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Aeneas is trying not to cry. 

He’s doing what’s right. What the gods ask of him, he’s protecting his son and his father and he will be the founder of a new city, a prosperous empire, he will be Aeneas the Trojan, Aeneas the Roman, Aeneas the great. 

He is also trying not to cry. 

Why, when he is the son of Venus, must love be forsaken? Why, when he is mentored by so many of the gods above, did his city fall and his cousin die? 

Why, if he is wonderful Aeneas, must he go through so many tribulations?

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Come to the forest, where wild things flourish, 

Where those that are broken lie dying and calm. 

Don’t mind the black trees, for as far as you see, 

Because fire is something that sings you a song. 

And dear, bear your teeth, take your knife out its sheath, 

And come tell me a story of wanton and woe.

I have lived here for ages, I have turned all the pages

Inside of this epic that you call your life. 

So let the ships burn, take a turn, you will learn, 

Of the place where those broken lie dying and calm. 

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I tell the story of a man and his weapons, he who was a refugee from fate

And he who came from Troy to Italy, seeking Lavinian shores, 

He was thrown to and fro by both the earth and by the high seas, 

Whilst Juno’s bitter memory of the war brought her rabid anger down upon him;

He passed through many tribulations, and also suffered the Trojan war, as he sought to plant a city,

And he brought his gods to Latium, from which the Roman people sprung forth, 

Those fathers of Alba, and the towering city walls of Rome. 

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There is blood on his teeth in my dreams. I wake up muffling my own screams in a pillow, Patroclus’s firm hands on my back, rubbing soothing circles, whispering sweet inane things that could never save us from Troy. 

In the daylight, there is no blood of his own staining his mouth, just the grim smile of a soldier and his hands sticky-red from others. I check every day, but the blood is never his own. We wash our hands together, and I kiss them once they are clean, we lace our fingers together in a silent show of understanding.

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If this is your god I will fashion myself wings, fly up to heaven, and slay him with my own blood streaked sword. 

You tried to kill me, you got my son instead, I’ll cough blood in your face as you murder me for false religion, say do it, coward. See what rewards he gives you for this, and then I will die, choking like a dog, crushed underneath my horse, raising my chin to goad you, kill me and be done with it, Aeneas. 

Kill me and be done with it. I’ll spit at the feet of your god. 

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The stories we told were of the useless sort. That is to say, all stories that are told are of the useless sort, but this one was particularly useless. Why? Because it was meant to keep us doing something we had no more strength for. 

Stories told around a campfire are of the most useless sort, because they exist only to push forward towards pain, encourage yourself and others to do more, do better, sit by the campfire until the embers fade and you are ready to shed the blood of young men once again. 

That is what I mean. 

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My story is told over and over and over again, 

From books to battlefields, classrooms to shotgun casings.

I am a hundred great men, but Helen launched a thousand ships, and I am all of those men, too. 

Blood sits heavy like a fatted calf in my stomach. 

Here. 

A great poet, one like me, though she was softer, perhaps, 

Once said two things. That the muses had given her joy, and that when she was dead, she would live forever. 

Zeus, as he is wont to do, granted me only one of these gifts, 

And I shall live forever.

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You may live, you may die,  

Here the hidden things lie, 

Beneath those silver hills. 

Now we speak, now we sing, 

Of a quick and dead king, 

Whose body never stills.

He is frightfully gray, 

And his hair is like hay, 

And his grin is rotted through

For he’s pale as a ghost, 

And he ne’er leaves his post, 

On the hills where the bellflowers grew.

He is mickle strong, 

Sing your happy song, 

Move a-fair-ly-long, 

Danger’s come and gone, 

Avalon rises once more. 

In our darkest hour, 

From his fun’ral bower 

He will stand with a poppy sword again. 

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Cover the casket and bury the basket 

And make sure the child can never reach home. 

But if he won’t die then you’ve ought now to lie, 

And say that the mother did eat of his flesh. 

Rest easy in sleep, but you’ve sown and you’ll reap, 

And the son of the king is not buried for long. 

Still you told her to wait, seven years at the gate

And to sing to the travelers of her false tale. 

You married a sí, then you scoffed at her plea, 

But you, you’ll pay the price of your fairy mound woes.

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Dear Philoctetes, 

For what it’s worth, I never hated you specifically. 

Maybe I did. Maybe you were an easy target. I’m sorry I left you. 

I needed that bow, you see? It would bring me home to my wife, to my child- you understand that, I just needed to see my child again. 

Being kind never got you anywhere, you’re rotting on Lemnos from the inside out, you’re a good man. 

Is that what you want to hear? That I’m not? Because I know I’m not good already, it’s the only reason I’m still alive, pouring wine at your grave.

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So speak now of a story of woe and of glory, 

A tale of the ages that never shall fade. 

The sun shines so bright, and the children of light, 

And it’s nearly a beautiful thing to behold. 

Were it not for the death, those last blood tinged weak breaths, 

Of children, now soldiers, of fools and kings.

Do you not love the song? Sing it all the day long? 

Play the lyre in your tent and make holy the gore? 

You’re as guilty as they, with eyes wild and fey, 

You sat on the walls as great Ilium burned.

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That war and that glory, the end of that story,

Isn’t trying to make you a hero of old. 

So the gods whisper lies, but it’s true that you’ll die,

When the bards sing your name, you won’t hear it at all. 

So you die keeping bees, or you die on your knees

On Troy's ruddy soil that’s splattered with blood. 

Does it matter at all? On which field that you fall? 

On the first you will live with the man that you love. 

But you already chose, he’s dead in your clothes, 

Antilochus soon will return from the fight. 

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If I were to fall in love with you, it would not be through one kiss, playfully exchanged. If I were to fall in love with you, it would not even be between two kisses, somewhat less playfully exchanged.
If I were to fall in love with you, I would have to fall in love somehow else, somehow that wasn’t three kisses, exchanged for a bargain that made my chest ache more each night.
You see?
I could never tell the knights about that evening, those five kisses we exchanged with steadily more passion.
But I never forgot, you see?

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Honestly, I wish that I were dead. 

Ah, she left me weeping so

And she said this thing: 

Oh what dreadful things have happened to us!

Sappho, I do swear that I do not leave you willingly.

And so I told her: 

Farewell, leave me,

But remember me, for you will someday know how we cared for you.

But if you do not, I want

To remind you

[...] And we had such beautiful times.

For you put on many crowns of violets 

and roses and crocuses

[...] at my side

And many coils

Of blossoms

[...]were resting on your soft throat

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Darling I loved you from another life, 

From the bottom of the sea to the want for a wife, 

From garlands of flowers to to gardens and bowers, 

I loved you from another life. 

Darling I love you and my hands still shake, 

From  banks of the river to my own heartache

The chickpeas growing tall and the golden waterfalls, 

I still love you from another life. 

And I sing, sing, sing, are you listening to me?

You are sweeter than the sugar of a honeybee

Lay my longing ashore, I can't do this anymore, 

Loving you from another life.

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Speak. 

I kissed him because I loved him. I kissed him because I didn’t know how else to tell him that I was sorry. I kissed him because it was an easy way to kill him. I kissed him because he wanted to be kissed. I kissed him because our lives are too short not to. I kissed him so that there would be paintings and poetry and songs of us. I kissed him so that I could lie to myself for a little longer. I kissed him so I could taste his lips as I swung from the tree. 

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In autumn ere the frost does fall, 

We sing of heroes bold.

Brave Robyn in his mossy coat

And by his side, young John. 

The yeomans hearts both ached with love

Our hero missed his bride. 

But little John had no such thoughts

His love walked by his side. 

In the tallest trees or the deepest lakes

In the prison or in the street, 

Our John would follow Robyn Hode

Right stoutly, at his feet. 

A truer man was ne’er made, 

Nor better friend was seen, 

He did love far better Robyn Hode

Then he loved the rest, each one. 

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Hector was a father and that absolves him of sin. 

He fought a wicked war for a horrible man and he slaughtered and he taunted, but he was also a father, not a warrior. Or maybe he was both. 

The thing is, he wasn’t fighting the war for glory, he was fighting so that his son could live and his wife would have a home, which absolves him of sin because who could possibly tell a husband to sacrifice his wife, a father to sacrifice his son? 

The thing about the war is that the men were horribly, undeniably, gentle. 

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Sing me a song about ages long gone, 

A story of caring boys wrapped in a storm. 

About mens wild passion, and Aegean assassins, 

The death of poor Dolon in spite of the oath.

Because liars have sons, and the war must be won, 

But to come back from that takes a damn lot of work. 

Through the rubble of Troy you must cast down the boy

He’s the age that Telemachus was ere you left. 

You were never so soft, what you had, you have now lost, 

But with more of a chance then you might have been kind. 

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There is pain underneath Mordred’s fingernails when he lets go of Excalibur. Such a silly thing, he thinks, as he brings his aching fingers to cup the gash in his chest. He was just stabbed through the stomach, and all he can think about is the pain underneath his fingernails. 

He tries to think about his life, about what he’s done wrong and whether or not it’s going to be worth it in the end, when Orkney beats Camelot and Arthur dies, but all that can come out of his mouth is I’m sorry. 

Mordred wonders what he’s sorry for. 

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It’s hard to explain what the war is about, so in the end he just apologizes. Not in life, though. He would never stoop so low in life. 

Agravain never really knew what he was doing, not when he stabbed Lamorak or screamed at Gawain or killed his mother for incest. It was all just a guess, and a really damn bad one at that. 

He wonders if he could have been good, at the end of it all. 

He wonders if a child born in a bad home is always meant to grow up evil. Then his soul fades. 

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There is blood on the floor and on the chairs, on the table and splattered thick over Guinevere, her mouth open wide in horror. She should probably close it, because there’s still blood pouring from the green man’s neck, and it’s going to get into that perfect O her lips make if she keeps staring. 

Gawain laughs. It’s inappropriate, but the scene is so absurd that it’s hard no to. The man is headless and laughing, and it looks like something out of a comedy. And Gawain is going to die in a year and a day, so he laughs. 

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Kay didn’t trust himself. He was rough around the edges, brash, and uncouth. He was mean. Kay said as much to Bedivere one night when they were alone. “I think that I’m evil.”

Bedivere kissed Kay’s forehead, which did nothing to make Kay feel better. “I mean it,” said Kay. “I’m a bad man.”

“You’re not to me,” said Bedivere. 

“We’re fucking” Kay said. “It’s different.” 

“Hey,” Bedivere said. “Look at me.” 

Kai didn’t. 

Bedivere grabbed his chin and forced it upwards.”You are a good man. You are a flawed man, and a good man, and I love you.” 

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Once upon an autumn night I wished that you would die. 

Once upon an autumn night I cursed you and I cried. 

I fell to shame, on swords and flames, my body burnt and battered. 

The crown of stars upon my head fell down to earth and shattered. 

If truth be told, my soul be sold, I let you have my body. 

But once upon a cold sea night I cursed what Venus caught me. 

I hope you die a coward's death, the coward that you are. 

I hope upon my own spilled blood the winds blow fast and far. 

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I want to read the mediocre stuff. Sure, we have Cicero and Aeschylus and Beowulf, but I want to read what was mediocre. I want to read the works of a bad playwright, the poetry of someone who had no sense of meter, a child’s daydreams about being king. I’m tired of the greats.  How did everyone else spill their souls? What words meant the world to them? I’m tired of the muses. I want to read the words of the museless, stumble through unmetered elegiac poetry. Give me the words of the uneducated, and then we will see antiquity. 

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The wind is cold on her face. The last gasps of summer before fall comes roaring in with its oranges and reds and decay. She’s biting the inside of her lip, and there’s a fleece sweater wrapped around her waist, though it’s cold enough that she really should put it on. 

It’s that smell, the one you can only get in the bible belt at the end of August. Goldenrod mixed with ashes mixed with something she can’t quite place- maybe it’s hope. The air smells like decay and hope. 

Baucis isn’t dead, not yet. That will come with time. 

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She’s in the grocery store parking lot when it happens. A truck, out of nowhere. She doesn’t even have time to think, which might be a blessing,  she’s dead before her body slams into the pavement. 

Later, Erinna will come to collect her body with splotchy cheeks and shaking hands. Later, there will be poems sung about this girl- Baucis. She will become a story, she will read her own name on her tombstone and watch Erinna carve a poem onto the back of the grave, breaking her bowie knife in the process. Later. Now, she is despair. Later, hope.

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Erinna roams the streets, she tells her stories, she’s wearing a red bra that barely classifies as a shirt, which is somehow important, because it reminds her of the color Baucis was at the end.
Erinna cries a lot. She goes to a lot of clubs, too, because drunk women in the bathroom listen to her patiently. She kisses more girls, and it never tastes like Baucis, which is okay, but also not okay at all. She tells every girl her story, makes them promise not to forget, makes them promise to tell the story again. She makes Baucis unforgettable.

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Sappho sits at a booth in the farmers market with a zine that she’s selling for $2, because that’s how much it costs to print the thing. She promised to tell a story, though she always feels like she’s got it wrong in some undefinable way. 

She writes more about Erinna than about Baucis. People see the front cover of her zine and recite The Family: A Proclamation to her. 

A girl grabs her arm and says I thought I was the only one, and another stares at her, but doesn’t say a word. Sappho still holds her head high.  

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Let’s start with this first: 

I’ve been good, I’ve been worst, 

Here’s what’s been done to me over the years: 

Where once I was great now my heart’s filled with hate. 

Where once I had wit, now my lips only spit, 

And I used to keep court now the kitchen’s my fort

I was part of a pair, now I don’t really care

Can I change what the story decided to do?

I have always been sharp. Winning order’s an art.

 But now I’m just mean, don’t pretend you’ve not seen. 

If I could be better I wouldn’t be here. 

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Mordred is leaning on his sword when Arthur sees him. He’s crying, but Arthur can’t see that, not from afar. What Arthur sees is that Mordred has his helmet off as he surveys the carnage, and that’s practically an invitation to run at him. Ywain tries to hold him back, tries to get him to remember the prophecy that dearly deceased Gawain spoke to him the night previous but what Arthur didn’t tell Ywain when he spoke of the dream was that he wants to die. He’s already bleeding in so many places, what’s one more wound to speak of?

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They don’t tell you that you’re going to watch your brother die. 

They don’t tell you that it’s not glorious, it’s just sticky and sweaty and loud. 

They don’t tell you that the horses take down as many people as the men when they fall. 

They don’t tell you that the blood is a mirror for your fathers face in your own eyes.

That you’re going to see your father from the other side of the field. 

That he’s going to run at you, that he hates you now and forever. 

They don’t tell you that you’re going to live.

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Bedivere didn’t want to betray Arthur. He really, really didn’t. But then he saw the sword and wondered about letting it rot away in the lake.
He came back.
Arthur called him a brigand and a liar, and Bedivere didn’t disagree.
He intended to throw it the second time he reached the lake, but it was of such fine craftsmanship that he couldn’t, and he hid it in the trunk of a tree.
Arthur wasn’t disappointed or angry, he was just sad. That was what gave Bedivere the resolve to throw the sword into the lake for the last time.

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I’m not a Judas, I promise. I’m not. 

I wanted to protect Gwenhwyfar. I wanted to be loved, don’t call me a Judas, I was never that bad. 

I could have gotten better. 

I wanted to make Arthur proud, I’m not Judas. I wouldn’t have taken the money. 

I did my best with what I could and I’m not a bad man, just a broken one who made bad choices. I would do it differently if I had a chance, or maybe I’d do it all the same. In defense of myself -Medraut- I don’t know where I went wrong. 

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I love you, and so I am going to consume you. I need two hearts, darling, one of them has got to be yours. 

But that’s not the only reason I’m going to eat you, love: It is as close as I can get to bearing your child. To have part of you inside of me, to foster that piece of, grow with it, keep you with me forever. It’s two steps removed from sex, eating you. 

My teeth are sharp, your blood is red, I will lather you in olive oil and sickle-scrape it into you- I love you. 

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On a christmastide night by the bright candlelight
Came a man to the house of the Camelot King.
He was green tip to toe and his eyes seemed to glow
Glow a ruddy red color, in spite of his hue.
He came into the hall, and he looked at them all
And said “Arthur, these can’t be the best of your men.
For they barely have beards, much less kenn of spears
Will one of them fight me and prove of his worth?”
Gawain, he said yes, he would fight, he would best
That holly-leaf faerie that stood treelike there.

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Gods are made, they aren’t born, they are forged in a storm,

They are men who have grown far too large for their shell.

We are all made of dust- made of love and of lust

And we all create gods that will send us to hell. 

You are larger than life, you’re a god, you’re a knife, 

You’re a tool for forces that rend and that tear. 

My shell’s small, and it’s weak, so it’s quite easy to break

And to turn myself into what’s lighter than air. 

I’ve made god from the dust of the garden of eve

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I’m thinking about you again, Aeneas. 

Pious. 

God told you to leave a girl behind and she knew you would do it but she was angry all the same. 

You told her stories of sea monsters which she drank in like holy wine, you wrapped your love in a translation of a quotation of a reference of an apocrypha because you were terrified of what it might really mean, you fed her peaches and promises from the family garden, and I don’t think this story is about Aeneas anymore. 

Pious. 

I still write you letters. You still don’t read them. 

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Inflammavi, my darling. 

Incendi. 

Tametsi votivus atque i adussi. 

Ego Aeneas picis pini, 

Ego infelix Dido, 

Sine spei. 

My love, I am half fire, all heart, 

Dido and Aeneas and Virgil all wrapped into one, 

Quis me deus romae sis. 

Eo nimis cogito, ego sum Romas. 

Sed quod differentia faciet, ardore aut dolore?

Forever unlucky on my own pyre, losing my speech to time slipping through my fingers. 

I haven’t got the words I need, but I keep trying, and without eloquence, at least there’s fire. 

I’ll try again in another language- unum sine flamma et fortasse amoram invenire poteram.

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Dw i’n mynd i llosgi, fy nghariad. 

But I don’t have enough words to explain it. 

Y gododdin dw i, farwnad a galarnad a chaniad dw i. 

I will admit, I know less here than I did in latin, 

But there’s more words for me to use. 

Dw i’n anfon fy nghariad holl i ti, 

Darniog, 

And I can’t quite find a word that matches well with heartsick.

Dyma meddal ond cyfarwydd holl yma.

Rwy’n hiraeth a ti fel y gartref dwi byth dychweledd i

Fel y caneuon anghofiais

Megis y cwch dw i byth wedi hwylio

I forgot you. 

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I wrote my luck with blood and steel

I cursed you when I could not heal. 

Temptation, call me, witch or wight

Or stupid woman with some fright. 

I pulled your son, the duty bound, 

I let him know what more he found. 

You hurt some people in your quest

To find a place for Rome to rest. 

I think too much about him still

I’m often vexed by what I killed

And here’s the thing, the wicked deed, 

I never had a choice to bleed. 

They put some fire in my guts, 

You made me into love and lust. 

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At the base of every story, there is a hungry woman. 

What? You don’t believe me? I could give you a thousand examples, myself only serving as one of them. It’s what goes in. it’s what comes out. It’s the meat on my lips. 

Blood, so much like wine, dripping down my jawbone, as I, once maiden, now maenad, slaughter poor, sweet, good Orpheus. 

Blood, so much like wine, runs sweet on my tongue. Unwatered, impure, and it reminds me of a woman named Sempronia who has yet to be born, who lives in a city yet to be planted. 

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The war is ten years of sunk costs. Nestor, who has been here for the entire time, wishes he could call it something else, something noble, but in the end that’s all it is: sunk cost. 

He didn’t have to board the ship with the young men, but he did. On the day Agamemnon called for young men to join the siege on Ilium, Nestor was the first to bow his head in fealty to a king he knew was still but a child. 

“My lord,” he said, not quite serious, but not quite mocking, “I will join the war.”

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There is a woman in the woods and she is terrifying, but not by choice. 

There is a woman weeping in a rundown temple just off the edge of the woods and she has only ever had one purpose in her life, and that purpose is to be terrifying, and to wait for a boy who will come to her woods and cut her head off. Do you understand? 

The thread is loosely woven, and there is room to make your choices, but there is not enough room to leave those woods.

Do you understand? Medusa is captive to Fate.

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Here is what Perceval’s stained glass looks like: Three panels on each window of the church, except for the front, which is one mosaic, leaving ten scenes captured in total. The one in the center is huge, and Perceval cries out in agony (or perhaps pleasure) as he pierces his thigh with his own sword. The red pommel faces us, and it is centered, so when you walk into the church, that is what you see first, hanging above the priest. The other nine are leading up to this- one with the girl, one with Galahad, one with his mother. 

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And this is the core of what they are. They can be nothing else, for what makes an angel an angel is that they are perfectly submissive to their lord, unlike us humans, and the only way to make a creature that is perfectly submissive is by cutting out its tongue. 

They pay a high price for their power, those angels. For it is power, yes, but they are envoys to their gift-giver, before they are creatures of madness. They may not speak their own words; those words are not approved by the lord, and he cannot be too careful. 

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This poem is for you, Aeneas- 

Do you remember book five? 

That was the burning of the ships. You would say oh what little faith they had, not trusting in Aeneas , I say good .  

Trust is a wicked thing, anyway. 

You are Aeneas because you are horribly virtuous, 

But you read Latin. You know what Virtus means.

Pious Aeneas, who carried the penates et lares on his back and then set them down in Roma, but never fought a war on his own behalf, not like Hector, not like Achilles.

For all your talk of planting Rome, you were rootless.

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I pick someone up off the side of the road,
Later, my friend buys me food for me to eat in the car while we drive to the next town over and I give you a book of poetry that I want you to read.
Any one of us could be a god in disguise.
It is vital to exercise guest friendship in the face of utter futility,
Do you understand?
That we make do with the xenia that we have?
Do you understand that this is a poor imitation of a concept of kings?
And yet,
We make do.

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In the year I turned eighteen I read the Iliad and thought Patroculus was lucky. 

And then I figured it didn’t matter if he was lucky, because he was still dead. 

I read Lucretius to avoid suicide. 

It’s hard to stop believing in god when flowers bloom,

But this is my body,

and I do not need to be healed and I am not Job;

I am neither righteous nor broken.

What’s the use in praying to be healed again? 

What’s the use in enduring, when I could be dancing? 

What’s the use in suicide when I could be singing?

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When a man’s been a disciple,

When he’s followed well enough, shouldn’t he be happy?

You, Judas, 

Have done all the good a man can do, so why stick with the misery? Jesus preached forgiveness. 

It’s hard to stop loving him, but you’ve got to do it.

G-d, if you’ve ever been there for me, be here now.

If I’ve ever had good intentions, take away my horror and devotion. 

Make it stop.

 I'm not asking for hope, and not for what’s impossible: a return. I just want to forget. 

G-d, if I’ve ever done right by you, receive me. 

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O Sirmio island, such an eyelet of an island,

Whatever Neptune brings in stagnant springs

And the oceans vast, I come with joy to you.

I was barely believing that at last I’d left 

The fields of Bithynia and Thynia too 

To see you home safe again.

And what’s better than that? A fetter free mind,

My fear fully gone, and then to discard far off duties 

To fall, blissful, into bed.

That is the one thing such a labor gifts us.

Salve, beautiful Sirmio!

Rejoice in my rejoicing 

And you Lydian waters waving

Laugh for my laughing. I’m home!

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I’ve grown used to singing songs, 

I’ve grown used to howling dogs. 

I’ve grown used to hearing cries, 

I’ve been learning how to die. 

I’ve been telling prophecies, 

I’ve been speaking memories. 

I’ve grown used to watching fate

I’ve grown used to being late. 

I’ve grown used to barking hounds,

The birds are making monster sounds. 

I’ve grown used to evil kings, 

I’ve grown used to many things. 

I’ve been greatly, sorely scorned, 

I’ve been fighting tyrant’s wars. 

I’ve grown used to being myself

I’ve grown used to broken shelves.

I’ve grown used to holy words

Over water, enter earth.

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I’ve been thinking a lot, on the nature of things, 

On the way that I live and how love has got wings. 

On what death really means, on ignoring a shrine, 

On how everyone thinks that life’s full of signs. 

I lost faith when my bones went as wispy as fog

And I wonder why men make such punishing gods,

I remembered last night that I have no belief, 

And I cried, then I stood, and it gave me relief. 

I wonder why folks make their gods just like them, 

If that’s how it is, I’ll build temples for men.

Chapter Text

Ismene: The heart of fire in you binds you

Though you do this chilling deed

Antigone: Those who matter watch me kindly. 

Ismene: But you have not what you need. 

Passion hungers for what can’t be

Antigone: When my strength gives out I’ll cease. 

Ismene: It’s a crime to seek  what can’t be

Antigone: I will hate you, hold your peace! 

And the dead will gain your ire, 

Sister, let me go to hell. 

I am sure of my desire,

Better than where cowards dwell.  

Ismene: If you must, then go, but know this: 

I still love your bitter heart.

Chapter Text

<there is a hole in this text> 

]Which is to say that there is an unknown quantity here. 

]All translations will be incomplete, because 

<there is a wound in this text which requires healing>

<This manuscript cannot be healed. It has been too many years> 

<We can attempt a revival. Lacunae are the domain of scholars>

No matter what we put in this hole, it cannot be filled[

This is a study in †guesswork and† reconstruction

<I have thrown so many words into this gaping pit.>

No poetry can be perfectly mended, 

Not today, <not then>

But yet we try. 

Chapter Text

1. CHORUS: The words you speak are echoed in the words of your brother-uncle. Ironic. Antigone, telling a man to be not rash, be not angry. 

2.Creon came to tell you that your country is your fault. You have destroyed it by breaking the law. Some laws are higher than man, you replied. 

3. Your brother said the same thing. A birthright is a birthright, no matter what laws are set, what treaties are signed. You both died to your own family. 

4. ANTIGONE: But why there again? Why such anger? What good is it to destroy your country?

Chapter Text

I would stand in a shield wall three times over or more, 

I would have the state search for the end of this war. 

I was left my by love when he wed his new wife, 

And mine died far away on her very own knife. 

I would kill my own sons if it meant Jason grieved, 

I would murder my state if I got some reprieve. 

I see evil in everything, so spare no release.

Even tyrants get funerals, eulogies, peace.

And I sped away with my fathers assent, 

But I died on a battlefield, Rome broken and bent.  

Chapter Text

Like a god, the man I see there, 

More a god than god is he. 

I can hear you laughing sweetly,

Sitting with your back to me. 

Your laughter steals my senses too, 

I saw you there and I was caught

Lesbia- Oh, wretched me!- you

Snatched the voice right from my throat. 

<Lacuna, we have lost our wording> 

Fire burns a path in me

Discord in my ears and eyes, so

Darkness is what I can see.

Idle hands are devil’s tools

Idle hands are bad for you, 

Cities crumble, kings are fools, 

That's what idle hands will do. 

Chapter Text

Love is fate, not control, it’s a madness-filled soul

Love is selfless and selfish and hateful and kind. 

Love is pleasure, it’s pain, it is one and the same, 

Though I say that my love has more sadness than joy. 

Love means dying for men, it means ruining them, 

In a letter well-written, indict him for sin. 

Love is lost, it’s unjust, it’s a burden of trust, 

Tell me, why does she speak not when snatched from the grave?

She will speak again soon, now, she’s ashes and gloom, 

My tongue swore, but my mind didn’t make the same oath.

Chapter Text

There is hardship and strife, still, there’s joy in this life,

It’s the easiest thing that a person can find. 

Look up at the sky, contemplate how you’ll die,

For is it not noble to patron new dust?

Life is always great pain, we live through it the same,

All the sickness is small when we look at the stars.

I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. Have I sown? Will I reap? 

I do not believe there is heaven eft death.

God is shadowed, but here it is all crystal clear;

I endure many ills and then bright flowers bloom.

Chapter Text

The ground is dry. 

Crows watch, emotionless, as you dig the shovel in, and you wave the birds off of the body, so battered it barely looks like a person. 

Sweat rivulets drip off your chin, water breaching the hard soil. You wonder how long this will take. 

Blink. 

The body is no longer there. It is in Greece, surrounded by dogs and citizens who have watched their nation crumble at the hands of this man- your brother. They have buried their own dead, and why should they have pity for yours?

Blink. 

You are back. Shovel goes into sand.

Chapter Text

Men build up wrongs at the end of each day, 

With the things that we do and the others we say. 

But at least we’re not gods, who have never once cared

About people’s sorrows, nor how folks have fared. 

I relinquished my faith when my bones slipped through sieves

And I cried, then I stood, and it gave me relief.  

I read plays, I sing lines, and I wallow in pain

But a husband or child can always be made.

I ask in my grief: Just this- who can grow

For me a brother who once was my foe?

Chapter Text

My mother, my father, who share the same blood

Have both given to me like a flowering bud

All the hatred of birth and the curse of my death

And my sister who begs that I gasp out my breath.

So I’ve tried to be strong, and I’ve tried to be still, 

And I swallow my words like the bitterest pills.

I ask, though my asking gives back nothing good, 

If a brother, from wanting it more than life, could

Be grown from my flesh, from my sinews and bone

And return to the living and by me be owned?

Chapter Text

From my mother we got the same ills, I and he,

I’ve bandaged myself but my brother’s not me.

I broke from the gods, learned to speak, looked at stars;

While he read his bible and picked it apart.

And I thought I was evil, then I let myself err

But he turned Polynices, called his whole life impure.

Yes, I’ve been away from this land for five years

On the road of my duty, I faced all my fears.

I still can’t step away from the corpse in the street,

Or grow a new brother, despite who I meet. 

Chapter Text

Why my brother, I ask? I’ve been pious, been good, 

I have prayed every prayer I was told that I should. 

I would take my own sickness with less than a care

But the pain is much more than my brother can bear.

I’ll be evil, impure, and I’ll bury my dead

Though I know that it doesn’t help you get ahead

Of the sickness you’ve caught, death is nothing, don’t die.

I don’t have the strength to tell you goodbye.  

Hail, brother, be strong, there is naught I can do

But through every hardship I set hope by you.

Chapter Text

Medea is lodged in my throat and my heart, 

The birds at my collarbone picked her apart, 

As a stranger, what’s stranger? I foresaw my path. 

Here it led, here I am, Medea knows wrath. 

There will never be woman, there never has been

The feminine is a subtraction of men.

What makes her a woman? Evil rage? Sick desire? 

The putting of both of her sons on a pyre?

Or is a barbarian always a girl? 

Walking red carpets and drinking up pearls?

A man has a quality, defies empty space

A woman, a man that is halfway erased. 

Chapter Text

Death, then, proffers nothing; nothing 

For us: ‘tis the nature of the soul

To be mortal, and when crushing

Carthage came to us in full-

Still we felt a placid nothing, 

While the earth then shook with war. 

Fearful war was sounding, rushing, 

Knowing not by sea or moore

Where the world was set to falling-

Just as this, will bodies when 

From the spirit make their parting-

Nothing shall disturb us then. 

Our spirit and our corpse are single

Will not feel and will not be

Even if the earth is mingled

With the sky, and sky with sea.

Chapter Text

You are not the corpse that lies there,

And if man laments his death

He must still believe that somewhere 

In his body lies his breath.

But for me, there seems no difference

If the birds eat at my flesh 

Or if fire takes my corpse, since

There is nothing of me left. 

Or if lying on the stone the

Body rigid with the cold 

Or if buried deep, my bones

Weighted down by earth, grow old.

Or if sinking into honey

There the body is preserved. 

That then seems nothing to run to,

Bad as all the pecking birds.

Chapter Text

The gates of hell do not now bar me

Nor does earth the view destroy

Whatever underfoot, seen freely

Is borne beneath us, through that void.

Thus this thing takes hold upon me:

Godlike pleasure and a fear

So then, nature, through your power

All is shown and laid out clear. 

And since I have taught the startings

Of all things, which in their ways

Fly free there in rouséd partings. 

Different, and of many shapes

Also how things are created

From these- now the mind and soul

Here must be by me related

In these verses told in full.