Last Days at Delphi

We used to speak for the god, with the god's voice,

and kings came to offer us their treasures

for our inspired treasure, while the breathless

world listened for what we'd say. No more.

We have become a tourist attraction, pretending

for small donations . . . Oh, some old wives, provincial

and superstitious enough, still come,

believing a little. I think they are disappointed.

What can our hexameters mean to them?

The trouble is with ourselves no longer believing

(in spite of the world's indifference, the emperor's wrath).

Being illegal and going underground

can have-as the Christians ought to know-glamour.

I'd half hoped there might be a little revival

after Theodosius proscribed us.

It didn't help. One wonders why he bothered.

The Pythias speak, but only to one another.

Our white robes, our laurel leaves, our ablutions

in the fountain at Parnassus' foot, the stool,

the vapors from the cleft rock, the shivers . . .

We go through the forms, expecting nothing. The risk

is nothing. The emperor doesn't fear us.

But not to do these things would be rude, cruel,

would burden our burdened sisters with still more doubt.

Each of us has enough and has learned to bear it

each in her own way. Mine is to wonder

what other life I could make for myself, how else

to pass this month in the springtime, what possible use

to put this knack of making hexameter lines

as golden settings for paradoxical gems.

Besides, who can say, positively,

the god will not rouse? Apollo, nodding,

may yet wake, may wish to speak, to command

a new Croesus. How will the goats speak for him?

Nero plundered ten thousand talents here.

Shall I presume to rob Delphi of mine?

"Even if all of us here are frauds, I

am the best fraud." So each declares to herself.