1 Proteus, old as the ocean,

2 Said to Thetis: 'Goddess

3 Of all the salt waters,

4 When you bear a son the boy will be

5 The wonder of the world.

6 He will make a man of himself

7 So far superior to his father

8 His father's fame will be---to have been his father.

9 Jupiter heard the prophecy just in time

10 To deflect his lust

11 From the maidenhead of Thetis.

12 He switched it

13 To the next on his list. But as a precaution,

14 Too well aware of his own frailty,

15 He sent a substitute to neutralise

16 The prize of the prediction and its sequel:

17 Peleus, his grandson, son of Aeacus.

18 'Go,' he commanded. 'No matter what it takes

19 To bring it about, impregnate that virgin.'

20 Tucked into Hamonia's coast is a bay

21 Between promontories, deep incurved,

22 Like a sickle.

23 A perfect harbour if only the water were deeper.

24 But the sea sweeps in

25 Barely covering a plain of pale sand.

26 The beach is perfect,

27 No seaweed, and the sand

28 Powdery light, yet firm to the foot.

29 The hanging bulge of the land is plumped with myrtles.

30 Beneath those leaves a cave climbs from the sea.

31 It looks like the work of man. But a deity used it.

32 This was the secret bedchamber of Thetis.

33 Naked, she surfed in on a dolphin

34 To sleep there. And there Peleus found her.

35 He woke her with a kiss.

36 First she was astonished, then furious.

37 He applied all his cunning to seduce her.

38 He exhausted his resources. None of it worked.

39 His every soft word hardened her colder.

40 If they had been two cats, he was thinking,

41 She would have been flattened to the wall,

42 Her mask fixed in a snarl, spitting at him.

43 He took his cue from that. Where argument

44 Fails, violence follows. His strength

45 Could have trussed her up like a chicken

46 If she had stayed the woman he woke with a kiss.

47 But before he knew

48 He was grappling with an enormous sea-bird,

49 Its body powerful as a seal, and its beak

50 Spiking his skull like a claw-hammer.

51 A bird that was suddenly a wren

52 Escaping towards the tangle of myrtles,

53 Bolting past his cheek like a shuttlecock

54 That he caught with a snatch of pure luck,

55 And found himself

56 Gripping a tigress by the shag of her throat

57 As her paw hit him with the impact

58 Of a fifty-kilo lump of snaggy bronze

59 Dropped from a battlement.

60 He rolled from the cave and landed flat on his back

61 in cushioning shallow water.

62 Then he slaughtered sheep,

63 Burned their entrails, heaped incense

64 Onto the fatty blaze, poured wine

65 Into the salt wash and called on the sea-gods,

66 Till a shade, from the depth-gloom beyond,

67 Darkened into the bay's lit shallows,

68 And a voice hissed from the tongues of suds

69 That shot up the sand: 'Son of Aeacus,

70 This woman can be yours if you can catch her

71 Sleeping as before in her cavern.

72 But this time, bind her, bind her tight with thongs,

73 Before she wakes. Then hang on to her body

74 No matter what it becomes, no matter what monster.

75 Do not let her scare you---

76 However she transforms herself, it is her,

77 Dodging from shape to shape, through a hundred shapes.

78 Hang on

79 Till her counterfeit selves are all used up,

80 And she reappears as Thetis.'

81 This was the voice of Proteus. It ceased

82 And the long shape faded from the shallows.

83 Peleus hid in the myrtles. Towards sundown

84 The goddess came up from the deep water,

85 Rode into the bay, climbed into her cave

86 And stretched out on her couch.

87 She was hardly asleep

88 When the noosed thongs jerked tight.

89 Her ankles and her wrists made one bunch.

90 Her feet and hands were a single squirming cluster,

91 As if she were to be carried, slung from a pole,

92 Like an animal.

93 Peleus clinched his knot, then bundled her up

94 In his arms, and embraced her with all his might

95 As her shapes began to fight for her.

96 He shut his eyes and hung on, ignoring

97 Her frenzy of transformations

98 Till they shuddered to stillness. She knew she was beaten

99 By that relentless grip. 'Heaven has helped you,'

100 She panted. 'Only heaven

101 Could have given me to you, and made me yours.'

102 Then he undid her bonds. As he massaged

103 The circulation into her hands and feet

104 His caresses included her whole body.

105 She was content to let them take possession

106 Of her skin, her heart, and, at last, of her womb

107 Where now he planted Achilles.