's face he still did stare.
   At last he said, "Thy death avails me nought,
The gods themselves have done this bitter deed,
That I was all too happy was their thought,
Therefore thy heart is dead and mine doth bleed,
And I am helpless as a trodden weed:
Thou art but as the handle of the spear,
The caster sits far off from any fear.
   "Yet, if thy hurt they meant, I can do this,—
—Loose him and let him go in peace from me—
I will not slay the slayer of all my bliss;
Yet go, poor man, for when thy face I see
I curse the gods for their felicity.
Surely some other slayer they would have found,
If thou hadst long ago been under ground.
   "Alas, Adrastus! in my inmost heart
I knew the gods would one day do this thing,
But deemed indeed that it would be thy part
To comfort me amidst my sorrowing;
Make haste to go, for I am still a King!
Madness may take me, I have many hands
Who will not spare to do my worst commands."
   With that Adrastus’ bonds were done away,
And on the road where they had been that day
Rushed through the gathering night; and some lone man
Beheld next day his visage wild and wan,
Peering from out a thicket of the wood
Where he had spilt that well-beloved blood.

-------------------------------------
In Morris's version of the Holger Danske/Holger the Dane mythos, the bulk of it takes place in war-torn 100YW-era France:
[···] think that now ye are
In France, made dangerous with wasting war;
In Paris, where about each guarded gate,
Gathered in knots, the anxious people wait,
And press around each new-come man to learn
If Harfleur now the pagan wasters burn,
Or if the Rouen folk can keep their chain,
Or Pont de l’Arche unburnt still guards the Seine?
Or if 'tis true that Andelys succour wants?
That Vernon's folk are fleeing east to Mantes?
When will they come? or rather is it true
That a great band the Constable o’erthrew
Upon the marshes of the lower Seine,
And that their long ships, turning back again,
Caught by the high-raised waters of the bore
Were driven here and there and cast ashore?
   Such questions did they ask, and, as fresh men
Came hurrying in, they asked them o’er again,
And from scared folk, or fools, or ignorant,
Still got new lies, or tidings very scant.
---
But his changed life he needs must carry on;
For ye shall know the Queen was gathering men
To send unto the good King, who as then
In Rouen lay, beset by many a band
Of those who carried terror through the land,
And still by messengers for help he prayed:
Therefore a mighty muster was being made,
Of weak and strong, and brave and timorous,
Before the Queen anigh her royal house.
So thither on this morn did Holger turn,
Some certain news about the war to learn;
And when he came at last into the square,
And saw the ancient palace great and fair
Rise up before him as in other days,
And in the merry morn the bright sun's rays
Glittering on gathering helms and moving spears,
He ’gan to feel as in the long-past years,
And his heart stirred within him. Now the Queen
Came from within, right royally beseen,
And took her seat beneath a canopy,
With lords and captains of the war anigh;
And as she came a mighty shout arose,
And round about began the knights to close,
Their oath of fealty there to swear anew,
And learn what service they had got to do.
But so it was, that some their shouts must stay
To gaze at Holger as he took his way
Through the thronged place; and quickly too he gat
Unto the place whereas the Lady sat,
For men gave place unto him, fearing him:
For not alone was he most huge of limb,
And dangerous, but something in his face,
As his calm eyes looked o’er the crowded place,
Struck men with awe; and in the ancient days,
When men might hope alive on gods to gaze,
They would have thought, 'the Gods yet love our town,
And from the heavens have sent a great one down.'
   Withal unto the throne he came so near,
That he the Queen's sweet measured voice could hear;
And swiftly now within him wrought the change
That first he felt amid those faces strange;
And his heart burned to taste the hurrying life
With such desires, such changing sweetness rife.
While fainter still with love the Queen did grow
Hearing his words, beholding his grey eyes
Flashing with fire of warlike memories;
Yea, at the last he seemed so wise indeed
That she could give him now the charge, to lead
One wing of the great army that set out
From Paris’ gates, midst many a wavering shout,
Midst trembling prayers, and unchecked wails and tears,
And slender hopes and unresisted fears.
   Now ere he went, upon his bed he lay,
Newly awakened at the dawn of day,
Gathering perplexed thoughts of many a thing,
When, midst the carol that the birds did sing
Unto the coming of the hopeful sun,
He heard a sudden lovesome song begun
’Twixt two young voices in the garden green,
That seemed indeed the farewell of the Queen.

SONG.

SHE.

   In the white-flowered hawthorn brake,
Love, be merry for my sake;
Twine the blossoms in my. hair,
Kiss me where I am most fair—
Kiss me, love! for who knoweth
What thing cometh after death?

HE.

   Nay, the garlanded gold hair
Hides thee where thou art most fair;
Hides the rose-tinged hills of snow—
Ah, sweet love, I have thee now!
Kiss me, love! for who knoweth
What thing cometh after death?

SHE.

   Shall we weep for a dead day,
Or set Sorrow in our way?
Hidden by my golden hair,
Wilt thou weep that sweet days wear?
Kiss me, love! for who knoweth
What thing cometh after death?

HE.

Weep, O Love, the days that flit,
   Now, while I can feel thy breath;
Then may I remember it
   Sad and old, and near my death.
Kiss me, love! for who knoweth
What thing cometh after death?
Soothed by the pleasure that the music brought
And sweet desire, and vague and dreamy thought
Of happiness it seemed to promise him,
He lay and listened till his eyes grew dim,
And o’er him ’gan forgetfulness to creep
Till in the growing light he lay asleep,
Nor woke until the clanging trumpet-blast
Had summoned him all thought away to cast:
Yet one more joy of love indeed he had
Ere with the battle's noise he was made glad;
For, as on that May morning forth they rode
And passed before the Queen's most fair abode,
There at a window was she waiting them
In fair attire with gold in every hem,
And as the Ancient Knight beneath her passed
A wreath of flowering white-thorn down she cast,
And looked farewell to him, and forth he set
Thinking of all the pleasure he should get
From love and war, forgetting Avalon
And all that lovely life so lightly won;
Yea, now indeed the earthly life o’erpast
Ere on the loadstone rock his ship was cast
Was waxing dim, nor yet at all he learned
To ’scape the fire that erst his heart had burned.
And he forgat his deeds, forgat his fame,
Forgat the letters of his ancient name
As one waked fully shall forget a dream,
That once to him a wondrous tale did seem.
   Now I, though writing here no chronicle
E’en as I said, must nathless shortly tell
That, ere the army Rouen's gates could gain
By a broad arrow had the King been slain,
And helpless now the wretched country lay
Beneath the yoke, until the glorious day
When Holger fell at last upon the foe,
And scattered them as helplessly as though
They had been beaten men without a name:
So when to Paris town once more he came
Few folk the memory of the King did keep
Within their hearts, and if the folk did weep
At his returning, ’twas for joy indeed
That such a man had risen at their need
To work for them so great deliverance,
And loud they called on him for King of France.

   But if the Queen's heart were the more a-flame
For all that she had heard of his great fame,
I know not; rather with some hidden dread
Of coming fate, she heard her lord was dead,
And her false dream seemed coming true at last,
For the clear sky of love seemed overcast
With clouds of God's great judgments, and the fear
Of hate and final parting drawing near.
   So now when he before her throne did stand
Amidst the throng as saviour of the land,
And she her eyes to his kind eyes did raise,
And there before all her own love must praise;
Then did she fall a-weeping, and folk said,
"See, how she sorrows for the newly dead!
Amidst our joy she needs must think of him;
Let be, full surely shall her grief wax dim
And she shall wed again."

APOLLO AND HYACINTH - AND ADÈLE BLANC-SEC

La historia de Febo y Jacinto constituye otro de los vínculos fraternales del mito órfico dentro del corpus de las Metamorfosis. La pareja enamorada que se halla en mitad de un deporte inocente, el lanzamiento de disco, hasta que dicho objeto es lanzado con demasiado ímpetu por Febo y provoca un golpe fatal en Jacinto. Al dios lo corroe el remordimiento, aunque la muerte haya sido azarosa, y transforma al joven en una flor después de que Ovidio ya haya acometido una primera metamorfosis describiendo el cadáver de Jacinto como una flor cortada y marchita. Lo que diferencia la reacción de Febo de la de Orfeo es que en la versión ovidiana él no tiene culpa de la muerte de Eurídice, y el mito se basa en el tema del reencuentro, no en la aceptación de la separación y la muerte, algo que Orfeo apenas consigue tras duras pruebas. El mito de Jacinto se interrumpe allí donde el órfico comienza, y suaviza las consecuencias morales de una muerte producida dentro de una pareja.



Esta escena fue vívidamente recreada en una producción francesa (Les aventures extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec, Luc Besson, 2010), en la que la protagonista y su hermana gemela Agathe disputan un competitivo y violento partido de tenis que concluye cuando una bola lanzada con fuerza por Adèle golpea a su hermana, quien cae en coma. Se han visto duelos de implicaciones similares en las más variadas relaciones humanas, siempre que un hombre se culpe por el mal infligido sin intención a otro, como el Sean Thornton de El hombre tranquilo (The Quiet Man, John Ford, 1952). Amistades como la de Febo y Jacinto en X-Men: Primera generación, cuando un enfrentamiento entre Xavier y Magneto conduce a la parálisis física del primero y a la culpa eterna del segundo; un padre incapaz de aceptar la defunción de su hija en La duda de Darwin (Creation, Jon Amiel, 2009), o un chico la de su hermano en Hermano Oso (Brother Bear, Aaron Blaise y Robert Walker, 2003), mediante una metamorfosis total pero reversible. También los desconocidos entrelazados en Siete almas (Seven Pounds, Gabriele Muccino, 2008) por un hombre que abraza la muerte como manera de expiar su culpa con cada uno de ellos. Y, sin embargo, la culpa es un elefante invisible que ocupa toda la habitación, es la ballena blanca de Moby Dick que se persigue sin conciliarla en ningún instante, ya que quizá de partida esa cacería resulta infructuosa. O como se lamenta Febo, cuyas palabras podrían ser transferidas al discurso de Orfeo:
«Pero en realidad, ¿cuál ha sido mi culpa? A menos que se pueda llamar culpa a haber jugado, 
a menos que también amar pueda considerarse una culpa.»

DANGEROUS LIAISONS IN WESTEROS

ALL RIGHT!!!
WINTER SEASON'S GREETINGS (XMAS, YULE/SOLSTICE, HANUKKAH...) TO ALL OF YOU ONCE MORE, DEAR READERS!

And, as usual, here is this year's traditional Westeros fantasy AU.

For this Christmas, I will be doing something completely different from my usual Westeros fairytales, but that still fits the hashtag #OnceUponWesteros.
Rather, this will be a collection of poems inspired by Ovid's Metamorphoses, with various pairings and retellings of the Ovidian stories.

...introduction
"Right, let us begin! And, when we have reached the end
of this story, we'll know so much more..."
Thus does HC Andersen open his Snow Queen.
What will our descendants say about us
after we are deceased?
Which songs shall the children of decades to come sing?
How will they remember us, if they ever remember?
These are stories that have endured for two millennia,
perfectly preserved like bugs encased in amber.
Sing, Muses, of those that came before us,
of hope and despair, of friendship and illusions,
of tragedy and trauma...
of life itself.


...jamais séparés
For Marina Sorel, for both her birthday and Christmas
The Lannisters were proud and clever;
the Starks were righteous and honest.
The Lannisters were blond and green-eyed;
the Starks were dark-haired and blue- or grey-eyed.
The Lannisters thought the Starks were old-fashioned
with those notions of honour and honesty;
while the Starks thought the Lannisters were ruthless,
without any thought not of their own greatness.
It came as no surprise that both Great Houses
had always been at each other's throats,
and even declared war on one another.
Lancel was but a Lannister of a cadet branch,
a nephew to Lord Tywin, yet one could see
by his golden hair and peridot eyes
from which stock he came. Nevertheless,
he was a comely stripling,
without the more mature beauty of Ser Jaime or of
their elders before midlife set in...
Sansa was a hostage brought from the North,
who had just arrived at Casterly Rock:
in spite of having her mother's Tully features
(those aqua orbs, those fire-red locks, those cheekbones...),
one could find she had a Stark's will and mettle,
which, added to her loveliness,
felt like a silk brocade gown concealing steel.
She was given a bedchamber in the same tower
as Ser Kevan's children,
and chance would have it
that there was a hole in the partition wall
between her chamber and Lancel's,
and, on each side, one could see
a bright and friendly eye:
a green orb on the left, a blue one on the right.
As time went by, they grew closer and closer,
putting their faces closer to that hole,
asking one another questions,
as Lancel began to feel a little twinge
for the orphan of enemy stock
and Sansa's heart began to open up
to the stripling of foemen's descent.
And thus, they gradually began
to pour one another's lives into their ears:
it was the same yearning,
the same weariness,
the same warm feelings of youth at heart,
as he listened to her Northern songs
and she watched him go to bed every evening,
not knowing that he was thinking of her,
dreaming of her,
having shed unmanly tears for her misfortunes...
Sansa herself had put into those songs all her sorrows,
her dreams of courtly glory turned to chains and ashes,
and never had she expected a courtier or (worse?) a Lannister
to feel truthfully sorry for her.
So they came to trust each other,
laughing and crying like children once more,
then finding out that it hurt when they parted,
in the middle of the chest and a little to the left.
And they became one another's keeper
of that painful, blazing secret.
Why was he a Lannister and she a Stark?
Or, more importantly,
could their love hold the key to peace at last?
And those were lovely days, and lovely nights,
and lovely twilight hours,
whenever his parents did not find out;
yet all good things must come to an end:
Ser Kevan and Lord Tywin had had a talk
of what to do with the cadet Lannisters;
the stern patriarch had spoken of a calling
within the walls of septs for his eldest nephew
(lest Lancel reached the heights of royalty
which Tywin's own children had risen to);
there was talk of the Great Sept in King's Landing...
As soon as the stripling heard of this plan,
a shudder ran down his spine:
to leave Sansa, and never to make love,
sworn to the Gods for life?
So that evening, pale as a lily-petal,
he told her of what his elders had chosen
so treacherously behind his back:
they would leave for the capital within three days
(whether by land or by sea was not certain yet);
"Rather than offer incense to the Maiden,
I would burn myself for you..."
The Stark girl looked at him, tears in her eyes,
without anyone else within her heart,
and thus, a counter-scheme was forged:
what could Lord Tywin's worldly power do against young love?
Through the breach in the partition, she would receive
a set of his spare clothes,
including a bonnet to hide her copper locks,
and, knowing every passageway within Casterly Rock
(which Lannister children, while playing hide-and-seek,
always caught a rough grasp of),
they would stealthily steal, next evening, for the docks,
and board a carrack bound for Dorne.
That plan was ostensibly flawless;
Sansa got her boy's clothes, and a hairpin of hers
was soon twisted into a lock-pick.
Lancel would also get it, slipped through the gap,
after Sansa was done prying the keyhole.
The next step, their promised land of free love!
And now came the fated evening of the tryst,
and she, already clad in doublet and hose,
having picked the lock and passed the hairpin
to the golden-haired lad,
Sansa stole past the guards, leaned on the wall
and on their spears, lips stained with Dornish red;
knowing they would be drunk,
she set her bonnet right and ran away,
knowing more or less where the docks were,
thanks to Lancel's directions.
Given wings by her youthful enthusiasm,
descending down endless flights of spiral stairs,
she was suddenly startled;
off fell the bonnet, she heard marching steps
and saw lions of gold
glittering in the twilit staircase, approaching.
Was her true self revealed? And what awaited her?
So frightened was Sansa Stark
that she turned around, and, losing her footing,
she suddenly fell backwards,
screaming as she was thrust
reeling down the stairs.
The soldiers, however, did not spot the bonnet;
they just stopped mid-way across the staircase,
turning left, into their barracks,
right as Sansa fell backwards down the stairs.
However, someone heard the scream and the thud of her fall,
and picked up the fine, puffy, scarlet headdress
trimmed with that golden ribbon:
arriving through a shortcut,
a golden-haired stripling, fearing the worst.
"How dare the jealous Stranger wrest her from me?
This fate's not ours by right!
Why did I not come first to save her life?
The fault was neither hers nor mine at heart:
all we were was young folk making mistakes!"
Then, drawing steel, a shortsword he'd taken for self-defence,
at first hesitantly, young Lancel Lannister
plunged it into his own left side as from his lips
sprang foam with a known taste of salt and steel;
the blade soon pierced the left half of the heart,
and the stripling's form reeled downstairs as well,
down to the step where, rising finally,
not feeling her left arm anymore
since it cracked and the pain racked her as if it were torn off
when she fell down the stairs,
fair Sansa Stark heard a thud in the twilight,
and, leaning closer, catching but a glimpse
of golden hair and those lovely features,
his mint-green eyes no longer glittering, and on his lips
a dried-up bloody stain...
a bloodless form, as pale as her childhood snows...
she cradled him only with her right arm,
seeing the pommel of the sword on his left side
(a wound so deep that she knew
his lover's heart was broken twice);
she had expected to see foreign lands
and live anew with Lancel by her side;
yet her dreams were as shattered as her left shoulder;
she dried up her tears on his blood-stained sleeves,
tearing at her Tully-red hair,
kissing his ice-cold, pallid features
while remembering Winterfell...
"He saw the bonnet and heard me fall down,
and thus, left me for dead...
out of chance arose that painful mistake
that filled my love with dread...
So bold it was, I'd never thought that you
should dare to take your life;
let the Maiden give strength to these weak hands
and sever me from strife!"
And thus, wishing their elders could accept
that painful wish of hers,
she drew the sword a little from his side,
and slit her wrists across,
first the left, then the right, across the blade...
No joy or hope was left
for the fair stripling or the red-haired maid
who were, next day, together in state laid,
though he was buried as a Lannister
and her remains by Winterfell and Riverrun
were claimed; at the end of the day,
a decision was made as peace was signed.
Come to Pinkmaiden Castle,
where Westerlands and Riverlands conjoin,
and, within the Pipers' sept, you shall find
a carved stone on the floor, at the Maiden's feet,
with an inscription mourning two young lovers:
"Both alike in dignity,
torn by ancient enmity,
short his and her life.
Love of Lannister and Stark,
tragic, overthrew the dark,
harsh ancestral strife."


...game, set, and match
For Liza Pluijter Izquierdo
Dearest Margaery:
I am writing this letter by a warm fireside,
sucking the quill's end, wrapped in my dark green
officer's pelisse, inlaid with gold lace,
with golden wings on my shoulders
and a single rose on each sleeve;
the mark of a freshly-baked lieutenant.
Perchance this is my last letter to you,
a letter from the war front,
on the eve of the first and maybe last battle that I
have ever fought for real.
I hope you are all right,
that the courtiers or your in-laws do not tear you to shreds,
and that Joffrey will be at least a decent spouse.
After all, he is the heir to the whole realm...
and still, Renly, while still a vassal prince,
was far lovelier and surpassed your bridegroom,
as you know, in all possible ways.
Renly Baratheon, that charming young man,
who never gave his heart to a maiden...
When I first appeared at Storm's End,
sent as a page from Highgarden,
it became as obvious as the light of day
that, with liveliness and loveliness extreme,
I won his heart, and he won mine in return.
What was that throbbing feeling in my left side,
and why did he feel like that as well?
There was no mistake.
Sometimes he would play with my golden curls,
remarking that they were like springs,
or I ran lithe fingers through his straight raven hair,
as my rosy cheeks flushed even more...
Oh, how pleasant conversation,
how lovely string duets,
in the shade of the wisteria arbour,
sometimes crowning one another with its flowers;
while he neglected his lordship duties
and had to be reminded by his guardians
every now and then...
They saw it as friendship; only we knew the secret.
And how far did he send those balls!
Seriously, it was as tennis partners,
whether shirtless or in shirts,
both of us with our hair tied in a queue,
that we had our best afternoons together...
all it took was one of us waving a racket
and winking a friendly eye,
sometimes a honey eye of mine, sometimes Renly's, bright blue,
for the other to understand...
during the match, we forgot everything else...
and then,
after the match, no matter who had won,
all flustered, and thirsty, and burned out,
after having drunk and as our heartbeat had settled,
we went off into the godswood pool,
all glittering with perspiration,
to wash and to refresh ourselves, undressed,
and my curls would turn dark and limp,
and I would trace Renly's chest, his throat, his limbs...
while he washed my back,
that of the little stripling who felt
something stronger than admiration
for his twentyish liege lord.
And then it was my turn to wash his back,
after he'd rubbed my rear clean,
which always made me chortle...
Right, but then came all these concerns,
including that Renly must have a bride,
and I showed him that portrait of you in the locket...
Needless to say, both our households approved
of a Baratheon-Tyrell betrothal.
It was like a story of wishes come true,
yet how often has wish-fulfillment
often taken a turn for the worse,
like the shock of reality
after a wonderful dream?
You know the wedding:
a Friday in springtime,
our friends, our family, Renly's guardians,
all of us in our holiday best
(the bride and groom, in the best of the best,
as well as yours truly, the best man and brother of the bride),
a cool drink of champagne on ice,
and then, a lot of spare time after the wedding
and before the feast...
and the bridegroom excusing himself to relieve himself,
then returning, racket in hand as usual.
I meant... why, I was up for tennis!
And our friends and relatives from the Reach
would surely like to see it from up close,
as well as all those Stormlanders had done...
Right. So I fetched my own racket,
and off we headed for the tennis court.
And, right before, I still remember their encouragement:
for Reacher pride, and to defeat that Stormlander,
and whatever not.
I swear Renly must have been told the same
but in reverse. For Stormlands pride...
Now both of us played that match in shirts,
but still wearing our cravats;
apparently, Renly was too fond of his cravat pin to part with it.
So we were warming up,
and, while I'm tying my queue ribbon,
I notice he's still wearing that cravat, with a golden Reach rose pin...
so stubborn, so headstrong, that I didn't want to say no.
After all, it was a whim on his wedding day!
So, it was Baratheon to serve...
and there I stood, racket ready,
Tyrell returns the ball, now Baratheon,
now Tyrell... I mean, we were all focused
on nothing more... it's just like warfare,
but without casualties;
and then I thought that all wars could be solved
by giving each commander-in-chief a racket...
So the first set is over... now I take his place across the net
and he takes mine in turn (who had won the set?
Little I care, but all I remember
is that it all boiled down to the match point)...
It all gave the impression of a fencing match on stage,
with each one of us striking the ball in turn,
racket always ready,
hop, step, jump, forehand, backhand,
both of us pressed into finding new tricks,
sometimes missing, sometimes throwing
the other off-kilter...
When it all boiled down to the match point,
to break the tie that kept us at one-one...
I mean, it was Tyrell to serve...
it was Tyrell to serve...
and there he was, all tense,
his shirt glued to the skin with perspiration...
and he was still wearing that cravat
with that golden rose pin...
oh, and it was Tyrell to serve...
(At this point, I am wavering)
KYAH!
And there was this rally, not unlike those in the sets before,
and it's Tyrell to...
it's Tyrell with the sun in his face, squinting, at a disadvantage,
the thwack of a racket striking a ball...
yet, instead of the more familiar thwack response,
what came was a thud,
and there, across the net, his grip leaving the racket,
was Renly, lilywhite, reeling as if drunk,
a rosy foam bubbling from his lips,
staining a shirt he'd nevertheless had to change.
And the tennis ball at his feet.
It really made my blood curdle.
Well, I was in such a state of shock...
I just leapt over the net and cradled him as he fell,
as he softly tilted his pale head to the right
like a wilting flower
and a gurgle could be heard inside his chest...
for he could not breathe
and was drowning in his own blood;
I had nailed the cravat pin into his throat!
Once, that hot blood had throbbed in a heart
full of intense love, and passions, and inspiration,
of youthful impulse, rêverie...
until right before that instant.
So cold, so pale, beyond the surgeons' skill,
there he lay, uncannily tranquil,
eyes closed and heart stopping,
right when both of us had all life before us...
and it was my fault,
a heartbreak, a betrayal, beyond reason,
caused by my own right arm... the blame is mine,
if love or zeal in sports could be called guilt...
and, ever since, I have never loved again
or ever wielded a racket ever since.
During my last stay at court,
when he lay in state, in that glass case,
I just couldn't confront the truth.
The shock of reality was too much for
a heart already half-turned to ice.
So, when there was talk of war in the North
against the dark forces that threaten
all the lands of Westeros,
I could not say no.
And so, maybe in fields of gold
in a lovely afterlife,
Renly Baratheon will not have to wait,
and he will surely forgive what I have done.
Keep your dearest brother, dearest Margaery,
within your heart, like I keep Renly
until a gunshot or a bayonet
finally bridges the distance across us.
Put your bravest face on at the royal court,
and never let them grind you down
or eat you alive.
I know you can play it like a primadonna.
Yours truthfully and sincerely,
your brother and your late husband's love,
Lieutenant Loras Tyrell.


...two halves of a whole
Dearest Jaime!
I am writing this letter with a wavering pen,
not thinking aught but of you...
though we are siblings,
we are no longer children,
and a kiss means no longer the same...
neither does an embrace...
neither does "I love you..."
The Targaryen royals that came before us
have, after all, always married that way,
brother-husbands to sister-wives,
and so have done the Warrior and the Maiden...
why should we Lannisters not do as gods
or kings and queens?
The Maiden herself seems to have decreed
that your heart should be mine and mine be yours...
I am sitting in a room hung with gilded mirrors
all over the walls,
yet none of their reflections please me at all;
I am longing for my reflection of flesh and blood...
I feel so cold, so lonely, on my own...
Though I feel so ashamed of telling you my name,
and I leave it to you to solve the riddle...
surely, you may find out who wrote this letter
in her own blood, from a broken heart,
leaving her bled-dry face as pale as ice,
drying up her tears for them not to strike the ink...
that's too vast an ocean for these peridot orbs.
How often has this broken heart sighed...
Remember how I would clasp your slender waist,
and steal a kiss from those parted lips?
Though we are siblings,
we are no longer children,
and a kiss means no longer the same...
neither does an embrace...
neither does "I love you..."
Yet my heart is still ablaze,
a searing fever keeps me awake for nights...
The Maiden be my witness,
I tried to claim the reason wrested from me
by these passions, yet my struggle was in vain;
so I flew, for a white flag, this blank sheet
ere I bled ink right there, right here...
Captive and disarmed, I fall at your feet,
rather collapsing than bending the knee,
pleading for mercy and telling you the truth.
Only you, dear reader, can win or lose me,
and you're free to decide, Ser Jaime.
Thus pleads someone closer to you
than anyone else,
wishing to tighten the tie that binds the two of us
even more, so your skin joins my skin...
Let elder lords choose right and wrong in laws;
we are young, and our summer calls for frenzies,
to quench our thirst with forbidden fruit!
Still young as we are,
no longer children, not yet grown up,
the world is our oyster,
nothing is wrong and everything is right
(or at least feels right).
Neither our stern lord father nor the whispers at court
will ever stop us;
should there be a suspicion, why should they wonder
in seeing the Lannister siblings kiss one another?
I have the right... no, rather full powers
to speak to you alone, to clasp your waist,
to steal even a peck from your lips...
How long until we move to darker games?
Feel mercy upon the author of this confession,
real mercy (not the one you always pretend in jest),
since she would never write it if not seared
by such a blaze; and never feel
the guilt of your name written on my grave;
why would a Kingsguard of all men ever bring
about such a tragedy?
Yours truthfully and sincerely,
Someone you know well, yet a stranger to your heart.


...Mère Courage
The eldest daughter of Riverrun,
after wedding the Lord of the North,
had every reason to be proud
of her loving lord husband
and their five trueborn children;
five like the fingers of a hand,
like the arms of a seastar,
like the petals of a jasmine flower.
And Lady Catelyn was proud of them all,
for one reason or another,
as proud and loving as any mum should be.
Robb, the eldest,
was a dashing young man,
with flashing azure eyes
and a heart full of bravery:
the Warrior incarnate, in sooth.
He married for love
and lost his head for that decision
at the Freys' wedding.
Second came Sansa,
the fire-haired and rosy bluebird,
whose voice spoke of skill in music;
always yearning for a more exciting life
since Winterfell had become too narrow...
the lovely maiden's wish at length came true,
but the constraints of courtly life
became a corset and a gilded cage.
Third was Arya, the wild black cat,
the polar opposite of her older sister;
always messy-haired and up to something...
who thought that, after her father's execution,
when she vanished into thin air,
her mother would also miss her?
Fourth was Brandon, or Bran for short,
always climbing treetops and walls
to feed the crows and the pigeons...
it came, therefore, as no surprise,
that he should lose his footing and fall,
and, though alive, be a broken boy,
his legs no longer carrying him.
And fifth and youngest was Rickon,
who had just been weaned, and thus,
was literally the closest one to Catelyn's heart.
She's neither heard of Bran nor Rickon
since the fall of Winterfell,
when their home was taken by storm.
Now who can paint the sorrow
of a mother who has lost her children?
There is no blood left in her heart.
She's but a shadow of her former self.
The heart of the home, the blooming bride...
both of them are long gone.
No tears left in the lady's eyes, she cannot bleed:
her heart is now of stone.


...the girl in the black one-piece
When the foreign child came to Winterfell,
a wartime orphan taken in for charity's sake,
the Starks had only had Robb and Jon Snow,
two boys about the age of the little foreigner.
Eddard Stark had found the waif alone,
in a ruined holdfast, on the war front,
during that repression on the Iron Islands,
without anyone near, so young that his memories
were as hazy as the battlefield itself.
At first, Catelyn winced; "First, you bring me Jon,
and now, yet another frontline dalliance?"
Quite unexpectedly, she understood that her husband
was actually telling her the truth;
and, from on then, the foreign waif, Theon, was raised
with the Stark children as one of them...
yet, deep inside, he understood, as he grew up,
that somehow he didn't fit in.
Even Jon Snow himself was more Stark-ish than Theon,
the latter with shiny black eyes like beads of obsidian
and dark hair sleek, without a single curl.
It was also as plain as his foreign features
that, upon reaching the closing threshold of childhood,
he already towered over both Jon and Robb,
and was far more slender of both shoulders and waist,
even though he devoured and quaffed his supper
and his training was rarely over;
his strength burned out way later than his brothers'.
For every day, the stripling felt more left out,
no matter how many snowball fights and races
against Robb, or how much chaperoning Sansa
seemed to be part of his short life,
or how much wit shone in his eyes and the corners of his smile,
making the maids swoon at the dashing Theon's comments;
there was always the feeling
that his rightful place was not at Winterfell,
that it was elsewhere.
He was but eighteen when he went forth
in pursuit of his rightful place,
without horse or carriage, on his own,
in his finest doublet and puffy breeches,
his raven hair whipping his back in a queue,
the longsword scabbard on his left thigh,
heading westward, towards the coast,
since his first memories were of the seaside...
would he find a clue there?
However, he had still a bit to get to the North coast
when one day everything dawned for him:
his surname, and how he, for so short time a man,
would become a boy once more.
Or maybe even not a boy, but a non-human thing...
The pool had been hewn out by glaciers
long time ago, surely during the Long Night.
It shimmered like a sheet of steel,
its icy coverlet cracked at some points,
surrounded by heather in autumn bloom,
like an ocean of purple buds...
Hither the young man, thinking to rest,
was instantly drawn one equally clear day,
enticed to refresh his throat and his face,
reeling, and drenched with perspiration:
drinking as deeply as he quaffed life itself,
enjoying the cold shock
in his throat, on his face, upon his sleeves...
resting his weary limbs on the ripe heather,
just resting like that, on his own,
when she came, a maiden as tall and dark,
clad in what looked like a black one-piece suit,
taking bold strides towards the frightened young man...
In the horizon, a black flag fluttered
from a half-crumbled holdfast;
she came closer, winking a wistful eye
as black as darkest midnight,
and her features were just like his own.
Though her hair was cut short, just like a boy's,
one could tell by her ripe bosom and lean waist
that it was a she;
and lean, and tall, and sharp of features was she.
And, closing in, as she came to drink herself,
she called him by his name...
"Theon! Is that really you?"
Though he could not remember her,
still she seemed familiar,
winking an eye with that same witty smile...
She said she could use some glad company;
after all... Esgred... Estrid... she gave an ironborn name,
as they now stood face to face...
he clasped her in his arms, yet, as she bent for a kiss,
his face retreated awkwardly;
it didn't seem quite right.
"L-leave m-me al-lone!" he stammered, wavering
for the first time in a short life.
The ironborn maiden said,
in response, chortling slightly:
"Theon... how dare you... what happened to you
when those landlubbers came?
Don't tell me they raised you as their own,
you pansy, you fool of a pansy!
Look at the heir of the Iron Islands...
So costly dressed as a princess bride!
No surprise that the brother shuns his sister like this...
Wonder what your parents, our parents, will have to say!"
And Theon just stood speechless.
So he was not an orphan after all,
yet perchance it would have been better
than having one's parents alive, yet unforgiving...
She resumed her tirade, her fingertips
latched onto his shoulders like sucker cups,
and her arms, like a cephalopod's, tying up his slender waist:
"Besides, don't tell me you do not remember;
my name's not Esgred, or Estrid...
there was this little girl called Asha-Yara...
Asha-Yara Greyjoy,
and yes, that's your surname, you pansy!"
No reply.
He was in such a state of shock...
That little girl, on those cliffs, whom their real mother, Alannys, tore away
into the keep as the enemy marched through the village...
that little girl who looked just like he did...
and five-year-old Theon left behind, all alone, in the crossfire...
Recalling those first memories...
and his whole world falling apart.
No longer a Stark, yet neither raised
for being an ironborn,
one of the wicked enemies across enemy lines,
whether at home on Pyke or at home at Winterfell.
So he ran away,
pursued by his sister and the men she led,
hardy seamen with hearts as hard as their axe-blades...
In comparison, he was but a stripling,
supple, brittle, clad in brocade,
yet sharing their same features and the same blood...
part of both households, and yet of neither one...
Right when he could no longer breathe at all,
at the twilight of the last day,
as they closed in, someone waved, beckoning,
into the darkness under ground;
he had no choice but to follow,
no matter how dreadful the fate
that within the Dreadfort did await.
Tied to a cross on all four of his limbs,
to weary to writhe for his freedom,
ere he shut downcast eyes,
the last thing he saw was the flash of a blade
careening towards the excess between his legs.
A short, sharp shock.
He would not awaken within days,
and, when he did, he would realise
that his wish had come true for better or worse:
that he was no longer Theon Greyjoy, neither Theon the waif,
not even a man anymore.


...Atropa belladonna
For Lidia Lucía Franco (Lidia de Tinta)
The berries were cherry-sized, shiny black as midnights,
standing out against a platter as white and round
as the full moon.
Still, Sansa, as she put the first one to her lips,
had already forgotten the name of that fruit,
the fruit of the fair ruthless lady,
whose scientific name, if translated into French,
would yield "la belle dame sans merci".
The strong sharp flavour made her wince,
and so down her throat that capsule of darkness
plunged effortlessly,
followed by a second, a third, a fourth.
How long had she been kept at the Dreadfort,
the scene of her childhood nightmares,
ever since the dark rider in a face-concealing cloak
had uprooted her like a rosebush
as she picked daffodils during a pause, en route for King's Landing?
Here, the windows were narrow and draped in black,
leaving only the thinnest threads of light within,
and rendering the thought of day and night impossible.
In he came, her captor, the Bolton boy --not yet a man,
no matter how serious his pastimes,
though he had never flayed her alive,
but rather taken her into his bedchamber every night
right from the dungeons
and fed her some of those midnight berries
that made her heart race out of her chest,
her eyes fill with tears,
her speech become slurred and her limbs falter,
as if she were drunk.
And, little by little, the things she knew,
her parents, her friends, her dreams,
even Arya when she got annoying,
faded away into oblivion,
as she saw her dreams become reality,
dire holdfast walls turned to grand palace halls
full of high officers and court ladies,
and Ramsay as a prince... no, maybe a boy-king
in full regalia, showering her with attention
in that ostentatious ballroom,
and in a canopy bed with drawn silk curtains.
Though nought of this was real except within the mind's eye
of the drugged, entranced maiden.
Not even the Stranger knows
what had watered those bushes...
She was his sole content and respite
after all the sorrows he'd been through,
all the rage he needed to free,
lashing at others with the same thorns
that once at his heart had torn...
Though others were his playthings, she was not...
Queen of the Dreadfort, at a court of flogged
maids and eunuchs, where the light dares not
enter; a bride half-dead and half alive,
pale, pining away, yet full of elation.
Would she run out into the light
and shy away from her captor
if she ever found out the truth?


...pitch-and-toss
Her whole frame tensed like springs under pressure,
awaiting the starting gun,
ready to spring up at once at the gunshot
that could come any second;
she would only settle for gold.
A blaze of fiery curls tied into a queue,
then upwards into a half-topknot,
glittered in the summer sun
like a fire in the nighttime;
every ligament, every vein in her freckled limbs,
in both her arms and her legs, as if chiselled,
throbbing with tension... her face already so flustered
that the intense flush of excitement made the freckles vanish...
Looking over her shoulder, just for an instant,
she caught a glimpse of her opponent,
that raven-haired and pale young man, with that
fine moustache, his own messy curls done in a queue,
seeming to pierce her, to sound her, with those steel-gray eyes...
Looking down again, she shut her eyes
and concentrated on the crowd of supporters:
"Y-GRITTE! Y-GRITTE! Y-GRITTE!"
her name was being cheered to the rhythm
of her own heartbeat,
and that encouragement was usually
needless to give her wings;
but now she needed it more than ever;
yet she could also hear them calling for his sake:
"JON SNOW! JON SNOW! JON SNOW!"
Could this be the day that made her or unmade her;
her Waterloo, Poltava, or something like that?
Ygritte felt at least the stabbing gut feeling
of her first defeat,
yet she coldly shook it off.
After all, was she running away
from commitment as usual?
In that case, it was a flight forwards
(ironic as the expression might seem),
reinforcing her own independence,
not to lose her own self to another,
and celebrating that she'd left them behind
--the only female who competed in those races,
and for a good reason:
other girls had always been out of her league,
their strides too short, their hearts not as hot-blooded
as Ygritte's own.

APOLLO AND HYACINTH - DERMARK VERSION

Translated by Sandra Dermark
freely from Ovid's Metamorphoses
4th of November, MMXVI

You, sweet prince, would the Sun-God have enshrin'd
in the skies, if they'd given you 'nough time;
yet still, you last forever, and as long
as Springtime comes on warm Aries's fleece,
your first green shoots pierce the last winter snow.
In my own country, in the harshest North,
through dark and dire, dreary winter nights,
your potted flower graces every hall,
blooming while windows frost, 'tis cold outside,
as part of Sweden's Yuletide scent and grace.
He loved you more than any other lad
or maid, and left his oracle and choir
of nine, just to frequent that winding stream
where you refreshed yourself; arrows and bows,
lyre and violin, all lay pell-mell,
as he followed you through the craggy peaks
of your realm, and sang in your campfire's light.
You were allowed to ride his pegasi,
white stallions, and play his string instruments,
as he taught you so both could play duets,
staying entranced, so closely, chest to chest,
until the storm of music sank to sleep,
and sing with him of Zeus and Ganymede,
for history repeats itself indeed.
E'en the sun-car, the day's light, he left 
entrusted to the boldest, strongest Muse,
and it was mid-way in the cloudless sky
on that May day when tragedy would strike
amidst the pleasures of southron late spring,
even though both of you were unaware.
Two snow-white shirts the lovers cast aside,
for exercise and mid-day heat would sure
flush them up, and make cloth stick to their skin:
the raven-haired lad, aged sixteen, looked fair
as a maiden; no dark hair on his chest,
or limbs, or upper lip, a stripling lithe,
in conversation well-spoken and true,
so full of liveliness and loveliness,
his frame like a white lily, slender, fair,
flexible, and resistant, all at once;
a rarity of a young royal child
whose violet eyes and honest smile like stars
were always shining with the same true light,
and whose lily visage was slightly flushed
with young hot blood by his fair lover's sight;
while his golden young adult paramour,
-as dashing as the stripling prince was lithe-
with locks of sunlight and skin dark as bronze,
gray-eyed and crisp-haired, beautiful of limb,
fire in his eyes, and every muscle strong
just as if chiselled: taller, dashing, bold,
infatigable, svelte, flexible, bright,
and, in that noble chest, stalwart and fine,
now throbbed for the young prince a heart of gold...
Their eyes sparkled with confidence and joy,
as the lithe stripling leapt over the net
and seized his racket: often had he led
to his crowned parents' famous tennis court
the Sun-God, whom he loved with all his heart
(for their favourite pastime was that game),
as the blond Phoebus, right across the net,
got his racket and ball, each in one hand,
trading the warm-up for an earnest match.
He throws, he hits... the ball is in the air,
a speck of light in the cloudless May sky!
The boy prince saunters forth... he hits the ball...
and, like a shooting star careening forth,
it flies across the court, right back, once more!
Both deftly wield their rackets, quick and strong,
running now to the left, now to the right,
a backhand, forehand, a hop, skip, or jump,
developing new skills and strategies,
successful, deftly, unexpectedly;
both of them caring for nought but to win,
deftly commanding rackets, eyes, and feet,
sending the ball careening back and forth,
always a shooting star in daylight's blue:
they're equals, one another's Waterloo,
and tension rises as the scales of score
tilt, ever slightly, to balance once more.
'Tis like a fencing match without cold steel,
confrontation of equal skill and zeal,
war without tears; no better can they feel.
As it often occurs when things are thus,
hours turn to instants on the wings of joy,
and now's the match point that will break the tie!
The Leader of the Muses, you shall know,
is ambidextrous: as skilled with the left
as with the right hand. Hitherto, he'd played
right-handed, yet, at this decisive point,
to win by catching his partner off-guard,
he now changes his racket to the left:
how will the lad face a sinistral serve?
In the excitement of this match, one's eyes
follow the ball, and one's dominant arm
commands the racket: he's forgotten sure,
and thus, he'll be put to a harder test!
The golden blond's serve thrids the sky once more;
right then, the stripling, eyes fixed on the ball,
flushed rose-red, yet hell-bent to win the match,
leaps up, racket in hand, with eager haste...
too early! Ere the lad can strike the ball,
it strikes him in the left side of the head,
right where the life-blood throbs into the brain,
above the ear; he reels just as if drunk,
yet pale and ice-cold, shutting weary eyes,
as the Sun-God, equally cold and pale,
dropping the fatal racket at his feet,
leaps o'er the net and takes you in his arms,
as a bridegroom would carry his bride home,
yet this resembles more a Pietà:
as blood springs from your left ear on his hands,
no longer warm, yet branding liquid guilt
(once, this young hot blood throbbed, and boiled, and raised
youthful intense passions... instants ago...),
the Leader of the Muses tries to kiss
warm air into your lungs and you to life,
pouring a soothing cool drink down your throat,
yet, after feeling neither breath nor pulse
(the heart, the lungs, the arteries all still,
not throbbing e'en the faintest in response),
he realizes that his serve and ball
have breached your head as cannon-shot a wall:
he cannot save your life: your dainty hands'
ten lily-fingers suddenly relax,
the right one leaves, at last, the racket's grip;
all strength's receded from your sinking limbs;
the final kiss dies on those ice-cold lips
of wax or driven snow, so quietly;
as that breached keep of your young intellect,
your head, droops tilting softly to the right,
like wilted lily's calyx on its stem.
Extreme exhaustion plunges reason's light
into most painful weakness, darkest depths;
our spirits are bound to the throbbing blood,
whereof a lot, gushed out in a sore wound,
tears out, in surging stream, not only strength
and sense, but even reason, wit, and life.
It's still and cold within your noble chest,
that once had throbbed with heartbeats, breaths, and love
for the one who's just quenched spring-youth's hot blood
and made those fiery passions fade away.
Where's every youthful impulse, rêverie?
It faded as your spirit was set free.
Whither departed is the spark of life?
To fields of light, bereft of earthly strife.
"Farewell, sweet prince, fair bloom cut short in spring!
I see the wound I've wrought myself, my crime!
I kissed you, then I killed you, though by chance,
yet my sinister hand will always stain
that blood that clotted in your clever brain;
what my left-handed racket's wrought for pain!
But what's my guilt? 'Twas just a tennis match,
a pastime... neither is my guilt of love,
since there's no limit to its worldwide reach:
two of the same gender may become one.
Though it happened by chance, against my will,
'tis pitiful that I thus you should kill,
such dreadful consequence of my own skill!
Thus, more shameful today's affair appears,
turning my light to eternal dusk and tears.
And may I not have had eternity
to give my life, to die upon a kiss!
Yet 'tis th'unwritten law of destiny:
you will be in my heart and in my songs,
to whose lyrics this left hand'll strum the lyre,
accompanied by maiden Muses' choir,
and, as spring flower with the sweetest scent,
you will remind others of my lament."
As golden Phoebus sings this threnody,
the blood gushed from the ear of his sweetheart
has reached the ground, and purple lilies grow
in a cluster just like an ear of corn,
like that sceptre of lilies in the tale
by Oscar Wilde, though not whiter than pearls;
rather, the wistful violet of your eyes.
'Tis not enough: the Sun-God mournfully
graces each petal with your monogram,
that of you two: a painful signature.
Rack'd with a suffering he's never felt
before --ne'er such a deadly, searing pain
from which there's no escape, had struck his heart--,
more struck by this than any other love,
thus broken-hearted, shedding tears of light,
kindling the air with heat like ne'er before,
to leave the stage of such a tragic scene,
he summons back his sun-car, and picks up
the frozen reins, sits on the frosted seat,
and steers the pale, ice-laced wheels of the sun
westward again, into ominous clouds
that thus unleash springtime downpours and storms.
For seven years he'd neither smile nor sing;
ask the Muses themselves, they know, of course.
The tennis court a garden has become;
the net is gone, and wildflowers of spring
dot, jewel-like, the multicoloured lawn,
where, over your eternal resting place
--next to a marble sun-god, tall and fair,
with a racket in his sinister hand,
on whose pedestal they chiselled your name--
your clusters of lilac flowers still grow,
their sweet, entrancing scent still laced with woe.



COMMENTARIES
1. This poem is a completely Dermarkian web of intertextualities; one clearly sees beyond Ovid and early modern Italian translators to rococo art (the painting by Tiepolo, meant for a gay tennis-playing German count; in which the homoerotic Pietà is overlooked by a hefty marble satyr with an ironic grin, reminiscent of the Cheshire Cat and Jabba the Hutt), but also, first and foremost, by the untimely death of Pushkin's alter ego Vladimir Lensky (which somehow foretold the author's own demise in a duel to the death as a gunfight), also to a certain degree by the death of the pearl fisher in Oscar Wilde's A House of Pomegranates (when it comes to the ear bleeding and the cluster of lilies), as well as to the fate of Renly Baratheon and Loras Tyrell in a certain sense... and of course to Shakespeare, and not only in the pentameter form in which I have deftly retold this tale and plan to retell more Metamorphoses (one may spot references to Othello's regret and despair after killing Desdemona, to Hamlet's death in a tricked fencing match, and, more obliquely, to Henry V [breached fortifications, tennis balls turned to cannonballs]). But it all began with the Gustav Schwab retelling of this tragic tale when I was 7, 8, or 9.

2. Before Marino and dell'Anguillara, it was through Tiepolo I discovered the update of giving our violet-eyed pretty boy and his sun-god paramour rackets instead of discuses or shot put, turning Hyacinth into a jeu-de-paume-playing early modern royal child. The idea of a violinist Apollo popped up in the same historical time frame of the early modern belle infidèle translations of the classics. When I first saw the Tiepolo picture, something that moved me to the core, in Art class at 16 (I was the same age as the young deceased in the poem!), we also played tennis at Phys Ed classes.
3. In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Apollo is ambidextrous (like, for instance, Gunnar in Njál's Saga or Hector in the Trojan cycle), as seen in the tale of the donkey ears of Midas. This ambidexterity seems to correlate to the sexual orientation of all three characters ("ambidextrous" is also used across languages as a euphemism for "bisexual"). While Giambattista Marino (Adonis, Canto XIX) has him bring on the manslaughter of Hyacinth right-handed, I have opted for a sinistral serve as the killing blow, which would have been completely unexpected and meant to throw Hyacinth off guard. If the teenage prince had sauntered in a certain direction, the ball would have struck him on the left, on the heart side, as Marino and dell'Anguillara precise. The latter translator/reteller, furthermore, stresses the young man's too impulsive action of leaping ahead of the ball to strike it in time as a reason for his untimely death as well.
4. While Marino's Hyacinth, portrayed visually by Tiepolo one century later, is blond, I made him dark-haired, inspired by other retellings and illustrations, and to contrast with his tan-skinned golden blond lover. The image he conjures in the reader's mind's eye is reminiscent of CLAMP anime Byronic hero Lelouch Lamperouge.
5. The finale with the tragic tennis court turned flower garden is taken from Giambattista Marino, but it also has its parallels in the retelling by Francesc "Neilabbott" Gómez Guillamón, in which the stadium where the discus/shot put contest was held is turned by the sun-god into a sacred grove/shrine, something like a godswood.
6. Potted hyacinths on the table and/or inside the windowsill are a staple of the Swedish Christmas. In fact, the whole poem has the air of it being told to young Swedes on a winter evening before cups of a hot drink, while the flowering hyacinths fill the air in the room with their scent and the snow swirls outside, beyond the frosted windowpanes.