The Fortune Teller | Island of Crete in 1550
Morning Songs
Love and death in Knossos
The worst labyrinth is not that intricate form that can entrap us forever, but a single and precise straight line
Jorge Luis Borges
At dawn, I see the blue-green waves, dolphins gleaming grey arrows Walking on pink sands, I search the past as the beach shore narrows
No one will trouble me. The Venetian usurpers sleep for hours, uncaring of the beauty of the day. The foolish greedy men spend their nights in plotting and scheming, dreaming of influence and power and riches. They quote Machiavelli, but they have neither his intelligence nor his understanding.
Their women preen and please, but behind their smiles lurk their own plots and schemes. There is no love or passion here.
Nothing remains of the grand Minoan palaces and courtyards, no hint of the tortuous labyrinth. All were diminished when first I saw them, centuries ago, shortly before the contortions of the earth and the fierceness of the Mycenaeans destroyed the palace complex, but there were echos of grandeur. And the stories of King Minos and his wanton wife and her bullheaded son were still told and retold and sometimes believed.
In the hidden labyrinthine twists, forbidden lovers greet The labrys, the double-ax, hangs over all, the sharp points meet
Unwanted, a monster wanders the same paths, need to avenge The flesh-eating bull, the blood flowing freely, fearsome revenge
The tragic fate of the Minotaur entwined with clever Daedelus and his golden son, Icarus, who followed his own splendor and flew too close to the sun.
A reckless escape, to be a bird wide-winged in soaring flight Rising high and higher, brought down by the stroke of fearsome light
This is a fortune-teller named Francesca, living on Crete, in 1550. A combination of a curse and her own powers has allowed her to live for centuries and travel all over the world. She has taken many identities and practiced many professions over the long years.
Dissonance shouted. “That’s right, go whine to that stupid dictionary, you little Machiavellian sneak.”
Susannah Stewart slammed the door to her room.
Merriam-Webster: Ma·chi·a·vel·lian | ma-kē-ə-ˈve-lē-ən: suggesting the principles of conduct laid down by Machiavelli specifically: marked by cunning, duplicity, or bad faith
Susannah Stewart said, “Merriam, I know what Machiavellian is. Remember, I read The Prince last year. Dissonance and Harmony are mad because I was helping things work out the way I wanted them to. And it wasn’t the way they wanted things to go. They’re so full of themselves. They can't stand being outsmarted by a kid.”
Merriam: ma·nip·u·la·tive | mə-ˈni-pyə-ˌlā-tiv: of, relating to, or performed by manipulation especially: serving or intended to control or influence others in an artful and often unfair or selfish way : ex: clever and manipulative child
Susannah shrugged. “Maybe I am manipulative. I don't know. I want to be a good person. But this chosen one stuff is getting to me. Sometimes I know too much, but mostly I don’t know enough. Who can help me?”
Merriam: Fates | Fātes: the three goddesses, Atropos, Clotho, and Lachesis, who determine the course of human life in classical mythology
Susannah said. “You think I should ask the deciding women for advice. I’m not too sure about that. They like pretending they are everyday women, running that shop of theirs, From Beginning to End, down there on Main Street.”
“I don’t know if they will let me see their true faces. I’m even less sure that I’ll like what I see. Or what I may hear.”
He thought over the many things revealed in the afternoon’s conversations (The deciding ladies? Does Susannah know about them, too? Powers That Be deliver us!) The Sculptor
A few days ago here in Tennessee
The Fortune Teller looks at the computer screen and smiles at me. “Patrick has sent you an invitation to try your hand at a mantinada. How interesting.”
She continues, “I know your current obsession with the bullying hitchhikers on the haunted mountain roads, but let us leave them for a little while. And we can give Susannah Stewart and Merriam a small part in this tale so they will not feel left out. You won’t have to abandon your beloved Appalachia entirely.”
Henry the Hedgehog agrees, “I’m ready to get out of the hills for a bit.”
“I know the perfect story for this response,” Penelope says. “I was in Crete when the mantinades originated. It was all backstabbing Venetians, politics, and squabbling then, but I was there, too, in a much earlier time. That story was of forbidden love and great passion and through it all blood and betrayal.”
As she talks, my mind drifts to Minos and the Minotaur, Ariadne and Theseus, Icarus and Daedalus, and on and on through the long years of the Minoan empire. Penelope has great gifts of persuasion. I suspect hypnosis, but I no longer have any wish to resist.
Penelope, the Fortune Teller, is right.
The hitchhikers can wait to meet their fate.
But not for long.
Patrick M. Ohana writes beautifully on a favored theme.
A mantinada (“morning song” in Italian) typically consists of a Cretan 15-syllable rhyming couplet.
Recite me a Cretan mantinada
The challenge and the fun for the Medium writing community started here with Somsubhra Banerjee who inspired us to explore a variety of uncommon poetic forms.
