Cavafy Poem 82: Aristoboulos

82. ARISTOBOULOS

The palace people weeping
Herod himself sobbing
the entire city in tears.
Aristoboulos has drowned
lovely young Aristoboulos is dead.

Hearing the news
Greeks and Syrians will mourn
poets and sculptors sadden.
Aristoboulos! Beauty's golden template,
bright exemplar of the human form;
the archetype their art contrived to emulate.
What comely statue of what glowing god
could vie in splendour with this one Israeli boy?

Alexandra, prime of Jewish princesses,
his mother, is beside herself,
slapping her swollen face, bent over, in tears -
this for the public. In private she seethes
groans raves scolds curses.
The criminals have attained their twisted ends,
laid waste the house of Asmonaeus.
The insane Herod has killed her son.

Daughter Mariamne, Herod's wife,
duped, had not suspected
how they hated her brother.
Had she known, she could have tried to save him.

Kypros, Herod's mother, his sister Salome,
fishwife and harridan, both lowest of the low,
how they would be laughing through their lies!
While she, Alexandra, forced to believe them,
pretending to be taken in, wanted nothing more
than to stand at the palace door and shout to the people.
scream to the Jews that murder had been done,
her Aristoboulos drowned.

_______________________________________________

The illustrations to this poem are of course all by John William Waterhouse and the music is from Strauss's opera Salome.

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[alchemistra]

A vicious cup of fiendish dark desire, cruel nature, and doom sealed, and a draught of anguish, agony, and stifled rage.