Celaeno

My name is Celaeno

the dark one

and with my sisters

the storm winds

I drive the ships of men

onto the rocks

until they founder.

That’s why they call us

the bitches of Zeus

ministers of the Thunderer

snatchers or swift robbers

and fear that we’ll seize them

with our clawed hands

and carry them off

pressed against our wings

and our nakedness

with our lovely hair 

twining all about them 

like a thicket of snakes. 

But we only work

for the big man of Olympus

helping to guard 

the underworld and

carrying oath-breakers

down to the Furies, the avengers

with their scourges of brass

we’re his jolie laide girls

his enforcers 

the wings of the storm.

The Harpy Celaeno, Mary Pownall (1862-1937)

https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/the-harpy-celaeno-293888