[Here is the first half of the third section of 64. The section as a whole is entitled Ekphrasis (a Greek word for a section within a poem providing a detailed description of a work of art). In the original, Catullus focuses in on the quilted bedspread of the newly-weds, which portrays various somewhat disturbing scenes from Greek mythology. Bizarrely, some of these cannot possibly have occurred until many years after the wedding and the description of the stories depicted on the bedspread is therefore shot through with anachronisms, abrupt shifts of tense and mood, flash-backs and flash-forwards in time.

I have preserved most of these proto-cinematic features of Catullus’s work, but the idea of telling the mythological stories by way of a description of a work of art struck me as much too conceited and difficult-to-execute for modern tastes. I therefore replace it here with the figure of a drunken wedding guest, singing songs, gossiping and telling off-color stories and jokes.

Otherwise, this section adheres fairly closely to Catullus’s narrative, recounting the familiar tale of Theseus and Ariadne, Minos, Pasiphae, the Minotaur, Daedalus, Icarus and Aegeus, albeit in a modern setting and, of course, in an extremely vulgar, irreverent and tongue-in-cheek manner. I apologize, yet again, for any offence that may be caused by this, but stress that the use of such language is deliberate and important as a way of irreversibly puncturing and stripping away the aura of sanctity that tends to surround Greek and Latin literature and thus more clearly conveying its often dark and pessimistic, but also frequently humorous and playful, message to a more modern audience.

I should also add that I wanted to move as far away as possible from the kind of ‘fantasy fiction’ loosely based on mythology that is extremely popular these days. This kind of reworking of classical literature simply replaces the traditional aura of sanctity with a more palatable one of escapism and temporary suspension of disbelief. This was most definitely not what the ancient authors intended. They believed, with a certain degree of healthy skepticism as to the exact nature of the facts, that the characters from mythology they wrote about were real historical figures and, more importantly, that their stories had a moral tale to tell, albeit frequently a highly ambiguous one.

Ariadne’s hymn to the moon, in part 6, has already been published on this blog as a free-standing poem.]

EKPHRASIS

(4)

Uncle Padraig is telling the ever-embellished

tale of Auntie Ariadne and that scalliwag she took off with…

“A man is like unto a city, and a woman unto a flower,” he begins,

with a moral flourish, “as it says in the Good Book”.

“Not really!” he jokes.

And an impromptu band picks up the fiddle and the whistle,

and the uilleann pipes and the bodhrán…. as he sings or chants

the story like a rap…

“She’d just had her hair done up and wasn’t dressed for the beach,

when she woke up, worse the wear, that morning on that Greek island

the cruise had stopped over on for the night. They’d had a few.

And she was vaguely aware that someone was slipping her drugs, but

‘What the fuck! We’re on holiday, aren’t we darling? Nay, honeymoon.’

She droops her cold bare arms around him searching for his mouth

with a lipsticked, smoke-wreathed, V&T-drenched kiss…

‘And isn’t he lovely?’ she went on, ‘My hero; my Greek god.’

And, wobbling a little on her knees and high heels, ‘And I don’t care if he’s got eyes

for all of youse sluts in here, ‘cos he’s mine, in’ he? Love.’

Giving him a great bear hug, and hanging round him like an anchor-weight…”

*

“They must have drugged her and dumped her on the beach, she thinks.

She can just make out the cruise-ship disappearing into the distance;

their engagement ring has gone and her boob-tube is half off;

and her make-up is all over the place. Not that she’s crying.

She flicks a middle-finger at passing fishermen giving her stick.”

(5)

“Theseus had been working the ships, ‘cos there’s good money in that,

and she was a poor little rich girl with a habit of falling in love

with the wrong type, as her dad put it… He was a refugee

and dating ethnic dudes was all the rage back then;

& then he got into some murky business deal—

I don’t know the ins and outs of it—

with her father and her black-sheep half-brother

that gossips have it was fathered at one of mum’s

notorious swing parties.

She was one of those Bohemian types.

Some say Ariadne had a hand in the brother’s disappearance

& helped her lover pick his way through her father’s maze

of offshore bank accounts put together by that dodgy accountant

whose son died in that suspicious hang-gliding incident

not so long ago. Theft, blackmail and the threat

of the Serious Fraud Squad breathing down his neck,

put paid to what was left of Ariadne’s father’s fortune,

& Theseus was off. Ariadne begged him take her with him.

He was tempted by the prospect of having her trust fund in tow.”

(6)

“Ariadne sings a hymn to the moon:

 

‘No rockets had yet touched you, Moon,

as feet formed in my mother’s womb,

on bonfire night, and delivered their first kick,

as they watched

the JFK assassination unravel on TV.

 

There are no mermaids in space;

no seas on the moon;

no-one to sing, listen or see;

no sounds carried by winds; or tides

to bring driftwood and debris up the beach

and wash it back away to sea.

 

The dust kicked up by astronauts’ boots

was the first action the old girl has seen in a long time.

She has grown pock-marked with age,

and never sees the rocks that batter her

coming over time.

 

There is no welcome-home party…

No candles blown out on a cake,

no happy returns. She

has circled barrenly around us

for so long, stirring life.

 

No thanks can repay

the hits she has taken for us,

or the stolid fact of her always being there,

edging, egging us towards life

with her skull in the sky…’”

 

(7)

“Ariadne takes a breather.

Prayer is no match for loss.

Her lank anorexic body

can vent no siren song;

her grief is brackish,

her sorrow meaningless and alone.”

 

(8)

“Revenge is best convoluted, cold-hearted and seemingly deserved:

a poison woven into the web we spin of our own lives,

being hoisted by our own petard.

Theseus’s Old Man was over-protective and paranoid about planes,

wouldn’t watch the news when a child was in the air.

‘Text me when you touch down. I’d rather top myself

than outlive a child’, he moaned. ‘Cut it out, Dad!’

Theseus barked back in reply.

Theseus is a bit upset touching down in Larnaka,

feeling like a cunt. And that fucked up drunken

bitch had nicked his cell phone to boot. It helped to blame

her, not think it lost. He sits on the airport toilet

and has a little cry—he’s not sure why,

giving vent to a sentimental streak he’s damned

he’ll ever show in public. A security guard bangs on the

semi-transparent door of the booth. ‘You alright

in there, mate.’ Messages crackling on his walkie-talkie.

‘Fuck off and leave me alone,’ Theseus shouts back.

‘It’s not like I’m planting a fucking bomb.’

The door crashes down and Theseus is frog-marched

off to security, passengers-to-be gawping at him

as he tells them to mind their own fucking business.

He asks head of airport security if he can borrow his phone

to text his dad. ‘Who the fuck do you think you are?’

A fax comes through from Naxos

& Theseus’s suitcase is checked for cocaine.

It must have been when he was being strip searched

that Dad threw himself off the back of his yacht into the hydrofoil.

He remembers the position of the hands on the clock

in the clinic as gloved fingers parted his ass cheeks

when he sees the time registered on the death certificate.

Ariadne grins.”