Where Hippodamia and Hippolytus escape from the land of the Houyhnhnms

And Hippodamia did marry Pelops, although eighteen suitors had to die for the story to unfold as it did. It was the name of the forsaken lover that never was, the charioteer, that gave the sea its name. His mother was an Amazon, they say, I choose to believe she was a Maenad.

And this eagle-eyed horse saw Pelops murder Myrtilus. And this horse was one of those that dragged Hippolytus on the barren rocks. Battered, the son of Theseus met his death for scorning Aphrodite, while the proud animal stood there, poised.

Devine mythological heroes of half-forgotten ancestry that occupy our mental geography, bearing names whose standing is now somewhat faint, but that have stubbornly refused to disappear, because somehow, somewhere, someone always stood there, watching.

***

This is the old material that has been made available to me, the stuff on which I am to graft my own experience and mould it with sensual and aesthetic fairness, to fertilise it with the sperm of my lovers.

Because a story is a gift to a lover left behind. Because a story is the least of all seeds, bearing enduring gratitude.

***

Where Hippodamia and Hippolytus escape from the land of the Houyhnhnms

And in the Age of Reason, I am just like that horse that stood there watching, emotionally parsimonious, giving the man I share my bed with an alert and distant gaze before I throw the promised night of love in the nameless sea to name it after me.

And in the Age of Reason, I stifle my own desires to comply with the rules of Modern Love, that taunt from afar the Lady of Cythera.

And in the Age of Reason, no one remembers that myrtle and horses are sacred to the goddess.

And in the Age of Reason, suitors do not die, lovers do not bleed. It isn’t classy, it’s so passé, so very unrefined.

***

And yet, in a rare moment of profound sensual turmoil, half-choked, the horse’s untamed nature cries to be let out. There and then, I look my lover in the eyes, and from the deep blessed pleasure that he gives me, I know, and let him know, that I shall miss him.

***

Because a story is a gift to a lover left behind. Because a story is the least of all seeds, bearing enduring gratitude.