Argonauts Were Only Men, Yet Special
The heroes sailed away and left behind,
Unnoticed, Herakles — the greatest of
Them all. It is as if those men were blind.
Was this because they knew too well his love
Was different from their own? Herakles was placed
Amidships, actually; in metaphor
As well. They’d seen his hand around the waist
Of Hylas. Argonauts had gone ashore
To mate with smelly women after they
Had seen true love, but men back then were not
Like those we know. Achaeans knew the sway
Of love was sweeping. Different loves allot
An equal strength. Their Herakles was left
Since heroism must not be bereft.
I’m tripping a bit over the scansion of line 5 with its eleven syllables and extra beat there with “was” in the way. Playing with possible ways to eliminate “was” and then change the following line in turn. Here’s how it is now, which reads great for the first three feet if you read “diff’rent” as two syllables, which is natural enough, and then “Herakles” fits ok even if the exact emphasis on this or that syllable isn’t quite iambic, but at least with three syllables it works if you only had one after it and not those 2:
Was different from their own? Herakles was placed
Amidships, actually; in metaphor
You could try:
Was different from their own? Herakles placed
Himself amidships—tagged, in metaphor
As well.
Or, instead of “tagged,” maybe, what? “Dual” or something like that? Maybe in the story he doesn’t really “place himself,” though, I don’t know—just listening to the sound of it.
Not sure that I get the ending. Is it that “heroism” itself must not be bereft of having heroes? And, to be heroic, heroes need to have obstacles, etc.? That seems to plop a new idea down at the very end in the final line, but I’m trying to read “bereft” carefully for who or what must not be left so.
Well, or its the Argonauts who are the heroes whose heroism “must not be bereft,” which is why they leave him . . . because . . . that is somehow heroic of them (heroic . . . abstinence or something? . . . or . . . ). It’s rather obscure to me, the particular “heroism” here, I suppose!