phon-é is not phón-é So my name does not say “voice,” And no one listens to me. Not my father, Ungreat Zeus, who feels empowered to barter me away (Both the first time and the second) He who endorsed the rule that if I ate, I stayed Perverting the laws of hospitality And turning them to a curse. Zeus Xenios, what a lie. Not Hades, my uncle-husband, who showed me pretty jewels, indeed, But did not ask if I wanted them enough to stay eternally Or offer me a choice to come or leave But imprisoned me from love of my face and shape Without a thought of what might be my will. Not my mother, who has never questioned whether I desired to be always at her side Maiden, decorous, flower-bouquet for her to hold and display A fragrance for her to delight in Whatever I might want besides She was right to protest my capture But I should like to ask If she became so angry on my account Or on her own. No use to plant the question, when for me she has no ears. Then those two brats from Athens (Or the one was from some other city, it hardly matters which) Came believing they could steal me from the Underworld Such fools And worse believed it did not matter what I wanted or could do That I either would not or could not stop them Or have any say in the business of my unending life. A trinket to be fought for and won by mortal clods: They actually thought me that. “Wife,” said Hades, for he must ever grind that in, “Two human louts have come to abduct you And are even now roaming the caves in search of this throne-room, To find you and take you back with them.” While he described the inventive torments he meant for them to have in place of me, I thought more and more of what those men must have thought and felt. And grew a burning rage. Lava flows beneath the earth as well as rising through volcanoes. My hands gripped the sides of the onyx throne, and I looked at my chair here. Yes, this seemed right. Let them become what they thought me to be. I rose and left the throne-room, To set the trap for those two “heroes.” A bench prepared, bare stone, but made to look inviting And there the two mortals, weary from hopeless searching, sat And forgot everything. Memory will return if they simply rise, But there is no reason that they ever should. They have no thoughts with which to form an intent No will to carry one out No voice in which to ask for aid And none around who would give it. Let them sit. Their clothes may rot and fall away, but their bodies will not age or die And their minds shall forever be empty. And the longer they remain, the more the stone will cling to flesh For it should be a part of them Inseparable Till no one knows where they diverge Or can imagine one without the other. When Hades, uncle-husband, saw what I had done, His smile grew sour, cheated of the devious torments he had wanted to inflict, But he said only, “Ah well! This works too!” So there the two men sit, empty vases on a shelf To be looked at and amused by. While I sit full of other things.