Atalanta

You couldn't see me as I passed.
I was just a whisper in the grass.

My feet were green all summer.

There wasn't a runner
anywhere could touch me.
They felt me as a breeze on their faces.
I whistled past their pumping thighs.

I was too fast for eyes,
too fast for men's bare feet.
When they, panting, reached the line,
I, who had been there for some time,
smelled to them salty and alive.
The smell never left them.
They breathed it like air.

It wasn't fair.
I pinned Achilles' father at the games.
I hunted boar with heroes.
I ran, on a woman's bare feet.
He didn't beat
me, not really. It wasn't right.

Those apples were so bright
in the sun. And after all,
didn't I deserve something golden,
something shining? Goddesses
have fought for less.

Like an arrow I fell to earth.
And no, the apples weren't worth
it. Neither is he, nor his hands in the dark.
I was swift as a lark. I was free.

How does he think he will keep me?

I run so fast.

[A version of this appears in the Ennead above.]