Kentauros

Little is known about Kentauros, who mated with a mare to create the centaur. Of the Greek poets, only Pindar writes of him, though little beyond the circumstances of his conception, when Zeus laid a trap to catch King Ixion coveting his wife, and giving birth to Kentauros, who "bore a curse that offended gods and men alike." With this beguiling new work, Feeley (Arabian Wine) examines Pindar's words closely for clues about Kentauros, neither mortal nor god, "conceived on Olympus but exiled to a companionless life on earth." The author also intersperses his own myth, in which he imagines the lonely life of Kentauros, seeking survival in a cruel world, and his ill-fated coupling with the mare. And Feeley imagines the circumstances surrounding Percy Shelley's allusions to King Ixion in his poetry; a fantastic interlude finds Mary Shelley attempting to continue her husband's work after his death with the help of Lord Byron and James Leigh Hunt. Feeley's work is an unusual and somewhat disturbing reminder that "myths live where we do" and that "we respond to myths not because they are culture-affirming but because they are frightening." (Dec.)