How should we seek, and how far might we fall, If not for myth, that by its siren call propels us to these heights, Then brings us back to earth again? To earth, Eternal mother, she who in Lycia waits With unguents, and the incense of our birth, She who would clasp us, honoring those Fates who govern days and nights, And every soul that fades, that vanishes in fire. These shards rehearse yet cancel out the din - Patroclus venturing forth, the blows that brought you down. When but a child, I heard the clash of bronze, and knew that verse Could reassemble, art could reconcile Victor and vanquished. Therefore we dream, that nightly we might mend, And rise on wings we cannot comprehend uplifted by that wind, You drift between two worlds. Though watch-fires burn, And sentinels grasp their spears, no voices call your princely presence dims, Your body seeks its place upon the waiting pyre.
Whose were the feet that kicked against the wheel, Whose knuckle forced the clay? Who brushed this seal of silence on your limbs? Their names inscribed, they were themselves in turn Caught by the sweep of time that carries all Before its cresting wave.
Adrift within this dream, You would remain, but Hermes' woven wand Calls forth, from fathoms deep within the stream Of myth, Sarpedon, that which draws you on, yet grants this stay of breath, This scene suspended, far above the noise of battle. Having no quarrel with the Achaeans, he fought bravely alongside his Trojan allies, and was slain by Patroclus, who was clad in the armor of Achilles.' Unseen but felt, the ceaseless wind that blows Aslant the weeping of your wounds, yet shows the wings of Sleep and Death Immaculate. The obverse depicts the death of Sarpedon, king of Lycia. 'A red-figure vase, circa 515 BCE, signed by the potter and the painter who created it.
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