#metope

greek mythology: metope

Today’s Flickr photo with the most hits shows a marble bas-relief that comprised part of the decorative motif of the Sebasteion, Aphrodisias, in present day Turkey. 

Olaf Bull (Nov. 10, 1883 - 1933) was a Norwegian modernist poet who became fast friends with James Joyce whom he taught Norwegian so that Joyce could read Scandinavian myths and legends and invent authentic sounding word-play for Finnegans Wake...

Bull himself was a tad on the traditionalist side for a modernist poet. Here is John Irons’ translation of part of Bull’s poem Metope:

METOPE You I would in rhythms fondly rivet tight! You I would hold deep and lasting in the eternal young alabaster of the poem’s flight! You day-dreamer, moved by the sun! With your gaze chastely turned toward evening’s pale gold, meekly you turn a heaven towards another, as bathed in light and tenderness and secrecy! I would gladly forfeit verse’s every trope were one thing in my power: to hew firm-lined in memory’s stubborn stone a smooth metope that could depict your shy, frail-contoured mind!

Fragments of marble metopes depicting women in chitons from the Temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassai in Arcadia

Greek, Classical Period, 420-400 B.C.