Danae

Another mythological poem, helped along by a painting by Gustav Klimt. 

For those of you whose mythology is rusty, Danae's father, King Acrisius,  locks her in a bronze tower to keep her from having a son who, an oracle prophesied, would kill him.  Zeus visits her there as golden rain, resulting in the birth of Perseus, the Avenger.  Her father Acrisius then casts his daughter and grandson adrift in a boat or chest, hoping they die, but instead they are rescued and end up in the court of King Polydectes.  This king falls in love with Danae, but she is too involved in raising her son to notice.  Polydectes tries to eliminate Perseus by sending him on what he expects to be a fatal quest for the head of Medusa.  In Perseus's absence, Polydectes presses Danae to marry him.  Perseus returns (along with Princess Andromeda, who he has rescued from a sea monster along the way) and interrupts the wedding, turning Polydectes to stone with Medusa's head.  When he and his mother return to their home, Acrisius flees. Perseus attends an ahtletic competition, and his discus accidentally flies into the crowd, killing a spectator - who turns out being his grandfather, Acrisius. 

      Danae

My father tried to keep me pure, as if
my virginity would cancel his mortality,
but phallic towers make poor prophylactics.

Didn’t he know after such isolation
any stranger would seem a god
and any son would be a vengeance?

So Perseus was my sole salvation.
He would travel where I could never go
as Polydectes planned to make me his own –
but all he brought back were monsters,
a Gorgon’s head and a bride-to-be.

When you flee your fate in this rounded world,
the farther you run, the closer you come
to where you began. I know this now
as my father lies dead from a discus
he could not sidestep, my son ascends
the throne and a marriage bed, and I become
an old woman trapped in an ageing body
with nothing but a memory of my own
wetness turning to a shower of golden rain.

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