‘Aha! Good day to you, Black Ant, our Lord’s great headsman! 415
Wait till I smarten up and gird my weapons well,
wait till I curl my graying hair to face my master.’
He cocked his cap askew and buckled on his sword,
then slung his drum across his back and made for God.
When the cruel Slayer saw the worm, he thundered out: 420
‘Worm, is it you who spoil my sleep all night and shout:
“You’ve matched all well on earth: wine, women, bread, and song,
but why, you Murderer, must you slay our children? Why?” ‘
The worm stood straight on God’s blood-splattered threshold then
and beat his drum, beat it again, and raised his throat: 425
‘You’ve matched all well on earth: wine, women, bread, and song,
but why, you Murderer, must you slay our children? Why?’
God foamed with rage and raised his sword to pierce that throat,
but his old copper sword, my lads, stuck at the bone.
Then from his belt the worm drew his black-hilted sword, 430
rushed up and slew that old decrepit god in heaven!
And now, my gallant lads—I don’t know when or how—
that worm’s god-slaying sword has fallen into my hands;
I swear that from its topmost iron tip the blood still drips!”
Then the god-slayer closed his huge myth-making mouth 435
and quickly wiped his sweating brow with his coarse hands,
and all forgot their thirst, and rowlocks creaked and swayed
as though the worm himself had come and seized the oars.
The piper sighed and thrust his reed back in his belt:
“Oho, I’ll stop my singing and I’ll break my weapons; 440
my skull is much too small and my heart much too weak
to grip and hold complete the brave worm’s monstrous bulk!
It’s shameful to climb the high crags and cliffs of song
if you can’t make the summit and your knuckles break.”
Then bulldog Hardihood turned with a laugh and mocked: 445
“Hey, hey! In every braggart shall be found an ass!”
All laughed, and the poor piper hung his head in shame.
Thirst gripped the boatmen as they strained against the oars,
their prow could not cut through the sea’s unmelting lead
but suddenly from the mast they heard their chief mate cry: 450
“Courage, my lads, just two more heaves and we moor on sand!”
A thick green-foliaged sandy shore loomed to their right,
fig trees hung high on cliffs above the sea and swayed,
weighed down with fruit, and clove the rocks with twisting roots;
a land-breeze lightly brought the scent of mountain thyme, 455
their nostrils quivered and their hands gripped at the oars
till like a thirsty seagull their prow skimmed on sand.
With Hardihood, gaunt Granite, and some empty wineskins,
Odysseus thrust through osier trees and mastic shrubs
to find that antidote to thirst, cool running water.; 460
“Fellows, let’s all take different paths,” the archer said,
“and may the best man win!” The water-hunters ‘scattered,
and the archer thrust through shrubs to find life-giving wells.
As with his head erect he sniffed the blazing air,
a secret song beat its soft birdwings in his mind 465
and cool-voiced fountains spouted in his thirsty heart.
He pushed on with a sated and rejoicing head:
the old worm, water, Helen, all’ mingled in his mind,
and like a woman’s tender rustling, wings, or birdsong,
God drifted through the air and ruffled his gray locks. 470
This god was not a murderer, wrapped in swirling clouds,
he held no thunderbolt in mind, no sword in hand,
but blew about Odysseus now with sweetest breath.
God was a fair and helping wind that swelled the heart.
And though he sought life-giving water, his mind surpassed 475
the body’s narrow need and in the desert chirped:
“God is a song in azure air and no one knows
from whence he comes or what the meaning of his words;
only the heart, a female bird, listens and trembles.”
Singing, he pushed on quickly till he suddenly heard 480
fresh water warbling in a vale of green plane trees.
He stooped and saw a sunburnt, black-haired maiden there
pushing a curly bull-calf in the stream to cool it,
and he rejoiced because earth gave him now all three
of man’s most basic treasures—water, woman, food. 485
He came up slowly, sweetening his face as best he could,
but when the maiden saw the stranger, she drew back,
for he seemed like a god who’d come to earth for water.
“When I first stepped on sand, I sought three joys from earth,”
thus sweetly spoke the sly beguiler of men and gods, 490
“I asked her for a curly bull to feed my crew,
for gurgling water that their guts might not run dry,
a lass of twenty or so to play with on the grass,
and see! the earth has crammed my fists with all her treasures!”
The supple and compliant girl crouched in the shrubs 495
and her breasts ached and fluttered like two timid doves.
“A god has chanced to find me by this spring,” she thought;
“I bend and bow low to his grace, his will be done.”
The swift mind-reader felt the maiden’s fear and joy:
“Yes, you’ve divined it, lovely lass, I’m a sea-god 500
who saw you far off from the waves and leapt ashore
so that the thighs of god and man might meet in love”.
The maiden hid her flushed face in the tender leaves,
then tied her bull-calf tightly to a plane tree’s root
and waited, trembling on the grass, nor moved, nor spoke. 505
Fierce heat! The sweating bull steamed in the blazing sun
and the young girl smelled strongly like a rutting beast.
The cunning man fell on his knees to Mother Earth
and drank till his parched flesh rejoiced from head to heel,
then spread his hands and bent the maiden to the grass. 510
The young girl felt as though a god embraced her sweetly,
as though her earthen womb had brimmed with deathless seed.
She hid her face then in his briny beard, laughed, wept,
heard the whole dancing sea crash wave on foaming wave
and wash her body wholly in a cooling flood. 515
A sweet compassion glazed the man’s discerning eyes,
and as she knelt and clasped his knees and kissed his hand,
he stroked in ravishment the girl’s disheveled hair.
Then he leapt up, filled his skins full, tucked up his sleeves
and seized the callow bull-calf, stabbed it through the throat 520
until the handsome beast fell to the grass and groaned.
The maiden helped the slayer, then knelt and washed his hands;
and as she marveled at his godly strength in stealth,
the water’s sound danced in her womb like a new son.
The foxy man then wedged his fingers in his mouth 525
and whistled like a shepherd for his two lean hounds.
When the friends heard and rushed to find him, maddening thoughts
raced pellmell through their heads, a thousand fears—perhaps
cutthroats had seized him, some dread god or local demon,
but when they saw him wave with laughter, their hearts calmed. 530
“You wily hunter,” Granite yelled, “I see
you’ve flushed
your pretty prey while we, for shame, come empty-handed!”
The prowler laughed, shrugged his burnt shoulders and replied:
“Don’t growl, it’s your own fault! Don’t you know God needs scaring?
The more you ask of him the more he gives you, lads. 535
You asked for water only, nothing more, but I
demanded springs and kisses, nor could my wants fit
in empty wineskins and this short-breathed flesh I lug,
and that’s why God got scared and gave me all he had.”
They slung the bull and waterskins about their backs 540
and trod on, while the maiden hid her breasts and followed
as flowers sprang from sterile sands wherever she passed.
Soon, when they reached the seashore, the seducer turned
and stroked her shoulders longingly in sweet farewell:
“Dearly betrothed, don’t weep; in nine month’s time, I swear, 545
I’ll lie upon your lap once more and touch your lips;
an infant god shall suck your breasts, your house shall shine.”
He waded to his curly loins in the cool sea and seized
the gunwale, leapt into his tossing vessel lightly,
and his friends laughed and eyed the maid so slyly kissed; 550
then they rigged sail, rowed hurriedly, and skimmed the sea.
The pregnant maiden stretched her hands toward the far waves,
and her tears gently flowed, her eyes gleamed in the sun,
but good winds freshly blew, the earth swayed like a dream,
and soon the fruitful maiden vanished in the fluttering air. 555
Two days and nights they sailed, backed by the wind’s breath.
Water they had, and wine, and meat stacked in the hold;
their souls grew strong, nor from their flesh could be dislodged,
and scorned now to look back, nor feared what loomed ahead,
but as the wasp clings to the grape and sucks it dry, 560
so did the comrades seize and glean each fleeting hour.
Where they were going or toward what goal or what they wished
and what sword hung above them ready to cut them down
they scorned to ask themselves a moment even in thought.
The first day and its night passed on, its sun and moon, 565
a second day and night flashed like a double flame,
and in the third night’s dawn they skimmed in the wished haven,
gathered their sails, rowed quickly, then crossed idle oars
The village wakened in rose light, the rooms resounded
with laughing girls who flung their window-shutters wide 570
on purple-spotted violets and curled basil leaves.
Fishermen cast their dragnets by the sounding shore,
and when they saw the scudding ship, they yelled in welcome,
and six glad greetings came from the deck in swift reply.
The captain marshaled all his crew and gave strict orders: 575
“I’m going, lads, to Sparta, but I still don’t know
what fate may have in store nor what my own mind wants;
slowly, by what I see and do, I’ll work things out.
Keep all your wits about you, don’t roam far from shore,
don’t let fat oxen, wine, or maids lead you astray; 580
earth is a baited hook, and here’s the trick, my lads:
let’s see you snap up all the bait and not get hooked!
But you’re mature men all and need no advice from me.”
He turned toward Kentaur then and slapped him on the back:
“You hangdog, you and your meat-mountain shall go with me! 585
I’d like to see your thick fists hold the heavy reins
of my bronze chariot as my steeds eat up the road
and we ascend to Beauty’s castle in afterglow.”
Glutton then grabbed his monstrous paunches, laughed, and roared:
“I see no chariot here! It won’t be easy dragging 590
these folds of greasy fat through fields in dust and sun;
take thin-assed Orpheus in my stead, he’s lightly laden!”
The piper’s blood ran cold, his heart skipped twice or thrice,
and he crept low and crouched between the paunch’s thighs,
but the archer frowned and flung his words sharp as a shaft: 595
“Few words are best, do you hear? Push on! I see a field
so wide it’ll yield us many chariots, many steeds.
Let’s go! All that a great mind wants will cross his path.”
Then from the hold he brought a precious ivory box,
a mortal’s godly present for sun-loving Helen, 600
and there a crystal ball flashed, a miraculous eye
through whose clear waters countries, seas, and persons passed;
all houses were unroofed and all their shames exposed,
all heads, transparent, empty, rose like lotuses
in that eye’s glare, and every secret thought passed by 605
like small distended goldfish in a crystal bowl,
Battalions moved like phantoms at the world’s far ends,
kingdoms rose up from every seashore’s rim like clouds,
scattered once more, and others loomed in storm behind
as though the life of earth and man’s black fate were all 610
a tiny plaything made of water, light, and air.
This godly eye Calypso once had given him to recall
that first sweet night when in her cave they’d slept together.
He’d gazed in it for seven lightning years that passed
and seen his native land, his father, son, and wife; 615
he’d seen his treasures squandered on his courtyard’s tiles,
but, like a god, disdained to be distressed in spirit.
Through every joy and grief he’d kept this magic eye
hung on his sunburnt bosom like a heavy charm;
but now he had no need of it and thought to hang it, 620
a star, a flame, a blazing fire, on Helen’s gleaming throat.
The two friends trudged at daybreak in the early fields;
clouds eastward flushed with rose, the fields with golden grain,
and leaf by leaf light poured like oil on sunshot trees.
In a deep silence the two friends trudged down the fields; 625
the first felt Helen in the gentle rose-red light
rise like the crescent moon in day to fade in sun;
the second scurried right and left to find a chariot.
Soon in a darkling copse they saw a farmhouse gleam,
and drawing near, found slaves and yards still drowned in sleep; 630
only an old man in the stables groomed the horses,
and in the courtyard shone a smart bronze-armored car.
Holding their breath, they slunk in slyly like night beasts,
and when they rushed the slave, he screamed like scalded hens,
for in their flaming eyes he guessed their pitiless purpose 635
and dashed to escape them through the narrow stable door,
but Kentaur seized and gagged him with a horse’s reins
and bound him to the bronze rings of the feeding trough.
Meanwhile the archer bound the steeds to the car-yoke
then saw and seized a whip that lay on the well’s rim 640
and, clucking softly, led the steeds to the main road.
“Be quick, get in,” he whispered, and his splayfoot friend
lurched in, grabbed at the reins, till all the chariot creaked;
then like a lightning flash they pierced through rising dust,
and when the farmhouse vanished in the twisting road, 645
the sharpster nudged his sudden charioteer and chuckled:
“Hey, I forgot to tell the old man I’m a god
that he mi
ght be consoled for his poor plundered stalls!”
Bold Kentaur laughed, twisted his grimy neck, and yelled:
“Let’s turn the horses round to tell him then, by God!” 650
The shrewd man secretly admired his fearless friend
and through his mind there flashed a wild caprice: to turn
and watch the landlord howl and all the poor slaves yelp,
but he reined in his senseless whim and spoke with calm:
“Sit on your eggs, O seven-floored beast! Don’t overdo it! 655
I’m all for playing with danger, too, on the cliff’s edge,
but even prudence suits the brave man well at times.
Speed on! Let’s see the face of Helen before light fades.”
He ceased, then turned in his wild mind what fate writes down:
how to pass Menelaus’ threshold, with what wiles 660
and what sly glance to shoot at Helen at their first meeting.
Although he longed for Menelaus, his old friend,
he hated loves like stagnant bogs with their fat blooms,
and trailed with fear the lofty flame that seared his heart.
The swan-god’s daughter rose once more in his mind’s prow, 665
blood sprang like fountains from her amputated wings,
and his contentious heart dissolved to watch such grace
allure weak man with blood and tears and smiles until
his weapons fell disused before her nakedness.
But he had never longed to embrace lascivious Helen, 670
for this seductress drew him far from carnal wars
to the high valor of the mind, the peaks of passion;
the North Star shone between his brow and lit a long,
long road beyond the raptures of love’s spreading thighs,
beyond the flesh’s shame, its sticky, slimy kisses. 675
Kentaur fell silent, for he guessed his master’s mind
was weaving cunning wiles once more since his dark face
showed not the slightest smile, nor did his glance gaze out,
but plunged profoundly in his breast and in his inmost thoughts.
When the sun rose, the threshers scattered to far fields, 680
and coarse-mouthed Kentaur whipped his steeds to a swift pace.
His eyes rejoiced to see in fields the monstrous grass
with ripe and bearded heads that billowed in wide whorls,
and the old river by his side that through thick laurel
coursed sluggishly down to sea in slow and shallow falls. 685
Women and men bent low and flung their arms out wide
till their bronze scythes like lightning in the grainfields flashed,
The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel Page 18
