THE LAMENT OF HERACLES

 

Where is now my strength of yesteryears?

Omphale wants me to be dressed

with her yellowy silk tunic, hoop earings,

and blue-laced sandals...

Omphale nicked my lion's hide, my bow,

my long spear, all the sinew of my limbs

now smelling of scented resins and the cedar

perfume that give off  all the Lydian maids...

but Omphale rather smells now of sweaty warriors

tucking in their porridge bowls...

One morning, in the vineyards of Tmolos,

the god Pan blessed us:

I was bound to her like a slave

in the shadow of a golden parasol. we made love,

at the umbra of a massive crow, we made love...

Then she bid me to be a woman

while she took the man's clobbers.

Now all her maidens comb my tangled and long hair

and rub my skin with ointments of wild flowers,

now they put powder on my face into the pure

whiteness of a death mask.

Where is now my strength of yesteryears?

By means of which vigour, mettle, bow

I would kill the voracious Stymphalian birds?

I want to be no more at the spinning wheel

singing along the chorus of women in thrall.

I want to get up again with my furry hides

stinking of manure and bull entrails.

I want to culminate all the twelve tasks

that would make me an hero kissed by Hera,

the goddess who I will love forever,

even while burning like deadwood

in the freezing Hades.

(2006)