The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel
Page 34
The sun had set now, and the Evening Star behind it,
star of that brainless public goddess, winked at earth;
all heavy hearts were lightened, the day breathed again, 650
and shadows fell compassionately and cooled the ground.
The serpent earth had shed its skin, ensheathed in stars;
the soul, too, changed its dress, and with its flashing tail
beat on its clay and sweating body cracked with heat.
“Earth smells like jasmine, and the paths of passion gleam; 655
rise up, pale body, eat and drink, for life is short!”
Thus cried the soul to its ripe flesh, as the Evening Star
fell on the naked thighs of women, the beards of men,
till bodies tingled in the erotic evening’s hush,
and the king felt the quivering, rose and gave the sign 660
as three blacks blew their conches, and the games were ended.
The crowd rose from their tiers, the Serpent Sisters dashed
and with the sacred snakes coiled thrice about their arms
sprinkled the surging jostling crowd with holy water.
A slim brunette with a red necklace round her throat 665
shook basil dipped in holy water and cried aloud:
“My brethren, you were slaked and gladdened with God’s presence!
He comes down like a shining bull to mount the earth
then plays at games and dancing with all mortal men.
He holds us gently on his horns, licks us with love, 670
and lets us wound his sacred flanks with our sharp goads,
but suddenly when he deigns to play with us no more,
he tosses his sharp horns and scatters all our brains!”
A tall stern maiden then, waving a long-stemmed lily,
with two green necklaces around her towering throat, 675
strode through the crowd and frightened all with her fierce cries:
“Brethren, you’re filled with strength of our blood-drinking God!
The people’s eyes are not permitted to see further!
Go quickly, Serpent Sisters, search amid the crowd,
chase away those not of God’s breath or noble root. 680
The Bull-God calls into his Second Presence only
those free minds and thrice-noble forms of gentle blood.”
Another, with three azure neck-rings, shook her snakes:
“God swoops down on the common people’s heads like war,
but on the archons’ heads he comes like a strong lover; 685
he’ll come at last like a sweet dream and snatch our souls.”
As the three holy maids strode through the tiers of stone,
the common crowd took fright and strove to leave the ring
until the archons’ hearts felt light and free at last;
and as the Serpent Sisters sprinkled the court dames 690
with sweet rosewater to drive away the people’s stench
and to perfume the world again, the full moon rose,
a pure gold honeycomb, and dripped its gold on earth.
Then sun-chapped lips grew sweet, stones spread with shadowy down,
the mountain-profile head of God sank down in calm 695
like a stone god that lay supine on the sea’s bottom.
Motionless, stooped, thrust in the sharp quills of his brain,
the archer like a hedgehog crouched and watched the chosen
as giggling archons leant far back in their slaves’ arms
and dressed themselves with various hides and bestial masks. 700
Some dressed themselves like monkeys, lions, or bearded goats,
each archon dragged up that one beast thrust deep inside
the dark stall of his breast and brought it out to browse.
The ladies, too, ensheathed themselves in thick-haired skins
of wildcats, nanny goats, she-lions and lustful cows 705
till now at ease at length each sank in her true body.
And as man’s soul returned once more to a brute’s hide,
it sprouted hairs and horns and claws, its clear eyes glazed,
till memory’s holy treasure steamed like lumps of blood;
only two greasy passions could excite them still: 710
the soul had turned to womb and phallus, and sank in mud.
Oak-headed Hardihood leapt up, and on his cheek
the octopus spread its tentacles and gripped his neck:
“How shameful to pollute this night, a beast with beasts!
Dear honored master, let’s leave this foul sty at once!” 715
But the unsated mind laughed and replied with calm:
“I like to hang on the cliff’s verge of god or beast;
my mind can never be slaked with either good or evil.”
“Diktena’s body then has dulled your thorny brain.”
“But Diktena’s soft body, bronzesmith, shall be drawn 720
into my brain’s deep forge and there be turned to flame.
My mind is not a gentle lamb that feeds on grass
but like a hawk hunts flesh and blood to sprout with wings. 723
But you still crawl on earth and have no right to speak.”
Hardihood shook to see the slayer’s upright brain 725
hissing like flame with flickering tongues in the moon’s glow.
He closed his mouth, drew back, and fled far from the sacred feast.
A cool breeze blew, and earth sighed deeply like a cow,
sentries stood guard on every crossroads to prevent
all common eyes from sullying the secret rites. 730
The Serpent Sisters stooped and raised the holy bride
and slowly placed her in the heifer’s brazen womb,
singing small wedding verses in a crooning voice:
“Where are you going, Lady Moon, to shed your roses, 734
where are you going, basil spray, to lose your fragrance, 735
where are you going, Soul, great lady of the world?”
Then from the echoing bronze the ecstatic bride replied:
“Sweet wine, sweet dizziness have swept my wits away;
I’m but a woman, a jug that thirsts; come fill me, Lord.” 739
The Serpent Sisters then twined arms and swirled in dance 740
in a round ring as with their pulsing throats they shrilled:
“We can’t bear all we know, nor lift our souls much longer!
We’ll wear horns now and lose ourselves in the brute’s passion.”
They danced and sang as their feet leapt like partridges
that in the dewy daybreak come to strut on stones. 745
Then Helen’s many-voyaged and man-nourished arms
rose from the heifer’s brazen flanks and flashed in air
as the hoarse summons of the erotic rites resounded:
“O Bull, unpitying sweet horns, come wound me now!”
Odysseus seethed, dashed to his feet and watched the cow, 750
for he disdained to let the smallest poisoned drop
fall to the ground unless his dry heart lapped it all.
Meanwhile the Bull-King zoned the ring in twists and turns
until the ritual’s round enclosures swiftly narrowed,
as though the heifer were a swift stream’s whirling eye 755
that to its dark alluring iris sucked the bull.
The Serpent Sisters laughed, unloosed their crimson belts,
a fragrant sweat broke like the dew at their hair’s roots
till in the warm moon suddenly they smelled like beasts
and their words jangled on the tiles like wedding gifts: 760
“The wild sea at your wedding and your betrothal rites,
shall turn to sweet and peppery wine, the waves to mares
on which your brave goat-bearded in-laws come astride.”
They sang, and when a shepherd’s pipe trilled through the air
,
stones, beasts, and waters tumbled down, and in-laws, too, 765
set forth on their white steeds and breached the holy ring.
When the Bull plunged, and the bronze flanks again resounded,
the Serpent Sisters laughed and hung their virgin belts 768
as wedding gifts on the bronze neck of the bridal cow, 769
then to the lords and ladies raised their hands and cried: 770
“O souls, sink into beasts, rejoice now, close your eyes:
each man becomes a bull, each maid a common cow!”
The stars began to jangle in the sky like bells,
the tittering sea lay on her back beneath the prows,
and the unguarded mind in sleep, that hunts for dreams, 775
sailed like a merchant on and on toward distant shores.
Over the multicolored, mud-drenched crust of earth
Death holds the keys, but woman holds the counter-keys,
and all take lover’s lane, descend to the womb’s pit
where soul is deathless nor dissolves in the cold ground. 780
Body and soul merge for a lightning flash, then fade,
and we all sigh most sweetly and are seized by haste;
a new-wed maiden opens her unsleeping eyes,
casts off her rich-embroidered sheets till the dark glows
—how all the knees of women gleam and glow at night!— 785
then steps on the cool terrace to breathe a little air.
The Serpent Sisters knelt about the brazen cow
and sang a lively song in the dew-laden night
to drown the liturgy’s erotic shrilling cries.
But the profound man’s skull roared and resounded still 790
as though the bride and bridegroom there fought lustfully,
as though their hands and feet there kicked and pounded hard
between both temples, right and left, of his thick skull.
In starlight, in his bloody entrails, the archer heard
his wild soul struggling to fly free from the brute beast; 795
he felt the unnumbered tongues of beasts that licked his loins,
a howling river filled with sharp horns, blood, and mire
that rushed to flood and drown the incandescent soul.
And as he planted his firm feet to buck the torrent,
the lords and ladies rushed the ring, a roaring burst, 800
and a bull crashed to earth like a cascade of stones.
All slowly formed in a slow dance about the cow,
grabbed red chunks of the new-slain bull and munched them raw—
some pulled the heart out, some tore out the slimy guts,
some smashed the bones and sucked the marrow’s tender meat, 805
and nice court ladies, on their hands and knees like dogs,
lapped up the warm red blood with clacking flickering tongues.
How may such great unbearable and unspeakable love,
such joy, such grief, mix in the bull and tame all pain?
To drink his long-loved blood, dear God, and merge in one! 810
Odysseus watched, and mankind’s murderous soul seemed deep,
bottomless, sunless, pummeled like earth’s bloody crust.
Slowly he neared to snatch at hands and lips close by,
to keep in memory a deep final consolation
as all now scattered in twos and threes and crouched like beasts; 815
ungirdled night with open thighs stumbled on earth.
What joy you give to all males, O night-opened bosoms,
white crystal thighs, crisp breasts, slim arms and fragrant hair!
At the first kiss shame is forgotten, Death at the second,
and at the third, musk chokes the earth. The archer leapt, 820
and his neck artery throbbed and whipped his swelling throat:
“Ah, for my bow and a sharp arrow as tall as I!”
But suddenly as a warm hand closed his mouth, he felt
Diktena’s body, clad in a soft tiger’s skin,
throbbing and panting as she twined about him tightly. 825
“Stranger, you’ve not communed with god, your cheeks are pale,
your mind is still a wingless ant that grubs in garbage;
here, take these godly loins to eat for virile strength!”
She spoke, then stuffed his yielding mouth with the bull’s loins,
spread out her tigerskin, laughed low, flung her arms wide 830
till in her warm embrace the archer held all Crete
filled with bronze armor, heady perfumes, murder, lust.
The godly island spread its thighs on the vast sea,
and on her savage breast he smelled the freshening brine.
Thus like a thief he rose and fell in her cool halls, 835
plucked fresh fruit in her groves and lost himself in lanes;
at times his heart was knifed, at times from branch to branch
it flew in gardens of those fabulous palace courts.
But suddenly both his temples creaked, the castle flamed,
the copper columns shook and swayed and the bull roared, 840
till bronze and gold poured tumbling like a blazing river.
Both had forgotten Death in their sweet lightning spasms,
but the sharp-taloned man unglued his mind from lime,
leapt swiftly to his feet and listened with great care.
Bridegroom and bride were silent now in their bronze cow, 845
the court dames sighed like nightbirds still on cooling stones,
and stars, unsullied and disdainful, passed above the earth.
Odysseus joyed in all things then with fearless lust,
for he felt god and beast merge fiercely in his loins,
clamped tight with sweet caresses like a man and maid. 850
Pale and serene, her breath like sweet carnation’s breath,
her hands crossed lightly on her groin, Diktena slept.
She seemed like a sweet goddess who had just discharged
her heavy duty in sleepless war, and now reposed;
only her upright breasts, snow-capped and rosy-tipped, 855
kept vigil in the night like lofty twin night-sentries.
The archer reached his still unsated hands to touch them,
his fingers itching still with multiple desire,
but all at once he pitied the maid’s sacred sleep
so that his avid hand hung hovering in the air 860
and a most sweet compassion slowly filled his heart.
The fate of woman suddenly seemed to him most cruel:
God, like a beast, mounts from the earth with muddy feet,
and woman, bowed and shuddering, her pale palms turned upward,
struggles, but can not, even will not resist the beast. 865
The warrior stooped and watched her valiant form with awe,
his humble faithful comrade in the earthen strife,
but as he stooped and reconciled the world’s cross currents,
a harsh shriek tore apart the veil of the full moon
and in the dead green light slim Phida’s form appeared, 870
rushed headlong from the palace gate in sudden storm
and shrieked as though an eagle perched upon her skull
and dug deep with its cutting claws and sucked her brains,
The lords and ladies poked out of their hides in fear,
then thrust their unrouged faces in their sweat-drenched hair. 875
Shrieking, the moon-crazed girl rushed headlong down the stairs,
and when she reached the arena’s center, stooped and seized
Krino’s blood-splattered spear and flung it with great force
against the cow’s deep belly till its bronze flanks bellowed.
The demon-driven maiden laughed, screamed like a vulture, 880
flew to the column where Krino’s broken body hung,
opened her desolate arms and
speechlessly received
the thick coarse drops of blood within her thirsty palms.
The revelers then half-raised themselves and watched with terror
as Phida smeared her sallow face with the thick gore 885
and passed among the beast-faced men and women, cackling,
her green eyes glittering like a snake’s in the moon’s glow.
She grabbed the archer savagely with both her hands,
thrust back his thorny head within the moon’s clear rays
then cast it from her suddenly with contemptuous scorn, 890
for on his beard and lips she smelled the stench of lust.
Ashamed, Odysseus leapt and rushed at Phida then
to seize her by her flowing hair, to cast her down
and plot the world’s destruction, cross-legged, on the ground.
Meanwhile the king advanced from the bronze cow in wrath, 895
ordered the demon-driven girl chased out at spearpoint,
for now the time had come to spread the nuptial feast.
The court dames shrieked, spurred on the blacks who rushed with spears,
but Phida vanished, shrieking, in the twisting halls.
As he stepped past the entangled mass of men and maids, 900
the archer saw in starlight, on a white bull’s hide,
arch-eyebrowed Helen braiding her disheveled hair,
and her throat shone, a pure-white swan’s reclining neck.
The shriveled king knelt down, and round her golden throat
placed strands of pearls and fixed a gold crown on her hair 905
with lilies made of mother-of-pearl set with bright emeralds.
The archer stopped a moment to watch and etch with care
on the stone tablets of his mind the kneeling king
and Helen’s throat, her naked arms, her shameless laughter,
because he knew well that one day he would heap up 910
these sorrows like dry kindling in his memory’s blazing kiln.
Night skimmed on the vast sea with all her pitch-black sails,
small lanterns flickered on the beach, prows lightly slept,
somewhere a ship’s dog barked, and somewhere long-oars splashed.
In a low harbor pub the five friends sipped their wine, 915
and the wine-seller, a tall Negro, poured their drinks
and sometimes raised his hand and snatched himself a word.
But all had their eyes fixed on two ships that prepared
to set sail soon at drop of midnight secretly:
hulls dug from huge tree trunks, crude sails of wild beast hides, 920
returning now to distant strands and fogbound coasts.