Menelaos

The bull bellows, He roars. His blood is hot

And soon to be on stones thick as the flood;

But before knife and pain, a memory-

Days before my Helen abandoned me,

She and I were in bed. You can see it:

I brush her hair, five hundred strokes or more

Though I fear (and know) that she will soon flee.

Why? You may ask. I love her. I love her.

I do not dare to shame her, shear her hair,

Or drive a dagger into her false heart.

I wait for long hours as she sleeps and dreams

Of foreign lands where sand is not the soil.

My famous war cry? Nowhere to be found.

A sleeping woman makes me a coward.

Dawn rises over funeral pyres.

My queen, my heart, she sails to Ilium,

Laughs with her lover, drinks blueberry wine

As the salt spray cuts the hands of oarsmen.

Oh Paris, chubby faced princeling, doomed fool,

I shall not pursue. On my isle, I stay;

No treacherous blade will sever my thread

'Til the Old One calls. I will be ancient,

Sitting in a chair, beard below my waist

While my grandchildren cavort at my feet.

I will be fat and they will laugh at me

When I offer any sort of advice...

Enough of the future's harsh distraction.

I have no honor, but the gods hear prayers.

The bull bellows and his throat is cut twice.

His life is a river choked by boulders.

If this sacrifice does not satisfy,

I will cull the slighter and weaker bulls,

Then cows and calves of every color.

Does this not slake the thirst of Olympus?
I will slay ten thousand birds of the air.

I will wreck levees, even murder weeds.

If there is a need, I will kill all life,

Only grant my request, this final boon.

Loose your mighty powers. Bind them. Bind them

So that their souls can never be apart,

And gift them too with eternal days

(No tricks, no jar to trap an old seeress).

Hear your servant. Make my curse flesh and bone.

My cause is just. I have earned this vengeance.