The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel
Page 40
Light dropped its petals like a rose, the river laughed,
but the disconsolate king kept his sad features turned
far toward the sacred mountain’s head that spread reclined
like a dead prostrate king upon the fertile plain, 1005
for heavy premonitions raged in his dark heart.
Nightlong, strange hands had moved and etched upon the walls
thick fires, black crows, blue eyes, red slaughtered heads,
and men with tall sea-caps who knelt and stretched their bows.
In the dawn’s subtle light, the king had read with fear: 1010
“King, I shall cast your white head to the black starved crows,
the blue-eyed blonds shall set your wealthy hall on fire,
and then a new sea-god shall raise his tents on earth.”
On the same dawn of the holy feast, the coward king
with trembling fear read the same omen in his own head 1015
and in despair stepped in the light to breathe some air.
Meanwhile, the archer walked the riverbank alone,
and his feet smelled of sage, his curly hair was damp
and slowly dripped with the fine frosty dew of dawn.
All night it had rained hard, but now earth shook and laughed 1020
as myriad rainbows trembled in each dewdrop’s globe;
butterflies froze on every bush with dew-drenched wings,
spry baby crickets, smeared with mud, hopped in the grass,
and birds dried their soaked feathers on the sunny tree-tops.
The archer’s hard heart throbbed like that of a small child; 1025
the first few fig leaves spilled a tart and acrid scent
until his nostrils quivered and his eyes brimmed full:
“How long will I still live to enjoy this world, dear God?
I plot manslaughter, conflagration, then all at once
the fragrance of a fresh fig leaf disarms my heart.” 1030
Within the cool ravines the slaves with their bronze scythes
cut rhododendron, rush, and myrtle boughs to deck
the bridegroom’s house for his thrice-holy new betrothal.
Swift down the mountain slopes, descending with the hunters,
lean Rocky lunged, and dragged with lassoes of thick rope 1035
the shining bull-calves to be slain for the night’s feast.
Odysseus waved his hand to welcome the brave lad
and Rocky whistled to his master with two fingers
till all the mountain slope re-echoed that early dawn.
Hidden in myrtle boughs, only the sea-cap’s top 1040
with its blue tassel could be seen in the dawn’s light,
and when an insect got entangled in his hairy chest
and swayed its fuzzy feelers toward the light with fear,
the pitiless killer picked it gently from those woods
then stooped and placed it on a myrtle bough with care. 1045
Odysseus sauntered slowly thus with quiet eyes
as though he shouted to the upper world, “Farewell!”
for by his side he felt his final, old friend, Death,
whistling and walking there with his cool hands outstretched,
and when the hunched king saw the archer stroll in peace 1050
his tongue clucked in his mouth, then drooped, thick-coated, dry:
“You’ve stuck your head out, buried viper! May you be cursed!”
For months he’d felt him glide about the castle walls,
counting all heads, taking the measure of all necks,
preparing to hang nooses from the tall roof-beams. 1055
Under his golden blankets cowering all night long,
Idomeneus hid with fear in threatening dark
to avoid those crafty eyes whose glances pierced so deep,
and swore, each morning to command his Negro slave
to bring him on a brazen tray that hated cunning head, 1060
but every dawn his tongue stuck in his throat, and his heart shook.
Thus did the silent moons move on, sometimes like scythes,
sometimes like silver shields that dripped with poisoned drops,
until the trembling king saw his sly enemy stroll
carelessly through the shrubs toward the resounding sea. 1065
He saw that sea-cap, and his dream leapt in his head.
His neck swelled in a tightened noose until he longed
to have that shameless head brought him on myrtle boughs,
but then his giggling eunuchs came, heaped high with all
the embroidered ritual garments to adorn the groom. 1070
Heralds on every threshold stood and stretched their hands:
“The sea has raised her breasts, foam-flecked and washed with dew,
the springtime streams are fragrant as all river fishes
descend now to their salty seaweed beds to spawn.
Rise up, betrothed, to dress; rise up, O groom, to change; 1075
put on your golden ring, put on your lofty plumes
and go down to the holy sea, its deep embracements;
the time has come now for the secret Cretan wedding!”
As the proud heralds cried, deep in a garden’s shade
a butterfly strove to rise, but its great downy wings, 1080
prismatic and mud-spattered, fluttered and fell to earth,
and a nude worm emerged and slowly sank in mud.
Then the king mutely stretched his arms to be adorned;
they decked him first with a gold mantle thick with shells
and rows of oyster-plaques that shone like silver scales, 1085
tied two prow-pointed sandals on his withered feet,
then on his bony neck and chest hung starfish charms
carved out of crimson coral and deep turquoise stone.
The heralds raised their hands on high and cried aloud:
“This walking wonder is not sperm, nor mother’s milk! 1090
O God, this is a dolphin and the sea’s great groom,
the billows are his in-laws and the waves his guests,
islands are sapphire-emerald neck-rings round his throat!”
Then beaming eunuchs with their plump hands silently
clamped on the king a pale fish-mask with coral eyes, 1095
and last, placed on his thumb the holy mystic ring.
On this great ring the sea, a woman, sat enthroned
on shaggy rocks, and in her right hand held the sun,
and in her left the crescent moon, a straight-prowed ship,
and fertile phalli hung between her pregnant breasts. 1100
Thus mantled and adorned, he leant on roselit columns
and in his shattered entrails felt his kingdom fall
on earth drop after drop and churn the soil to mud.
The lame-brained, wretched king then moved his vapid lips:
“My guts have rotted and rebel, my throat is worh, 1105
I retch up all I’ve eaten, spew out all I’ve drunk:
high castles, women, wine and strong-knit downy boys.
Dear Mother Earth, I kiss your fragrant soil like bread,
ah, in what state begotten, in what state returned!”
Pain and lament swept through him till he burst in tears, 1110
and the shocked eunuchs called for the court bards to come
with joyful instruments at once and soothe their king.
They brought lutes, zithers, sistrums, and poor Orpheus came
wearing the court fool’s silver bells on his peaked head,
then sat cross-legged and stooped to play his sweet-tongued flute. 1115
The king’s mind swayed, and river rushes streamed in rows
and rustled round his blissful ears like dulcet flutes
until earth’s heart unfolded and began to sing.
Water ran warbling, filled with joy, on the smooth stones
and streamed on t
oward the sea as the king’s flowing mind 1120
followed like foaming water down to the docile waves.
All life seemed like a dream, a fragrant jasmine bloom,
and as he held and smelled it, his heart in secret shook
as though he bent above the river and watched the world,
composed of light and water, rise and fall away, 1125
till Death, too, seemed most light, shadow of a huge flower
that fell at evening on the heads of mortal men.
The spermless king then sighed and smilingly stooped down
and fondled with smooth hand the piper’s supple fingers.
“Piper, you play, and the world becomes a flimsy veil 1130
till fleets and galleys soar in air like butterflies
and I turn mist, and grass won’t bend beneath my feet,
as though a disembodied soul leapt up and soared . . .”
And as he spoke, the tears ran down his golden sea-decked robes.
God dressed like a lean vulture then stalked stone by stone, 1135
raised his bald neck aloft, hungry for carcasses,
and tagged behind the castle-wrecker along the river.
When the great murderer heard the vast dark wings of God
rise high and fall on earth and air, blood-splattered, torn,
he felt rejoiced like a fierce hunter with his lean hound. 1140
A maiden, weighed with boughs of myrtle and rose-bay,
stopped by an old plane tree to get a moment’s rest,
and when the archer gripped her with his blazing eyes
it was as-though the maid’s flushed face were rudely tickled
by hairy hands, until she smiled with roused desire 1145
and felt a rank male odor brim about her thighs,
for the male mind like a river laved her myrtle boughs.
Beyond, he saw two children climb the green ravine,
their bodies like spry kids, their laughter like clear pools;
they scrambled up the flowery path in skips and jumps, 1150
but when they met the stranger, they stood still, clasped arms,
and with untroubled glance watched that fierce face pass by.
But all at once the smallest, a girl, raised both her hands
and placed what flowers she had within those dreadful palms,
and then, like a grown maiden, dropped her eyes in shame. 1155
The castle-wrecker crushed the flowers and swore wildly
because two children in the hour of dread destruction
had come to soften his heart with their unblemished smiles.
Raising his eyes and holding back his tears, he schemed
how he might spare the palace children, its sweet girls, 1160
its fawns and lilies and its warbling tamed canaries.
But then the vulture’s ruthless throat with harshness screeched,
and when Odysseus turned, he saw his God enthroned
high on the rocks, screaming at him with raging fury.
Then the fierce archer frowned and groped about his back, 1165
unconsciously, as though to grasp his heavy bow,
and his gall-bitter lips twisted with scornful anger:
“Were you afraid, you fool, I’d pity a small child
and that your wretched belly would not fill with corpses?
That’s how I like to hold my God, in either fist, 1170
and keep him jittery: shall I loose him right or left?”
He spoke, then picked a stone and flung it at God’s wings,
and the vulture rose and hovered in the azure air
to right and left and dumbly trailed his fuming master,
and thus the friends sloped downward toward the harbor silently. 1175
Slim Captain Clam awaited him at the sea’s rim.
Both stretched upon the foam-flecked sandy shore and held
the teasing sea embraced in joy, and heard close by
her gentle moaning in her deep and bubbling hollows.
When both were sated with the loved sea’s undulations, 1180
Captain Clam turned and tightly grasped his master’s knees,
and the great pirate smiled in a serene response:
“Last night in sleep, my friend, two black swans hovered high
above my head and shone with crimson feet and beak.
The female danced and strutted round her mate, and swayed 1185
her upright tail and slender neck erotically,
but the male swan stood still, held his beak high, and sang.
I have forgotten the words, my friend, but his strange song
feather by feather shed and fell on my raised head.
All night they danced and played and merged erotically 1190
until at dawn there swooped a thousand-feathered flock
of eagles, water blackbirds, great horned owls till both
swans sang, and all in joy swept southward toward the sun.”
Captain Clam’s sea-stormed reedy head brimmed with wide wings
and swiftly voyaging mainsails in the South Wind’s drift: 1195
“Ahoy! You’ve sucked the castle in your whirlpool mind,
for emigrating birds already sweep your head!”
The castle-wrecker gently grasped his comrade’s arms:
“Dear friend, I swear that this great hand of yours won’t shake
when it shall thrust voracious flames in the ships’ holds, 1200
although you too may vanish, body and soul I love!
But I don’t mind, I’ll choke my pain, for I know well
that life is not man’s highest or even his noblest good.”
They rolled embraced in the rough sand, plunged in the sea,
gamboled and splashed in foam like sharks, tossed on the waves 1205
as the sun struck their backs and bounced in flaming spheres.
The shore-nymphs saw them, and sea-sirens laughed and ran
to gaze on their well-modeled thighs and sunburnt loins.
Laughing and snorting, Captain Clam kicked back the waves,
and by his side the archer mutely spread his arms 1210
and took the boiling, frothing sea straight on his chest.
When the two dolphins tired of water games at length,
they rolled with laughter on the coarse-grained sand once more.
The archer gazed long on his friend in mute farewell
and in his memory etched the rough-hewn, well-loved face, 1215
the veins, the throat, the eyes, the white and reedy hair,
the beard, the temples, hairy ears and guileless mouth,
as though he fought with Charon in an airy ring
and strained to thrust all of his friend within his brain
so that not even his shadow might be left for Death. 1220
Captain Clam felt his master’s speechless farewell gaze
and with a sweet smile on his salty lips he said:
“Don’t pity or caress my wretched body, comrade.
You know I count myself among Death’s old, old friends,
we’ve shared black bread and salt together, knee to knee, 1225
and I don’t fear his swaggering gait, I like his odor!
To tell the truth, I’ve paid my duty to salt waves,
and it’s a great reward for an old tar like me
to anchor in Death’s harbor with a great armada.
But let’s not leave our work in air; the sun’s risen high, 1230
people have packed the harbor, the wedding pomp descends.
You’ve said your fine farewell to Captain Clam. Let’s go.”
The cypress trees along the sea held up the sky,
and in their shade the pale king staggered with slow steps
to cast in waves his gold and mystical wedding ring. 1235
His silver fish-scales glittered in the seashore’s glare,
and as he stretched his hands above the wav
es he seemed
like a breast-plated crab with heavily armored claws.
For a long time the ring above the waters hung
as the sea’s bosom swelled with quivering domed arcades, 1240
and all her boundless feminine body moaned with lust.
Then the sperm suddenly fell, the deep womb gaped and closed,
the people roared, the exhausted king fell in a faint,
held up by waiting perfumed arms, his dim eyes glazed,
and his heart groaned like an old bull dragged to the slaughter-shed. 1245
Life, brothers, is a crimson spangle on night’s mantle.
Who is it, God, that sits in the dark with dexterous hands
until embossed embroideries rise: blooms, cypress trees,
wild partridges with crimson claws, small sunburnt men?
Then all become unstitched and fall, rise new again 1250
and open twisting paths of bordering cypress trees,
and thus the embroidery goes from cliff to cliff once more.
On greedy Death’s soiled tablecloth there loomed in pride
a brimming palace three floors high that spread and shone,
and there coarse Kentaur in the palace courtyard stooped, 1255
loaded to death with heap on heap of myrtle boughs
like a thick wooded peak, but swiftly was stripped bare
by slaves and slave-girls to adorn the votive halls.
The candelabrum stars lit up the walls and towers,
and in the fragrant dusk amid the springtime slopes 1260
the palace gently swayed like deep, warm constellations.
High in their golden chambers the court ladies dressed,
and they too, like green earth in spring, wove belts of flowers,
stuck crickets in their hair, gold serpents round their arms,
and from their flesh an odor rose as of ripe quince. 1265
They armed themselves with love’s seductions, graceful joys
and sweet delights of flesh, then bravely sailed to battle
in single combat under the nights starry dome.
As the archer mutely leant against a cypress column,
the palace glittered in his eyes, a full-rigged ship, 1270
slaves pulled the long oars, two by two, both men and maids,
and from the scorching hold the song of workers rose,
while on the deck above, the unbelted mates caroused,
and fate, that whore, that shameless naked siren, sat
on their wine-splattered knees, threw back her head, and laughed. 1275
As the archer watched the window lights like strings of pearl,
the tables spread in the great courtyards strewn with bays,
his temples gushed with wind, a savage whirlwind rose,