The forest of forever

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I am three hundred and sixty years old and I pride myself, not unjustly, on having enjoyed twice as many lovers as I have years. I have loved Men, Minotaurs, Centaurs, and Tritons and no one has ever complained that Zoe, the Dryad of Crete, has failed in the art of love. Saffron, the erstwhile queen of the Thriae or Bee-Folk, once called me as weatherbeaten as my oak. She pointed to the gold tooth fitted by my Babylonian lover of twenty-no, thirty summers ago, and to the streaks of gray in my green hair, like moss among leaves. I, in turn, expanded the twin grandeurs of my unsagging breasts.

“My dear,” I replied, with more courtesy than she deserved, “who wants a sapling when he can have a full-fledged oak?”

I hardly need to add that in these days when everyone is telling his own history-on papyrus, clay tablets, or palm leaves-I have innumerable stories to tell, and since decorum has never been one of my burdens, I am sorely tempted to tell you about some of my escapades. The Babylonian. The Briton. The Achaean (lusty brute!). The only thing that silences me is the fact that some of my friends-and enemies, for every desirable woman is envied as much as she is desired-have a much more ennobling tale to be told. Since those involved are unable to speak for themselves, I must speak for them. As a matter of fact, I do at times take part in the melancholy events: I participated as well as observed. But I neither claim nor wish to be the heroine, poor, dreaming Kora, who was cursed with beauty as some women are cursed with ugliness. However, I will presume to speak for her, even to some of her thoughts, as well as for Eunostos, the last Minotaur, and Aeacus, the Cretan prince.

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