Lupa's story

Lupa is Latin for she-wolf. The she-wolf inhabits the hills of the Palatine which I suspect are the site of a prior Etruscan sacred site. The day I visited the Palatine was really hot and the hills were shining and pink. I wandered over towards them wanting some shade and found this small shrine with no signs to indicate anything of importance here. First of all I saw the bird wolf woman (upper right, as in the previous post). And then I saw the sheep's head (on the lower left). I had not expected to find these two figures together, it seemed as though it was there for my benefit (I know, I know...). Anyway, I was standing there mouth gaping thinking about all the different possible ways to take the meaning of this. Some days later I wrote the following poem and I've been working on it on and off since then.

The word 'lupa' has multiple meanings. It can also mean prostitute (in Italian this has shifted to 'cagna' as in English 'bitch'). It's hard to unpack how words shift in meaning and in societies where women have much more status and freedom the word prostitute can have a range of other meanings, from sexually active to sacred in some way. In Greek and Roman religion the 'bitch goddess' is Artemis or Diana respectively. She is not bossed around by anyone, in fact, she is also called 'mistress of the animals', 'goddess of the wild' and the like.

Lupa’s story

heat is swelling like distended breasts

the day after I whelp my cubs

my dugs full    craving water

I wander down the pink Palatino hill

to the cool by the river

flood-high from summer storms

I smell something on Zephyr’s breath

hear the thin yelp

find them scratched and naked

tumbling from a wicker basket

I lick the caul from their bodies

first one then the other

they attach their mouths to me

almost drain me of milk

like ringlets we curl in the grotto and doze

I know the science of auspex

crows and ravens who bring

morsels of food augure well

there is man-smell in the air

I dare not remain

they are calm now

these pink-fleshed ones

I retreat from sun-glare

into the cave’s umbral arms

he steps out from

behind the fig tree

with his ovine face

his sheepskin wrap

shepherd’s crook

and bumpkin ways

a kindly one our Faunus

he cradles them in his arms

stares into my eyes

carries them to the breasts

of fertile Acca Larentia

who shares my name Lupa

There are so many things going on in this story. The shepherd, Faunus (another name for Pan and probably from the term 'the kindly one') takes the twins back home to another woman who has had ten children. She, like the wolf, is known as Lupa. But these 'lupas' are mothers, they suckle children. That is the most obvious element in the two stories.

Pan or Faunus is a kind of sidekick to Diana and Artemis and that also comes through in this story with the passing of the children from the suckling she-wolf 'lupa' to the suckling woman 'lupa'.

Photos on this page:
1. The shrine on the Palatine Hill, Rome with both bird/wolf/woman and sheep.
2. A Roman coin in the Museum of Antiquities, Turin.
3. The Palatine shrine with bird/wolf/woman.
4. The Palatine shrine with sheeps's head.
5. Lupa sculpture outside the Capitoline Museum (behind it).
6. Lupa sculpture outside the Capitoline Museum at sunrise.

The photo that heads my blog is the Lupa sculpture inside the Capitoline Museum.