The Wrecking Light

by Robin Robertson

  taking me by the throat

  to the cheers and yelps of the rest.

  And their noise woke Dionysus — for it was him

  who opened his eyes —

  "Tell me sailors: what's happening?

  How did I get here and where am I going?"

  One told him not to worry, asked him

  to name his port of call.

  "Naxos. Turn your course for Naxos,

  my home, and you'll find a welcome there."

  And so the mutinous crew

  swore by all the gods of the sea they would do

  just that and told me to set sail.

  Naxos lay to starboard but

  winking and laughing

  they made me steer to port.

  "I'll have no hand in this," I said,

  and I was shouldered from the helm.

  "No one is indispensable, captain.

  We'll make our own luck now."

  And the painted prow was turned

  away from Naxos, out to the open sea.

  Then the god began to toy with them.

  Gazing out from the curving deck

  across the ocean, feigning tears, he cried:

  "These are not the shores you promised me,

  these shores are not my home.

  What glory is there when men

  deceive a boy — so many against one?"

  My tears were real, but the mutineers

  just laughed at both of us and kept on rowing.

  Now I swear to you by that god himself

  — and there is no god nearer than him —

  that this is true: that the ship just stopped.

  It stood still on the sea as if in dry dock.

  The panicked men pulled harder,

  letting out sail to try and find the wind,

  but ivy was swarming up the oars

  twining tendrils round the blades,

  whipping along the decks and up the mast,

  dragging at the encumbered sails

  till they sagged in heavy-berried clusters.

  And now the god revealed himself at last.

  Around his brow a garland of grapes;

  in his hand a wand, tight-twisted with vine;

  and at his feet, the slinking

  phantom shapes of wild beasts:

  tigers, lynxes, panthers.

  Illusions, perhaps, but the crew began to leap

  overboard, in terror or madness or both.

  One body darkened and went black,

  back lifting in a curve; another started to call out

  just as his jaws spread wide, his nose hooked over,

  his skin hardened into scales. Another, still

  fumbling with an oar, looked down

  and saw his hands shrinking till they were

  hands no more, just fins.

  And I watched one, reaching up for a rope, finding

  he had no arms

  and as he toppled over,

  finding he had no legs either:

  all torso, he back-flipped into the sea,

  with a tail horned like a crescent moon.

  They leapt on every side in showers of spray:

  bursting free of the water, plunging down again

  like dancers or tumblers turning through the air.

  The only human left of twenty

  I stood there shaking

  till I heard the god speak out:

  "Hold your nerve

  and this empty ship

  and track us down the coast to home!"

  And so I did. And there I joined

  his rites and sacrifices, and now I follow him:

  Iacchus, Bromius, Liber, Dionysus.'

  'Well,' said Pentheus, 'I have listened patiently

  to this rambling fantasy of yours:

  an attempt, no doubt, to diminish my anger

  and delay your punishment. Well, it didn't work.

  Take him, men, and break him on the rack.

  Send him down to Hell.'

  And so Acoetes was dragged away

  to the cells; but while the fire, the steel,

  the instruments of pain, were being prepared

  the studded doors flew open of their own accord

  and the forged chains fell from his hands.

  Hearing this — not trusting anyone now —

  Pentheus stood and went

  to settle things, once and for all.

  Alone, he clambered up Cithaeron, the mountain

  chosen for these rites, now ringing

  with the songs and chants of the maenads,

  the celebrants of the god.

  And he was stirred by them, roused like a warhorse

  at the sound of battle trumpets, their

  shiver in the air. The long cries

  thrilling through him he pressed on:

  skittish, fevered, feeling again

  some passion in him flare.

  Halfway up the mountainside,

  surrounded by woods, was an open clearing.

  Here he stood, in full view. Here he looked

  upon the naked mysteries with uninitiated eyes.

  The first to see him, the first

  to rush at him, the first

  to hurl her sharpened wand into his side,

  was Agave, his mother,

  screaming: 'Come, my sisters, quick!

  There is a wild boar here we must kill!'

  And the three sisters led the rest

  and fell on him in frenzy,

  and Pentheus the king was terrified, crying out,

  confessing all his sins. Blood

  streaming from a hundred wounds

  he called to Autonoë: 'I am Pentheus!

  Don't you know your own nephew?

  Would you do to me

  what the dogs did to Actaeon, your son?'

  But the names meant nothing to her,

  and she simply

  tore his right arm out of its shoulder.

  Her sister, Ino, wrenched off the other

  like a pigeon's wing.

  With no hands left to pray, no arms

  to reach for his mother, he just said,

  'Mother, look at me.'

  And Agave looked, and howled, and shook

  the hair from her face, and went to him

  and took his head in her hands

  and in a throb of rapture

  twisted it, clean off.

  In her bloody grip, the head swung

  with its red strings: 'See,

  my sisters: victory!'

  And quicker than a winter wind strips

  the last leaves from a tree,

  so all the others ripped Pentheus to pieces

  with their own bare hands.

  By this lesson piety was learned,

  and due reverence for the great god Dionysus,

  for his rites, and for this holy mountain shrine.

  LESSON

  The green leaf opens

  and the leaf falls,

  each breath is a flame

  that gives in to fire;

  and grief is the price

  we pay for love,

  and the death of love

  the fee of all desire.

  THE DAUGHTERS OF MINYAS

  After Ovid

  Son of Zeus, son of the thunderbolt,

  Iacchus the twice-born, child

  of the double door, Bromius

  the roaring god, the coming one,

  the vanishing one, the god

  who stands apart; god of frenzy

  and release, god of the vine.

  The one

  of many names and many faces.

  xsxsThe horned god. Young

  beyond time.

  The god

  that changes. The Other.

  Dionysus.

  ***

  And noise, just a lot of noise: drums,

  cymbals, flutes — not even music — shouting

  and screaming and dancing u
p the mountain

  to kill some goat, no doubt. And all that blooming ivy

  'They say Mount Cithaeron flows with blood...

  'Wine, more like.'

  'They say the king has gone.

  That when the women were done with their play

  and finally laid him down

  he must have been tired

  for his head rolled away like a stone.'

  'They're all drunk. I wouldn't believe a word.

  Another false god turns up and off they go.

  If that pretty boy's a son of Zeus, then I can fly.

  Believe me, it will pass.

  It's the priests I blame: whipping up this madness.

  Our servant girls deserting their tasks —

  their looms and basket-work — unbinding their hair

  and putting on garlands, carrying those spear things,

  those fennel stalks tied up with vine leaves,

  burning incense — and all of them dressed

  in animal skins, for heaven's sake.

  You won't catch me in some procession

  up a mountain with a bunch of stupid girls

  because a priest says we should celebrate a god.

  Him and his so-called mysteries.

  We are the daughters of Minyas

  and we have our god — sweet Pallas Athena —

  and we don't need a false idol, or his wine.

  Let's pass the hours while we spin and weave

  by telling stories, and by the time we're done

  all will be quiet and everything back to normal.'

  'Here's one. About how the mulberry changed

  from white to red because of blood.

  An Eastern story this, about the handsome Pyramus

  and his neighbour, the beautiful Thisbe.

  Separated by their parents, and a wall,

  each night they kissed the stone that lay between.

  They pledged to meet, after dark, by this tomb

  with a mulberry bush nearby. Thisbe gets there first,

  but is scared off by a lioness all bloody-mouthed

  from some ghastly business. She escapes,

  but drops her shawl, which the beast tears to pieces.

  Then along comes Pyramus, finds the shawl

  and thinks she's dead, so kills himself.

  Blood everywhere. All over the bush.

  Then Thisbe returns, of course, sees her loved one

  lying dead, and kills herself. More blood,

  and that's why mulberries are red.'

  'Lovely story, but a bit dull. No sex, at least,

  for once; that's a relief.'

  'Here's another. It tells how the Sun falls in love.

  But before that, we hear how his light sees everything first:

  in this case, brightening the bed where Ares lies

  entertaining Aphrodite, wife of the fire-god Hephaestus...'

  'Oh, the cripple? The donkey-rider?'

  'The very same — but now cuckold too. And so Hephaestus —

  who's good with his hands, if nothing else — fashions this

  invisible net of bronze, finer than the finest spider's web,

  and traps his wife and her lover in the very act.'

  'Disgusting. And I suppose the other gods were watching?'

  'Of course — which fuelled the shame

  of Aphrodite, and stoked her vengeance.'

  'Against her gimp of a husband — the blacksmith?'

  'No, no: against the Sun! She makes him fall in love

  with this virgin princess. He turns up in disguise, then

  discloses himself to her — you know? And so,

  overwhelmed by his radiance, his magnificence,

  she gives in. As you would.

  But there's another girl who also loves the Sun,

  and in her jealousy she tells the king,

  who's so furious at his daughter's crime

  he buries her alive.

  The Sun, distraught, tries to save her, but to no avail.

  "In spite of Fate," he says, "you'll still reach up to heaven,"

  and sprinkles the ground with nectar. Up comes

  this shrub of frankincense, stretching to the sky.

  The other girl, meanwhile — the jealous one —

  is changed into a tiny flower, doomed to turn her face

  forever, following the sun.'

  'Good. They got what they deserved.'

  'Time for one more.

  This is the story of the fountain pool whose waters

  turn men's bodies soft as girls': home of the nymph

  Salmacis, who wouldn't follow Artemis, who chose

  the mirror and brush over the javelin and bow.

  When a beautiful boy — almost a man — appears

  at the pool, she's eaten up by desire and tries

  to kiss him, but he's still too young to understand.

  She retreats, watching him slip off his clothes and dive in.

  Beside herself, she plunges after him, pulling

  him under, taking him by force, and praying

  to the gods that their bodies will never be parted.

  And so it was, like two trees grafted,

  they were made one — and that one

  was neither man nor woman: it was Hermaphroditus.

  In his new voice he asked his parents,

  Hermes and Aphrodite, to curse this pool forever,

  so that any boy who swam in it would be unmanned.

  And so it came to be.'

  The daughters of Minyas sat in silence, then, for a while.

  Eventually, they went back to their work:

  taking their minds off the boy in the pool,

  the gods in their bed; those mulberries.

  They busied themselves with their weaving,

  trying to forget what was going on

  up on the mountain with all the other women

  and their ridiculous prophet. Not wanting

  to even think about it (the hard

  young bodies and all those wet mouths

  turning to feast) they kept their hands moving

  and stayed very quiet.

  A quiet that was torn open — that moment —

  by shrieks, drumbeats, horns, bones

  and bells and pipes, the bleating cries

  of things unspeakable, the air dense and sweet

  with saffron and myrrh; and then,

  unbelievably, their weaving turned to green.

  Their looms were sudden tents of ivy, twined

  and looped with its emerald and jade, the curtains

  swagged with fruit, drooping tapestries of vine —

  their gold brocade and delicate laces

  now swathed in budding creepers, blue-veined leaves.

  Each thread became a tendril, their spools

  and spindles tightening and thickening to stems,

  festooned now with the dark red

  flesh and weight of grapes.

  The house shuddered into dusk

  and all the oil-lamps flared up

  and torches spat and smoked

  in every room and all around them

  grew the shapes and sounds of beasts.

  Each sister shirked the light, flinching

  from the flames into the deep shadows,

  and as they scuttled in corners

  a new skin started growing,

  stretching from their withered arms

  to their shrivelled feet, though they were

  too busy flittering there

  to notice.

  But when they tried to speak their grief,

  all that they heard was a tiny

  high-pitched squeak.

  No human can hear them now

  where they hang, huddled in the rafters,

  under the thatch.

  Shunning our daylight

  they flit only by night

  and take their name

  from the time that they appe
ar:

  the vesper bats.

  AN AMBUSH

  None survived.

  The platoon had forgotten

  the fable of the patient fox, waiting

  for the night's sudden

  drop to zero.

  A minute is all it takes

  and the white lake is dotted in stars

  already frozen red,

  and the blown feathers of ducks.

  Just their feet left

  still standing there, webbed hard

  into the trap-ice.

  ODE TO A LARGE TUNA IN THE MARKET

  After Neruda

  Here,

  among the market vegetables,

  this torpedo

  from the ocean

  depths,

  a missile

  that swam,

  now

  lying in front of me

  dead

  surrounded

  by the earth's green froth

  — these lettuces,

  bunches of carrots.

  Only you

  lived through

  the sea's truth, survived

  the unknown, the

  unfathomable

  darkness, the depths

  of the sea,

  le grand abîme,

  only you:

  varnished

  black-pitched

  witness

  to that deepest night.

  Only you:

  dark bullet

  barrelled

  from the depths,

  carrying only

  your one wound,

  but renewed,

  always resurgent,

  locked into the current,

  fins fletched

  like wings

  in the torrent,

  in the coursing

  of the underwater dark,

  like a grieving arrow,

  sea-javelin, a nerveless

  oiled harpoon.

  Dead

  in front of me,

  catafalqued king

  of my own ocean;

  once

  sappy as a sprung fir

  in the green turmoil,

  once seed

  to sea-quake,

  tidal wave, now

  simply

  dead remains.

  In the whole market

  yours

  was the only shape left

  with purpose or direction

  in this

  jumbled ruin

  of nature;

  you are armed

  amongst this greenery,

  a solitary man of war,

  your flanks and prow

  black

  and slippery

  as if you were still

  a well-oiled ship of the wind,

  the only

  true

  machine

  of the sea: unflawed,

  undefiled,

  navigating now

  the waters of death.

  GRAVE GOODS

  He wanted to outlive the grim husbandry