
___________
greatest work of fiction, to my mind,
ever told, resounding through the
centuries and millennia with power,
pathos, and profound humanity, I
found it hard for one reason or
another to complete other
for instance, too brimming with
bombast and bravado, much like
many American war movies,
wherein the Americans win every
conflict, whether or not they’ve
indeed won, all on their own, with
little acknowledgment of the other
international militaries that might’ve
also played essential roles
on, is becoming more and more
offensive because of its recurrent
abuse of women, nymphs, virgins,
so that I can no longer champion
this work, however enthusiastic I
might’ve been at the beginning
I’m not ready to personally give it
up, but intend to relate it in brief
segments, with perhaps, here
and there, noteworthy verses
the myth that follows the
a swan, and the restoration of
Earth after its near conflagration
upon the death of Phaeton, has
an eye on ev’ry diff’rent coast in
order to ensure that all is aright,
which it is, and Nature smiles
again
but he spies by chance a nymph,
a follower of Diana, virginal
goddess of the Countryside, and
despite concerns about Juno, his
goddess wife, pursues the maiden
who was easy prey, did whate’er a
virgin cou’d … / With all her might
against his force … / But how can
mortal maids contend with Jove?
following which Diana arrives with
her train of nubile followers, to the
dismay of the young victim, who
could only try to hide her shame,
which her altered demeanour
must’ve somewhat, it is supposed,
uncovered
How in the look does conscious guilt appear!
Slowly she mov’d, and loiter’d in the rear;
Nor lightly tripp’d, nor by the Goddess ran,
As once she us’d, the foremost of the train.
but now the moon had nine times
lost her light, and any doubt about
her condition was erased, so that
Diana, unforgiving, a not uncommon
reaction, I’ve found, among women,
banished her to eventually alone
give birth to a son
meanwhile Juno, now doubly
incensed – This boy, she rails, shall
stand a living mark, to prove / My
husband’s baseness and the strumpet’s
love – turns the wretched mom into a
bear
but when the son had fifteen summers
told, and came inadvertently upon this
beast while in the forest, unaware it was
his mother, and to protect himself, he
aim’d a pointed arrow at her breast,
And would have slain his mother in the beast;
But Jove forbad, and snatch’d ’em through
In whirlwinds up to Heav’n, and fix’d ’em there!
where now we know them as either
the Great Bear and the Little Bear,
more familiarly, as the Big Dipper
who could ‘a’ ever thunk it
R ! chard