3. Omphale’s Spinning Wheel

In the hall a fine ivory spinning wheel is set.
The nimble wheel is white, the distaff black as jet—
An ebony distaff with lapis inlay snug.
It rests in the atrium upon a gorgeous rug.

An artisan from Aegina has carved, at its base
Europa, and a god who does not heed her pleas.
The white bull abducts her; Europa, forlorn,
Cries out, shrinks in terror, casts her eyes down,
Sees monstrous Ocean kissing her rosy feet.

Needles and thread, half-closed boxes and pleats
And Miletan purple- and gold-dyed wool,
Fill up a basket by the dormant spinning wheel.

Yet, loathsome, frightful, and immense, they come
From deep in the palace, twenty foul phantoms—
Twenty blood-stained monsters, only half-seen—
Teem round the slumbering wheel: the Nemean
Lion, the hideous Hydra of Lerna,
Cacus, dark brigand of dark cavern inner,
Three-bodied Geryon, the typhoons of the seas
That, at nightfall, blow with clamour through the reeds;
Each bears on his brow a club’s mark, ghastly bruising,
All—lingering at a distance, menacing—
Fix their dark, humbled eyes on the wheel, splendid,
Where a supple, knotted thread hangs suspended.

June 18…