Beware Harmonia

Beware Harmonia
Harmonia is the child of Aphrodite
by the unrepentant lord of war,
born of equal shares of love and strife
herself, her life, uncontrollable, wild, extreme,
passion seeded, a daunting Beethoven symphony.

She loved a man, his name was Cadmus,
he was born of Telephassa, priestess of Selene,
holiest of holies in the land of old Phoenicia,
and step-brother to the sisters Europa and Phoenix,
priestesses, of the setting moon, and the reborn dawn.
His father, a warlord, mountain chief, unmannered king.

Cadmus, as men are wont to do, forced his way,
to Delphi, and desecrated the Castalian Spring,
font of inspiration poetic, and prophecy sacred,
he killed Python, the guardian dragon, Gaia's child,
yet still Harmonia did love him madly, blindly, insanely.

Forced to flee, new lands, to him, old friends to her,
he used her royal right, to lord the people, her prize to him,
he usurped the peace, the people revolted, the pair fled.
They did it again, and again and yet again, using her divine right,
a blasphemy, and in their shame, to flee the people once again.

At last they stopped, weary and wrathful, Harmonia and Cadmus,
that man, the Goddess and Python, he did vengefully swear,
and so, his skin was turned to scale as Harmonia began to wail,
and plead the gods, to leave them not, in this separate way, and so,
the mountain warlord gods, they snaked Harmonia, skin to scale,
and twined she lay, with Cadmus, ever since that day.

Beware harmony, a dangerous sword, double-bladed,
love and war, named they are; compromise and acquiescence,
sharpness unrivalled; conquered and dominated, the deadly ends.
You'll sell your heritage, your honor, your soul, your sister and mother,
and then fool yourself there's peace in a conqueror's angry embrace.