12 Apollo’s Vengeance: 355-388 (Pythian Serpent and Telphousa)

Pythian Serpent (cont.)

[So it would be too for the She-Serpent.]

For an age,

the She-Serpent preyed upon humankind.  355

Every person unfortunate enough to cross her path,

also crossed over the final day appointed to them by Fate.

Until she herself crossed the path of

Lord Apollo,

whose-deeds-are-far-known,

who-works-from-afar.

From

afar,

He skewered her

using

a single

arrow

— with such power,

he only needed one–

[Make present her memory as she dies:]

writhing in agonizing pain.

One moment:

lying still,

…

breathing

hard

Another:

thrashing wildly across the ground,

she screams —

the indescribable shriek of the damned.   360

Across the floor of the dense forest

— here —

— there —

she twists,

coils,

until

her last breath:

a ragged

exhale and

a cough

spraying red-blood;

Apollo, purifying-light loomed over her in triumph:

“Here, rot —

Let me predict the future

For you

a simple fate: no future but an abandoned name and a putrid stain on the ground.

For humans

they will flourish here,

nourished by the very earth on which you rot. 365

For them,

your evil plague has finally been cured —

never again will you keep down

those who eat the fruit of Gaia the great-provider.

those who here

—in my honour–

will one day [be numerous and prosperous enough to]

sacrifice cattle by the hundreds in perfect hecatombs.

For you

as you await your painful death, I want you to know

[This is now our age:]

there is no future in which your surrogate-child Typhaon avenges you

 [his time is long passed; he was slain by the bolts of my father]

nor will the monstrous Chimaera come to save you,

his-name-portends-an-evil-yet-to-come

[and he will be slain by a future hero besides.]

No. There is only one future for you and your monstrous kind —

first: you will be a corpse, rotting

at the hands of Fertile-black-Gaia and blazing-Hyperion, the sun.

Then: a putrid stain on the ground.”

This is what he said, gloating over her,

as her eyes went dark.  370

And it happened exactly as he had predicted;

the holy might of the Sun rotted her completely.

And this is why

in our present age:

the place is called

‘Pytho’,

and its sacred-king given the epithet

 ‘Pythian’

Because there

she, the python-she-serpent,

was transformed. Made into nothing more than

a ‘putrid’ (GK: putho = rotting) stain

under the power of the piercing Sun.

Telphousa (Coda)

It was then that Apollo purifying-light realized that                                                         375

he had been deceived:

The spring had hidden her polluted and evil nature

with her outward appearance: water-beautiful-pure-and-clear,

He turned back, choking on an angry heart, filled with bile

to Telphousa.

He reached her swiftly.

Looming above her, he spoke these words:

“Telphousa, did you really think

that you could deceive me and get away with it?

 that you could keep this land

–which I have laid claim to–

all to yourself?

that, [polluted as your soul is]

that you could just keep pouring out your water,

pristine, undisturbed, and deceptive?  380

No. You will now learn what the future holds:

this place will be honoured greatly —

but not as yours, or ours–

as mine alone.”

So it was that

Apollo,

king,

who-works-from-afar,

From afar,

smashed her with the peak of a mountain

and in a shower of stones,

polluted and defiled her flowing waters.

Then, he laid claim to the area,

establishing his altar in the sacred forested groves

nearby to what had once been a beautifully flowing spring.

There,

to the sacred-king,

all now pray using the epithet (385)

Telephousian

because he transformed the once-flowing waters of sacred

Telephousa

so that they better reflected her polluted spirit.