Aphrodite's Song

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Scene: APHRODITE appears where PROMETHEUS lies chained to a mountain. A bossa-nova tune begins.

I'm goddess of lovers:
I'm Aphrodite,
sent by Zeus the Almighty,
so your suffering can end.

Imagine forever
chained to this cliff, dear.
Then imagine what if, dear,
we had eons to spend.

Your Aphrodite always near,
forever free, no gods to fear.
Just speak your secret in my ear;
and we can cut loose!

We'll slip away and stay in Crete,
and every day, just play and eat.
Only obey, and say, my sweet:
Who'll overthrow Zeus...?

 (PROMETHEUS: No!)

Resisting is no use.

 (PROMETHEUS: No! )

Don't be so obtuse!

The song pauses here for dialogue. Then APHRODITE continues her song:

Don't worry what's right, dear;
don't take the long view,
'cuz you know it's the wrong view,
if you want Zeus to bend.

Don't think about justice;
just think of pleasure.
No, this isn't peer pressure:
it's advice from a friend!

Image by Susan Rouse, from several years ago.
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At an Episcopal middle school where I taught drama in the 1980s, I adapted Aeschylus's Prometheus Bound for the fifth grade's annual pageant. The part of Aphrodite went to a tiny diva with a precociously husky voice. For her, I composed a bossa-nova tune with a six-note range and these lyrics. I'm very pleased by the natural-sounding rhymes and the fact that the song is flirtatious, amoral, and yet totally age-appropriate.

I'm still working on a poem for this month. Because the unfinished poem has a musical theatre angle, this vintage piece is an appropriate one to keep the blog going until I finish. -WSS