These entering knights send word that they are heir
to the River Meander, sons of the waters where
their fathers learned to guide and wheel their horses
just as Meander twists and turns in its courses.
Pyrrhus, in his armor, danced on Achilles’
grave in similar ways, and Aeneas, on Sicily’s
shore, honored his father with tournaments
of war, directing a mounted dance of defense
where Trojan boys put stallions through their paces
in a hundred thousand martial interlaces.
Pallas trained these horses to the bit
and guides them currently with hand and wit;
she schooled them in her spirit with such skill
that by the bridle, they know the rider’s will.
Observe them now as they curvet and dance,
retreat and step away; as they advance,
approach and come together. Like hails of darts,
first long, then short, playing their wartime parts
in a show of peace, they crisscross face to face,
obliquely or straight on, in the end to trace
a circle or a square, as if this were
a labyrinth where anyone might err
by straying onto paths that have no key—
as if they were dolphins dancing in the sea,
as if they were patterns formed by troops of cranes
against the blue and white of heaven’s lanes.
— Translated from the French of Pierre de Ronsard [abridged]
by Terese Coe [1]
Links:
[1] https://www.ablemuse.com/v18/bio/terese-coe
[2] https://www.ablemuse.com/digital-books-18/v18/digital edition/Complete Digital Version of -/Able Muse, Print Edition (Number 18), Winter 2014