build stone walls round desires and fence all longings tight,
hew out broad virgin roads, my brother, that deeds may march.
The stubble of earth’s been scorched, the land’s been plowed with knives
and now awaits new seed to burst with flower and fruit!” 740
Hardihood leapt to his feet, and his blood-splattered head,
bound with tight thongs and hacked with wounds, now throbbed with rage:
“My friend, don’t think I’ve overeaten and blotched my mind;
when you like a coiled snake digested king and castle,
I sent throughout this regal isle both horse and heralds 745
until the steeds with bleeding hooves spread the great news
that the king’s tribe was rooted out, and a new god
and master planted in the fertile soil of Crete.
I’m not a dry leaf fluttering now in autumn’s arms
but a great oak rooted in earth; no one can shake me! 750
Great spirit, the earth can’t hold you, and all houses fear you,
you’ve done all you’ve set out to do, you’ve quenched your fires,
it’s time you set sail now that the whole world may breathe!”
Odysseus’ mind grew wings to watch bold Hardihood
wrench free from him at last and cut untrodden roads; 755
his seed had borne fruit in his friend, and he rejoiced
like God, who shaped the beasts and loosed them on the world.
Laughing, he touched his bosom-brother’s broken head,
and as a lioness licks her cub with her rough tongue
when from her womb it drops with curly bloodstained fur, 760
so did the castle-wrecker caress his lion-child.
The bronzesmith’s heart rejoiced, with the rude fondling soothed,
and all pressed close to see how two such savage beasts
caressed and said goodbye in sad departure’s hour.
When he had wrapped his comrade’s head with loving care, 765
the archer raised his hands as though to bless all men:
“May even this day be blessed in its entirety, friends.
Our wages were most bloody, but in our fists we hold
endeavor’s strong reward: the ashes of dread injustice.
Alas for him who seeks salvation in good only! 770
Balanced on God’s strong shoulders, Good and Evil flap
together like two mighty wings and lift him high.
The sweetest fruit of all that ripened on this day
is that one soul has found its freedom and cast me off!
But dusk has fallen; it’s time we set night sentries round 775
so that our souls may stretch on earth and rest in sleep,
then at dawn, bronzesmith, O new mighty lord, come down
to the wild shore with your iron crown and see me off!”
He spoke, some stretched on the warm fields off spring to sleep,
the comrades lay, relieved, on the warped courtyard tiles 780
till dreams like gentle rivers came and drowned their minds.
But the much-suffering man lay in their midst unsleeping,
and all night long his brooding eyes flashed like the stars;
his mind, the unmoving North Star, stared in vigil all night long.
God dawned, the North Wind blew, thick clouds of dust rose high; 785
in the funereal courtyard, stretched in the pale sun,
two athletes lay, Phida and Captain Clam, that fearful pair.
The crowd pressed thickly round to say goodbye to both
great martyrs of high spirit before they were resigned
to hungry earth, that mute and fertile mother-worm. 790
The lone man stooped, gazed on his friend, a shriveled coal,
and blinked his lashes quickly to hold back his tears.
“Sit still a moment, friends; don’t speak, let’s see who’s left us.
The better man has gone, the best, the master boatman,
our central mast has gone, my lads, our gold-flamed banner. 795
I thought to dance on your smooth gravestone, Captain Clam,
to order hautboys and nine pairs of lyres to play
and nine blind bards to sing in praise of the world’s beauty,
but now, dear friend, the plan’s gone crooked, the world’s grown dark,
I don’t want lyres or hautboys, no tune suits me now, 800
my pain drips in my heart like poison and eats me whole!”
The slayer’s eyes welled up with tears, and his voice broke.
Hardihood threw on Captain Clam a handful of earth
and placed in Phida’s arms a heavy pomegranate,
ordered a grave of double girth dug in the court 805
that both might sink to Hades like a loving pair,
then turned with arrogant eyes and faced his tearstained master:
“Why do you moan the dead? It’s not for the first time
you’ve seen how gluttonous earth gapes wide and gulps us whole.
Yes, Captain Clam is dead, but with no further weeping 810
let’s thrust his embers deep in loam like kindling wood
so that earth’s black and spluttering hearth may blaze anew;
don’t wait for the dead to bring you other aid or good.”
But the much-suffering man abruptly answered back:
“The man of worth, O Hardihood, must still resist, 815
denying Death in death, his soul gripped in his teeth.
Nor like a woman do I weep my dead and beat the tomb
with stupid hope that he will rise, but it’s my duty,
I think, to cast my unsubdued cry deep in earth
so the dark powers may learn that I defy their laws!” 820
Broad-buttocks burst in mocking laughter and hit back:
“These dark powers, as you call them, have no ears to hear us!”
Odysseus was rejoiced to see that even Kentaur
could hit back hard and twist from out his heavy yoke,
for they had eaten their leader’s lion brains, and now 825
he marveled how they reared their heads round Captain Clam.
But still his eagle spirit with its sharp claws seized
their heads and fiercely dug into their hardened skulls:
“But we, O blockhead, with dogged spite and armored love
shall force those deaf dark powers to grow ears and hear us! 830
I know that God is earless, eyeless, and heartless too,
a brainless Dragon Worm that crawls on earth and hopes
in anguish and in secret that we’ll give him soul,
for then he, too, may sprout ears, eyes, to match his growth,
but God is clay in my ten fingers, and I mold him!” 835
He spoke, and his ten fingers shaped the empty air.
The flame-swayed man still played his fingers in the light
when suddenly, like a flowering almond tree that decked
the earth, Helen appeared with pregnant heavy womb.
Her breasts, that bore both fruit and flower, glowed in sun, 840
behind her walked her blond-haired groom, hushed and subdued,
and when the archer saw them, his heart groaned with pain,
but calmly he continued his great thought, and said:
“Just as at night we search the yard when vipers fall,
and all our fingers flame and burn to find a knife, 845
so do I also grope in darkness to find my God.
For God is not a phantom formed by fear or hope
but the heart’s only child, born of despair and courage.”
From his great passion his head dripped with sweat, and when
he tired of shaping and unshaping the empty air, 850
he turned and seized the bronzesmith’s head in both his hands
then loosed on its tall crown his flaming thought and power,
<
br /> and the new king stood still and brimmed with brain and fire.
Slowly the archer unloosed his claws from that rude head:
“Bronzesmith, before I go, I’ll give you my last counsel: 855
a crown is heavy and may crack a human skull,
so listen to my counsel and open your head wide:
When, Hardihood, you walk among your people, keep
to right and left two dreaded lions: force and patience;
govern your people, that dark beast, with merciless love; 860
portion the land with justice, free the slaves forever,
give virtue, power, and wealth a new virginity;
don’t grow too proud or think to swallow the whole world;
accept the greatest good and say: ‘It’s not enough!’
and say to all of earth’s disasters: ‘I want still more!’ 865
because a true man’s heart will never say: ‘Enough!’ ”
Then Hardihood grew bolder still and dared reply:
“On God’s first castle gate a mute sign signals: ‘Dare!’
and on God’s second gate it reads: ‘Dare once again!’
but on his last most secret gate God growls: ‘No further!’ ” 870
The fierce abductor mocked and laughed, then shrugged and said:
“Who has not passed through the third gate has passed through none!”
He turned then to his comrades and his voice rang out:
“Men, Hardihood has settled on man’s safe frontiers.
Here he surveys farms, vineyards, homes, and finds all his; 875
he looks on fire and drought and war, and quakes with fear.
Ah, king, here is my final and most daring word:
if the soul falls once more to belly, and your slaves
begin to groan, your lords to roister and carouse,
I’ll swoop on this rich land to loot and kill again!” 880
He spoke, then slowly lowered in the gaping pit
his friend’s burnt corpse, fearing that it might break in two,
and Phida’s weeping Rebels raised her shattered form
and laid it like a sword by Captain Clam’s right side.
They poured wine in the grave, and wedged a golden ship 885
in Captain Clam’s tight fist that he might go to Hades
a skipper still, and at the maiden’s feet they placed
close by her pomegranate, as a gift for Charon,
her father’s head, then cast black earth, covered the grave,
and the much-suffering man stamped the ground smoothly down 890
with patience, like a brooding hen that sweeps the earth
with her fine wings, then lays her eggs and squats to hatch them.
When he had placed both warriors in the ruthless pit
Odysseus turned and gripped his crew in his sharp glance:
“Forward, my lads, our wages now in Crete have ended. 895
We’re workers, lads, in God’s wide vineyards, and a new
bright sun ascends, a new and better wage begins.”
He spoke, then slowly cast a farewell glance about him:
his eyes would never see again these men and mountains,
the rivers and great sweetness of this noble land; 900
he’d passed by, cast a stone behind him, and the echo
rang in his mind like pebbles pitched down bottomless wells.
But as his piercing eyes in silence bid farewell,
his glance hung fondly once again on arch-eyed Helen
who stood beside her blond-haired man, drugged with desire, 905
like the moist earth that steams when the sun falls upon her.
“Helen!” he cried, and one of all his full hearts broke.
The indulgent lady raised her eyes then lazily,
half-smiled and said, “Farewell,” and closed her lids again.
Stretching his arms toward sun-drenched Helen, the archer spoke: 910
“May God who plays with the earth and merges man and maid
grant you a son to balance well those two vast wings
that cut through mankind’s boundaries with a double power:
the intoxicated barbarous heart, and the upright mind
that with clear head reins back upon the verge of chaos. 915
Helen, beloved face of earth, these eyes of mine
shall never see you more, nor these rude hands caress you;
on my mind’s peak you rose like glittering foam, and vanished.”
He spoke, then turned his face, not to reveal his tears,
but the fruit-burdened lady only smiled and raised 920
her heavy hands from her full womb and waved farewell.
“The soul is also meat, it sticks, and won’t unglue,”
thus thought the warrior, groaning, then he stopped awhile
to taste with bitterness how living men must part.
When he had drunk all bitterness, his mind grew calm, 925
and when he’d had his fill of farewells, he plunged down
the glen along the harbor road, nor once looked back.
The lean legs of the piper pigeon-toed ahead;
behind him, stumbling, panting, scattering dust and stones,
lunged his friend’s splayfoot bulk, walking on air, dead-drunk; 930
clasped arm in arm, the two hill friends stepped briskly on;
and last, with cap askew, a screech-owl to his right,
the archer lunged down toward the sea and his mind pulsed
like a tall wave that rushed to merge with foam-flecked billows.
Diktena waited by the wharf on a huge rock, 935
her body shone in wind and burned in the hot sun,
and as the world-seducer raised his eyes and looked,
he thought he saw a siren singing by the bay
with upright tail, with female breasts and laughing nipples
that slowly swelled and dripped on waves their salty dew. 940
The suffering man smiled bitterly and his heart throbbed,
for in the twisting seashores of his mind there passed
like lightning those bright poisonous bodies with sweet cries
that lured ships slowly, sweetly to their bosoms’ cleft,
the shores about them gleaming with bleached bones of men. 945
“Bind me with tight cords, lads, about the mizzenmast,
that I may hear their luring song yet have no fear
I might forget in dizzy kisses and sweet swoons
why I was born and where my mind now longs to go!”
Thus had he groaned with fear that he might lose his soul, 950
but his matured mind now could never lose its way;
he waved, and Diktena leapt up with joy and dashed
like a twined squirming snake and coiled about the prow.
Odysseus smiled, and spoke then to his gathered crew:
“Some leave their bones abandoned on the sands of love, 955
others go on, both blind and deaf to all earth’s sweetness,
and others, bound to the mast, tied to some great idea,
harvest the tasteless dregs of honey with no fear;
but we, we abduct the siren, cast her in our ships,
and swiftly sail away together and merge them all: 960
danger and freedom and the lovely earth’s consummate sweetness.”
They rigged their sails and soudded free till shores were lost,
till the sea spread once more her crystal arms with love
and like a tossing treasure beckoned to her beloved.
The boatman sank his fists deep in her emerald hair: 965
“Coquetting sea, I know quite well the sun will rise
one day and freeze to see you beat my body blue
like an old empty corpse, and foam about it, laughing;
but I still love you, for your savage heart, like mine,
roams and disdains to settle down or even be true.
970
Prows pass above your heaving thighs yet leave no trace,
their wake froths for a moment, then your wide wound heals,
you spread your thighs again and call to other prows.
Oh, teach my heart to be like you, clothe it with, brine,
take it and roll it on your waves, toss it with storm, 975
a spume in your wide wake, foam in your whirling winds.”
Their full sails swelled and creaked, and the wide sea-flung hours
passed high above them like white gulls with hastening wings.
At dusk, spreading their meals upon the dancing deck,
all five sat cross-legged round the food in a closed ring, 980
then beckoned Diktena to share their bread and meat,
and she, with laughter, snuggled close, a downy fawn,
and in the twilight her knees shone like double stars.
When night fell and the sea’s green hair of seaweed smelled,
the stars caught fire, flamed on high like burning coals 985
and cast down rare reflections on the fragrant waves.
Night passed, and once again the sun laughed in his cradle,
mounted to manhood slowly, burned with noonday heat,
and as the comrades rowed and talked, rolled down with flames
to his black-kerchiefed mother in the darkling west. 990
Broad-buttocked Kentaur laughed and his domed bellies shook:
“Now, by the vine, have I been dreaming, or is it true
that once upon an ancient time we plundered Crete?
For when I smell my beard, I smell the stench of smoke
and both my wretched palms steam of a woman’s breasts, 995
and so decide that I’ve not dreamt—but then, who knows?—
I may be dreaming that my beard and palms still stink!”
He spoke, and Crete, like the sun’s mistress, spread far right,
the backbone of a huge seabeast that pierced the waves.
But on the fourth cool dawn her holy ridges vanished, 1000
and the friends’ hearts, their brains and rigging, squeaked and swayed
in the North Wind’s free breathing, drenched with salty dew.
“Where are we headed?” Orpheus cried, and quaked with fear.
“We’ve left all islands now, our native land has vanished.”
But then Odysseus tossed his cap with fervent joy: 1005
“There goes the navel cord, lads! Cut! We’re free of mother!
Farewell, O Greece, with all your small sweet joys and griefs,
white towns and hamlets, azure mountains, heather, pine.
Farewell, O balanced virtues and housekeeping cares,
and mind, guardian of fruits, who raises tall stone walls 1010
The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel Page 44
