Penelope
a poem for a love declined
Well, you have asked me for his bow—here, string it!
And if you can, then here you’ve got the target.
Shoot straight, O would-be Cupid, through the axes,
and if your arrow’s true, then let it strike my heart,
and I’ll be yours as sure as death and taxes.
But if your strength is not an equal for the bow,
or if your skill to shoot is no match for your show,
then stay not longer than to say a shamed goodbye,
and let me weave alone my wistful waiting art.
Or if I turn out wrong, then more the fool I.
There! You have failed. And does it so surprise you?
Your strength was apt, and no one there denies you,
but skill to guide your arrow through the deadly tests
that guard my lonely soul, you wanted from the start,
and I will wait the coming of Odysseus.
2007
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This is great. I especially like the dual meaning of the arrow with the mention of Cupid. I’d love it if you could try something similar with the story of Andromache - her tragic parallel?
PS Penguin Clothbound Classics have just brought out a pretty version of a retelling of the Odyssey - I’m hoping to buy it for one of the children and read myself - in case anyone is interested!
Love the lines:
..if your strength is not an equal for the bow,
or if your skill to shoot is no match for your show,
then stay not longer than to say a shamed goodbye,
and let me weave alone my wistful waiting art.
Such lonely tapestries tell our time! Since Cupid's darts are mythically random -- inflaming one heart and souring the next: What of the arrows which glance off those hearts and ricohet into inadvertant ones, neither hot or cold but flat, noncommittal, fleeting, and poorly imagined -- Suitors. Ghosting whatever they embrace. That third errancy seems to have blossomed in the digital age. Odysseus, where art thou!