65

Ryan Gallagher

Even if I’m constantly alone and the building pain
calls me away, Hortalus, from the bright girls
and the mind of my soul is not able to fetch the sweet
births of the Muses tossing in such evil and
because my brother has just brushed against the gorge
of Lethe’s water spreading over his pale feet—
the earth of Troy under the Rhoeteum shore
crushes him and swipes him from our eyes.
Never again . . (missing text) . .
. . . you my life my dear brother,
can I see you again? Yes, I will always love you.
I will always sing your sad mortal song,
like the thick shade of a tree branch,
the Daulian bird hums the wasted fate of Itylus.
And though I’m still in great torment, Hortalus, I hurl
these lyrics of Battiades right at you.
Your faithful words, exhaled into the vague wind,
truly cleanse my soul. But it’s in vain.
As she lets the apple that her new husband gave her
fall off her lap when her mother
arrives, from under her soft slip,
she falls forward miserably,
bent over the ground and heaving
as she learns of this sadness, her face turns red.

66

Ryan Gallagher

He who watches a universe of light,
who considers rising stars on night’s field
or how the flaming polish of the quick sun fades
or how constellations fall off the horizon
or how a delicious love secretly calls
Trivia curled in low mist
down to the rock caves of Latmus—
It’s Conon who sees me in celestial light
and turns Berenice’s hair
into crisp lightning, and who promised oceans
of goddesses extending in a flow of smooth forearms
when the king, newly blest by Hymen,
swore to waste the Assyrian border
wearing the sweet trace of last night’s struggle
which he stole from a virgin.
Is Venus despised by brides?
Or do they deceive us with false tears
when they politely lay down at the edge of a bed?
No. May the gods help me—they weep falsely.
My queen made this clear when she cried
watching her new husband leave for war.
And you wept—not for your empty bed,
but because your precious brother was torn away.
And so, grief devours deep into the heart
until one’s entire breast unfurls
and is ripped from the mind. And yet I knew you
as a young girl who flashed with brilliance.
Have you forgotten that soft promise—your union
with royalty? Who is left to be brave?
And the sorrowful words you wept for your husband?
Jupiter, how often was this sad light on her hands?
What god has struck you? Is it that lovers
must not be far from each other’s flesh?
And so, you vowed to all the gods,
not to be without fresh bull’s blood if he is brought back
for a sweet reunion. In no time,
the Egyptian borders and Asia are conquered.
With this done, I give myself to the heavens
and offer this new wish for old promises:
Against my will, O Queen, I leave your crown.
Against my will, I swear by you and your head.
If anyone can prove that it is useless, then give him my praise.
Who can claim to be as strong as iron?
Even that mountain, towering over the shores, was swept away,
where the bright Son of Thia sailed
when the Medes created a new sea and came straight through
the Athon ranges with a fleet of barbarous sons.
What will long wisps of hair do, when they submit to iron laws?
Jupiter, may every gene of the Chalybes perish—
they were the first to bore into the earth’s veins
and draw strong iron shackles.
My little sister’s braids were just cut, mourning
my fate, when the twin of Memnon, the Ethiopian,
pushes low mist in motion, pounding feathers that flap.
The wings of the horses of Locrian Arsinoe
lift me through the air. I’m flown past shade
to the purest lap of Venus.
This is the service of the Zephyr. It leaves
for the Grecian shores of Canopus.
And here, the sea is liquid and various
from Ariadne’s golden wreath of celestial light
traced in stars. But we could also shine
if the gold were stripped from her head.
To be dew wet-walking in billows where the gods live,
a new constellation among ancient stars,
touching the light of a Virgin and the fury
of a Lion, the wolf Callisto or the daughter of King Lycaon.
I turn in the star set, led by Bootes slow wheeling,
which has just dropped into the deep ocean.
At night, the footsteps of the gods shadow me.
By day, the hair of Tethys returns with white sea-spray.
Let me grind this speech out, virgin of Rhamnus,
because fear will not cover up the truth,
even if the stars could ruin me with insecure lies.
Why not unravel the truths of the heart?
It’s not that I enjoy this, but I remain torn,
torn from the crown of my mistress.
While she was still a virgin,
I drank all of her perfume.
So, when the pine torch is lit for your desired union,
don’t lie down before you join minds
seducing him with your naked breasts
which are as beautiful as gold—
the gold which was offered for your untouched bed.
Whoever surrenders to the filth of adultery
drinks the smooth dust that evil rewards.
I will not ask for anything from the unworthy.
But rather, O Brides, may the hearth remain lit.
Let love sit at home and remain ripe.
In truth, my queen, when you lay beneath the stars
and please Venus in the festive light,
don’t let me lie down in the shadows of your perfumes.
Instead, reward me with influence.
Let the stars hang. Again the queen’s hair flashes.
Orion is right next to Aquarius.

68

Ryan Gallagher

With this, my fortune and my downfall, I feel the sharp
weight from the tears you dropped, written in your letter.
Like a violent shipwreck in the foaming sea swell,
I will get up and return to Death’s door
without the rest from the soft sleep of sacred Venus.
I’m left alone to suffer in bed.
The sweet songs of the old words of Muses
don’t please me when my mind is anxious all night.
I am grateful that you are my friend
and that you send the gifts of Muses and Venus.
But my troubles will not be unknown to you, Manlius.
It’s not that I hate my duty as a friend.
Accept this, even though my fortunes are sunk in waves
of misery. So don’t expect any happy lines.
There was a time when I wore the plain clothes of youth,
when life was a pleasure, spring flowers bloomed.
We were full of games that were not unnoticed by our goddess,
who mixes sweet bitterness with her spear.
So all of this enthusiasm has left me alone to mourn my brother’s
death. I’m miserable. My brother is gone.
You, my favorite brother, your death has numbed me.
Our one and only home is buried with you.
Every one of our joys perishes with you.
This sweet love of yours fed on life.
All of my mind is ruined. You, who left everyone
with your enthusiasm and a delicate soul.
So, when you write this note to Catullus to ask
if it’s terrible in Verona, where even the best
warm their cold limbs by themselves in bed—
it’s not terrible, Manlius, it’s just so miserable.
Forgive me then, if my sorrow has taken away
a gift which I cannot give you,
for the best writers are not here with me.
They are at the house in Rome, where we live,
at my place, where my time has gathered.
Only a small box has followed me here,
which has refused to help the sharp pain in my mind
or satisfy the nature of my soul.
If you cannot use this, then come here for the rest.
Besides, I would give you more, if there were any.

68a

I cannot keep quiet, my goddesses, about how much Allius
guides me or how grateful I am for his guidance—
Time never leaves. It skips a generation.
He covers this blind night with youth.
So I’ll say this to you and you can say that many thousand
years ago, this scroll started speaking
verses so that he lives even after we’re ashes
and that he becomes even more well known in death
and that this spider, high up the thin thread of her web,
does not forget the name Allius in her work,
because he gave me both sides of Amathus’ attention to love.
And you know the way he burns me
when I’m as hot as the hottest Trinacrian cliff
and the Malian water on the Oetean range in Thermopylae.
Sadness continues and does not melt away with the light
bent in the rain and sorrow on a wet face.
This is how it shines through the air at the top of a mountain—
a spring bursts from moss and stone.
And when it drops from the steep rolls in the valley
and goes through the center of a thick crowd of people,
a sweet rest for the traveler, weary and sweating,
when the summer fields are heavy with ashes and gasping
just like a sailor does when he’s tossed in a black storm
and goes after a gentle breath of air
again praying to Pollux, again calling to Castor
for the type of assistance that Allius arrives with.
He lays himself across the wide-fenced fields,
and his home, and then he offers his mistress
who strengthens us with a universal love
that is as soft as the white feet of my goddess.
She arrives at the door, leaning like a weary flower
flashes. Her sandals stand straight up
when she arrives with the desire that Laodamia had
when she wanted to be with her husband Protesilaus,
leader of the Thessalians, who had not yet been deceived.
Love is sacrificed with the sacred blood of heaven for peace
because it’s not a sign of greatness, my Rhamnusian virgin,
to invite me back into the darkness
to fast on empty stars like Laodamia’s dead husband,
who bleeds on the graves of the pious.
Before her husband was caught and his neck snapped,
he came home again after another winter,
eager for a long night of intense love.
How was she able to live without her husband?
Because the Fates knew that he wouldn’t last
if he went as a soldier to the Ilian walls
where Helen was first raped by the Argives
and the men of Troy began to move themselves.
Troy, a common crime for the graves of Europe and Asia.
Troy, the bitter ashes of strength and virtue,
which were swept up with the miserable passing
of my brother. It’s so miserable with my brother gone.
So miserable with the pleasing light of my brother gone.
With your death, our one and only home
and everything else seems false, without joy.
Your sweet love rolled through this life.
And now you are far away in the middle of death
and not near the rest of our family’s ashes,
but in the filth of Troy, alone in the misery of Troy.
Death holds you far away in a foreign land,
where all the youth of Greece sped off to. And when
they all left their rooms and fireplaces,
Paris took her freedom away
by raping her in the heavy silence of her bed.
How could this happen to you, precious Laodamia?
The sweet love and soul of your husband have been
ripped away. You have swallowed all that is love.
Spring is rubbed away in a harsh abyss,
where the Greeks were in Pheneus, near the mountains
of Mercury, where the rich swamp lands are drained,
where the blue mountains were once dug for its marrow,
where the bastard son of Amphitryon was
when he shot the Sagittarian birds
into a lower realm and polished
the many doors of the gods in the night sky.
Hebe, goddess of youth, will not be a virgin for long.
And so, deeper than the deepest pit was your great love,
just like an iron collar understands the wild.
You cared for your husband like a grandparent cares
for the last born of his only child,
who, when faced with the same wealth of pain from old age,
signs his name to his will.
Whoever takes pleasure in the mockery of his race—
he wakes up with vultures in his head
and is not pleased anymore with his snow colored
dove, who many say shamelessly
devours kisses from all the beaks that she can gather—
more than any other woman before her.
But you alone have transformed this great fury
when you were with that golden man,
or at least when he let himself have
my light. What did he bring to this lap of ours?
He flew around from here to there and this white
Cupid was often in a saffron tunic.
And even though she does not want Catullus anymore,
I will take the scattered things that I steal from my shy goddess
unless this awful display disgusts her so much,
that Jove, high up in the heavens,
lets the husband know that he’s to blame
for all the many secrets that she has.
But men should not be compared with gods.
. . .(missing text) . . .
. . . . . . .
shaking under the burden of raising a family.
It’s not like her father led her to me on his right arm
from the fragrance of an Assyrian home.
She gave me stolen gifts in the shattered night
from her husband, taking herself here and there.
How can this be it? Have we only been given one?
If she marks the day with a whiter stone,
then this drink is for you. A song,
Allius, so that all that you give is returned,
unless rust touches your name,
this and that day and another and another.
Add this to all the ways of the gods, like when Themis
gave the ancient pious men iron.
May you both be happy, and may your life,
and this home, where we were young, and this mistress,
and for he who gave away land
to every first born son.
Long before anyone cared for me, you were
my light. How can I live with such sweetness?