It began with the pine trees from Mt Pelion
taking to the seas, cresting the waves of Neptune
and coming to rest exactly where the story
of the Argonauts was to commence, those
heroes ready and waiting to take to the seas
to seek the Golden Fleece, sending
across the vast depths of the ocean this
framework of pine woven together
by the goddess of cities....So new a thing
this was to plough the ocean that it raised the Nereids
themselves from its churning depths, their
breasts as new a sight to the men
as the ship to the Nereids. And this was when
Peleus fell instantly in love with Thetis, when Thetis
herself did not turn away from the love
of a mortal man, and when her father himself saw
that the two must be wed.
 
Oh, this was the time of heroes, a golden age, when
heroes were born of gods, their mothers also
to be praised...
 
This is what epic poetry is made for, and this
poem is made to sing of Peleus, and the marriage
of Peleus and Thetis,
 
blazing with torches
circled round by the whole sea
lavished with the attention of the gods,
 
and freely entered into on both sides.
 
And so, the marriage day came about
and all of Thessaly filled the palace
to overflowing, a whirling crowd
all swept up into the celebrations,
arraigned in finery,
gifts carried high.
 
And so, a whole country
is emptied out of its people,
every town deserted,
every farm left behind,
every house closed,
every field untilled,
soft, the necks of the oxen 
who would have pulled the ploughs,
uncleared, the vineyard grounds,
unpruned, the trees,
and the tools rusting over where they lie.
 
All opulence now could be found
in the palace of Peleus
extending hall to hall
further and further
inwards and inwards
extension after extension
accommodating the hoards of gold
the hoards of silver
ivory thrones shining
tables set with every glittering thing
and who wouldn’t take pleasure in all this? 
And the true altar at the heart of it all –
the marriage bed, a bed of ivory,
and on the bed, a coverlet,
and on the coverlet, embroidered
scenes from the heroic times
gone by.
 
Theseus, sailing swiftly away, is here
presented watched by a frenzied Ariadne
unable to believe she is seeing what she sees
when she sees herself, waking up from
what were her dreams, alone
and abandoned on an empty shore.
And he, Theseus, vanishes
into his future, as the promises
he made dissolve like words
written on water, in the middle
of a storm.
And there Ariadne stands
like a marble statue, a marble statue
dropping its headband, hair
flying free, a statue unravelling, drapery
falling open, breasts uncovered, and
the sea at her feet carrying
the fallen garments away
with the tide,
as if she could possibly care
about her clothing when all she has ever, ever
cared about is you!
Love is nothing but pain
and pain is all that loving Theseus
ever could have led to,
Theseus with his mind fixed
on the Minotaur, with ambitious
dreams to save a people, a people who
surely needed saving whatever the cost to Ariadne
who loved Theseus from the moment
she saw him, her innocence at
that instant lost forever, fire running
fiercely through her body, her ears
resounding with their own sound, eyes
lit up with dazzling darkness,
love’s pleasures stirred up
along with love’s torment, but who
could want to feel this way?
Her heart would almost fail her,
she would grow paler than gold
when Theseus braved death
for glory, in the labyrinth
of the Minotaur, from which
his safe return, the Minotaur having fallen
to Theseus like a forest to a storm,
was possible only because of the thread
of Ariadne, unrolled behind him
as she had told him to unroll it
on his way in, there still
where he had left it, a faithful guide
back to the sunlight outside.
 
But as if lost in a maze I find myself
taking a turning, all this a digression from
the story I was telling, and there is
more yet to tell, of how a girl, flying
from home, leaving the love of
a father, a sibling, a mother
all for the sweetness
of passion, all to dream
for a time of love, found herself waking
and for Theseus already to have forgotten her
disappearing into nothing but sea-foam in the wind...
And now she can only despair and rail and cry out
into the wind-sore skies, high on a mountain
looking out across the nothing seas
at nothing, or wading out
at low tide through sands and sands
as only the wavering water
lifts itself about a raised knee.
Shivering, she cries, “And so, after I abandon
my father, sibling, mother, make enemies
of my friends, you, faithless, leave me,
all promises forgotten, alone, on
an empty shore, as if you think
the gods of old no longer
rule, as if you think it nothing
to cast away all your promises, as if
to unclasp a hand, to leave a knee
bare where once a hand
rested, was nothing, your implacable
heart incapable of pity.
And yet...how sweet you sounded
when you used to let me hope
you wished only to be married to me
and promised me promises
now blown away in the wind.
Let no woman ever listen ever
to the promises a man makes
in the heat of passion,
when anything will be promised,
any oath sworn, and every
promise forgotten like steam
evaporating into nothing.
And I, I would abandon a brother
to be with you when you swore
you would die without me,
for which I should be given up
to wild birds and animals
to tear me apart and leave what’s left
strewn about unmourned, no
funeral rites for me, not
a handful of dirt over my remains
if any remains there may be.
What lioness gave birth to you on
a mountain, what sea spat you forth,
what metal-hearted Scylla, that
you could respond to love,
like this?
Marriage!  I’d have settled for
slavery, washing your white
feet, or wasting my life
away embroidering
you some intricate coverlet
for your bed...
 
But why am I lamenting wildly like this
into the winds which will never
hear me or reply,
when he is tossing and turning
somewhere in the middle of the ocean
and all that seaweed at my feet
is empty of all humanity. 
It seems to be my fate
to call out to those who cannot
hear me or respond –
but nothing that happened should
ever have happened!  Better
for that journey from the provinces
never to have been made, father
never left, story of the
Minotaur never told,
and no lies listened to
from a faithless lover. 
Because where can I escape to,
wherever I should go? 
Roiling seas divide me from
the mountains of my homeland,
my father will never receive me after
I abandoned my brother for
a lover, drenched
in my brother’s blood, and
I have no marriage to take refuge
in, when he, the one I loved,
disappears like the wind,
rowing against the current in
full flight.
There is nothing for me
on these empty shores, this empty
island is no home, and yet
there is nowhere to go
and no way out, surrounded
by sea on all sides,
on all sides trapped, with
no escape and no hope
of escape, every thing
I see speaks of nothing but death.
 
But before death closes down the last
of my vision and takes away all of
my will, ruined as I am, I will
demand at least to be heard
by the gods if not by anyone else
and secure for myself a promise
that my words will be remembered,
that it is Theseus who will suffer from
the anguish I suffer from now, and the
forgetfulness with which he abandoned me
will shadow everything he tries to do from now
and for forever.  
 
And when she spoke the whole world
juddered into a new alignment, the surf-topped
seas trembling and the stars shaking in the skies above.
 
And Theseus let slip from his mind, as
the storm clouded over it, the last promises
he had held fast until then, and so no gave no sign
of his safety to his sorrowing father
as he sailed, mind adrift, into port, the story   
being that his father, when Theseus
was to set sail, would not send him away
with his blessing but in full grieving
with ash rubbed through his hair, and the ship
fitted out with a dirty sail stained red with
rusted iron.  But if Theseus should miraculously
succeed and his life be spared, then he was to
remember these commands of his father,
stored in his memory, locked
in his heart, and held safe against the erosure
of time, that as soon as the ship
should be in sight of shore, the rust red sails
must be taken down, and in their place, the white sail
be raised that will signal preparations
should begin for a lifetime of celebration.
This promise Theseus had remembered steadily
until it blew out of his mind the way
clouds will drift off in the wind, so that
his father, gazing out to sea already
exhausted with grief, on seeing
the rust red sails, threw himself from his high
look-out to his death on the rocks below.
And Theseus returned to a home wracked with grief
to feel himself torn apart with the same agonies
of guilt and anguish that he himself
had delivered to Ariadne and which she felt
still as she stood, gazing into the empty
sea, at his always disappearing ship,
while on another part of the coverlet Bacchus
can be seen, seeking Ariadne, aflame
with love, and over here are all the followers
of Bacchus, ranting and wailing and tossing
their heads, beating their tambourines,
singing in galliambic rhythms, blowing
raucous blasts from their horns, a terrible
cacophony, though not worse than
the piping flute...And this is what
was embroidered on the coverlet, gazed
at by all the Thessalian youth on their way
to the drinks table and onwards each
to their own delicious oblivion,
as the palace emptied out and was filled
by the presence of the gods.
 
Down they came, Chiron from Mt Pelion
with all the flowers of the levelled valleys,
Peneus came from the valleys of Tempe
bringing bay trees, plane trees and poplar,
Prometheus the prophet with fading scars,
and, finally, the father of all the gods
with all his sons, except for those
gods who chose not to honour such
a wedding. Except for those gods, all
were present and shining and easy in the
splendour of the palace.
 
And then arrived the Fates, with shaking bodies
but prophetic words and their hands
never at rest but working always
at their weaving, the left hand holding
the distaff of wool, the right hand
drawing out the wool, and their teeth
breaking off threads to make the work even.
With little bits of wool caught
between their teeth, and drifts of wool
at their feet, they sang:
 
Hear now this prophesy, given to you on this day of all days:
Strong as your leadership is, in time it shall be not you but
such a son that his name will resound through the far halls of time -
 
so the weaving runs on,
                        and the threads draw together.
 
No house has ever yet harboured a love that is greater than your love,
Never the pact of fidelity that will be honoured as yours will,
Thetis and Peleus, now and forever bonded together –
 
            and the weaving runs on,
                        and the threads draw together.
 
Fearless will be the son to be born to you, famous Achilles,
Known to his enemies not by his back but face to face, always,
Fearless and fleet he will prove to be, striking like lightning in battle –
 
            so the weaving runs on,
                        and the threads draw together.
 
Never a warrior ever will be to compare with him
Driven by grief and by rage as the blood of the Trojans
Runs in the fields in the last days of Troy’s proud history –
 
            and the weaving runs on,
                        and the threads draw together.
 
After the brilliant deeds of this fearless warrior
Mothers will tear at their hair and beat at their breasts
Grieving the children they see for the last time to bury them,
 
            so the weaving runs on,
                        and the threads draw together.
 
As when a reaper should take too early the still forming wheat ears
Never to ripen in full summer sunshine, so will the iron-red
Trojan battlefields after the fighting be strewn with young bodies - 
 
            and the weaving runs on,
                        and the threads draw together.
 
Testament to his heroicism will be the wave of Scamander
Pouring itself into swift-flowing Hellespont choking its current
Clogged up with corpses, the streams running warm from the bloodshed –
 
            so the weaving runs on,
                        and the threads draw together.
 
Testament finally to his great valour comes after his death
Death being meted out also to honour him with a girl’s body
Gilding his burial mound with her golden young limbs –
 
            and the weaving runs on,
                        and the threads draw together.
 
This was the way that the Greeks in their victory relished their fortune,
As, on the edge of a meadow, a passing plow might cut down a flower,
So was Polyxena, silently bowing her head, cut down –
 
            so the weaving runs on,
                        and the threads draw together.
 
Therefore why hesitate to bring about this marriage all favoured,
Now let the husband receive with due eagerness his willing bride,
Now let the bride be bestowed on a husband still swept up in passion –
 
            and the weaving runs on,
                        and the threads draw together.
 
When the girl’s nurse will return in the morning no longer will she
Circle her neck with yesterday’s ribbon, nor yet will her mother
Worry about her sleeping alone in a barren marriage –
 
            so the weaving runs on,
                        and the threads draw together.
 
Such were the prophecies given by the Fates
to Peleus, in a time before ours
when the gods still visited the homes
of heroes, setting themselves before us in
dazzling display.  Often the father of all gods
would light up his temple,
returning to look on at the sacrifices
made in his name, often from
the highest peak of Parnassus the roaring
Thyiades came following
Liber as everyone stoked the fires
of his altars all through the cities, often
in times of war one god or another
would intervene pulling
the strings of fate one way or
another.  But how could they return
now when all of humanity
has become so unspeakably awful,
brothers with hands steeped in
fraternal blood, parents ungrieved for,
fathers waiting for the deaths of
their first-borns to take for themselves
their sons’ wives in marriage, a mother
sleeping with a son with no thought
of how she dishonouors the gods
of her household?  Entangled in such 
unspeakable crimes as we are, how could
​the gods do other than turn away
from the sight of us? 
These are not days in which gods might appear to us,
these are days the gods hide from the light of.