04-24-2022, 03:33 AM
(This post was last modified: 04-24-2022, 04:41 PM by RiverNotch.)
Do you hear the ancient chorus, a line of women
in their city's finest linen, their ears and necks spangled
with gold and silver, their throats intoning the words
of their black-haired chief?
"Deathless Aphrodite", they go, imagining
men in place of the woman their chief
imagined that the goddess would return
to end her longing.
High voices reach the goddess, while the low
drone that ties the performance together
honors with its pre-verbal "Na" the goddess
who rules the dead.
"Some say that an army of ships is the most beautiful
thing on this black earth", the chorus sings
to welcome the men returning from the perils
of vengeance and the sea
as the infernal queen prepares for her return
to her gloomy realm, but now she sits
where once she roused her husband grant the wish
of despondent Orpheus
with tears -- but now it is winter -- and the chorus
must rouse to more ardent action the men
for the polis to have new life. "Come to me now", and the ode
transforms into a paean
as the singers begin to disperse: the maidens start for the fields
where they'll weave crowns out of flowers they dried
over the summer, the wives march to their homes side-by-side
with their husbands,
and black-haired Psappho joins the low-voiced crones
to the temples of their protector Hera,
their preserver Hestia, and their bosom-friend
Persephone.
in their city's finest linen, their ears and necks spangled
with gold and silver, their throats intoning the words
of their black-haired chief?
"Deathless Aphrodite", they go, imagining
men in place of the woman their chief
imagined that the goddess would return
to end her longing.
High voices reach the goddess, while the low
drone that ties the performance together
honors with its pre-verbal "Na" the goddess
who rules the dead.
"Some say that an army of ships is the most beautiful
thing on this black earth", the chorus sings
to welcome the men returning from the perils
of vengeance and the sea
as the infernal queen prepares for her return
to her gloomy realm, but now she sits
where once she roused her husband grant the wish
of despondent Orpheus
with tears -- but now it is winter -- and the chorus
must rouse to more ardent action the men
for the polis to have new life. "Come to me now", and the ode
transforms into a paean
as the singers begin to disperse: the maidens start for the fields
where they'll weave crowns out of flowers they dried
over the summer, the wives march to their homes side-by-side
with their husbands,
and black-haired Psappho joins the low-voiced crones
to the temples of their protector Hera,
their preserver Hestia, and their bosom-friend
Persephone.