The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel
Page 48
and far down toward the river, lamentations rose;
on a half-crescent boat a dead man lay supine 495
in an embellished coffin, and grief-stricken maids
sat upright round him, tore their hair, and shrilled like birds.
The old man turned and raised his hands in sad farewell
to the new dead now sown in earth to sprout in grain.
“Ah, what great joy when ears of corn rise in the light!” 500
The old man spoke, then nosed through tombstones like a jackal,
deciphering dead men’s words: “If only, O passers-by,
I had sweet-flowing water to drink, apples to smell!”
Another dead man wept: “Ah, lads, please turn my face
toward the cool north to feel a freshening gust of wind.” 505
Another moaned with thick twined symbols on his grave:
“I don’t weep for my wife, she’ll find another husband;
I don’t weep for my children, for children soon forget;
but I do weep for sunlight, bread, and gentle talk.”
Odysseus scorned, however, every cheating hope 510
and now recalled a sturdy peasant plowman’s words.
One day as he sat crouched on oleandered shores
and spitted rows of fishes over glowing coals,
a passing worker boldly sat and shared his meal,
then from one topic to another, dwelt on Death. 515
The plowman scorned with condescension, mocked with jeers
those lame-brained fools who thought the dead would rise one day.
“My grandsire, a rich plowman, took me on his knees
but he disdained to stuff my brain with fairy tales,
and though he always talked of Death, he laughed at him: 520
‘Grandson, I don’t want charms or food laid in my grave;
I don’t want wretched cattle slain for my soul’s sake;
I know my future well, I haven’t the slightest hope.
Listen, my son, and learn the grave’s dread secret now:
when you pierce shallow soil, at the first gate of Hades, 525
a Negro swoops and grabs your soul’s rich ornaments,
and she, poor tenderfoot, resists and cries in vain:
“Brothers and cousins, help me! They’ve snatched my golden crown!”
Go on and yell, for neither brothers nor cousins care!
On the next moldy stair the gate guard clasps her tight 530
and plunders all her charms and worthless talismans,
even plunders, alas, whatever good she’s done in life
until the unhappy spirit sighs, her small voice quivers:
“Why do you strip me, slayer? Why do you seize my weapons?”
At the third gate she’s stricken dumb, then slowly, slowly, 535
earth chews up all her teeth, her ears, her nails, her eyes,
until six different kinds of worms devour her whole.’ ”
The archer now recalled the gnarled clodhopper’s words
but held them back for fear of poisoning the kind elder’s tongue.
They stepped in the old man’s hut and filled it full of flesh. 540
In the cool hallway, his two daughters moved with joy,
set a low table, spread it with a fragrant cloth,
brought them their poor but tasty fare, a dewy jug,
then stood by shyly, with crossed hands, to serve the strangers.
The host then spoke with noble grace to his great guests: 545
“A stranger always bears the face of the unknown god;
strangers, thrice welcome to my humble hut today.”
Peace brimmed on all their faces till the harsh sea-battlers
felt shamed to eat and breathe beneath that guileless roof.
The captain answered the old man in a soft voice: 550
“Many great virtues deck the steadfast heart of man:
to love the worthy friend and kill the hated foe,
to ache for wretched womankind, to fear no god,
but I don’t think there’s a more warm, sweet-blooded virtue
than to submit your home and heart to passing strangers.” 555
Kentaur, unslaked with words, sat down and spread his legs,
then reached his greedy hands till the clay platters rattled.
All ate together in sweet friendship’s freshening breeze,
and the two maidens sat cross-legged on woven rush,
placed shining zithers on their knees, caressed the strings 560
and slowly sang to gladden their noteworthy guests.
The older maiden first struck up a bitter song;
“Earth looks on fleeting man, looks long and sings with grief:
‘Life is most short and death most long and there’s no healing!
Smear perfumes on your body, paint your pale lips red, 565
enwreath your neck with flowers, your head with a gold crown,
then sit enthroned, king of an hour, and give commands.
Order stringed instruments to blow your griefs away
and place your kind hand gently on your loved one’s knee
because astride your door the four pallbearers wait.’ ” 570
The girl sang like a nightingale and eyed the men,
then sighed, but felt ashamed before her father’s gaze;
dear God, if only she could mount their sturdy knees
and, as the sweet song counseled, give and take of life!
But as she shook with anguish for fear her shame might show, 575
her younger sister throbbed, her soul with longing soared,
she lowered the fawn eyes her heart had overbrimmed,
then snatched the ballad from her sister’s burning lips:
“A bird flies in the heavens with aromatic wings, 579
a young girl stands by the door’s mouth with quivering breasts 580
because a sweet bird pecked them or a kiss aroused them.
‘What are these crimson apples I hold on my cool bosom?
Where is the thief who will pass by and loot them, Lord?
Where is the mad North Wind to rise and fling them down?’
Then from the garden’s depths an apple tree replied: 585
‘Come quick, I’ve lowered my boughs to hold you both, beloved.
Call to your lover, quench his thirst, do what he bids you,
for I was born on earth to bear both flower and fruit,
and what I see or hear, I swear, shall never be told.’ ” 589
Both ceased, and round their features shone a quivering light; 590
the first girl gazed on the strong men and mutely pled,
the younger stooped, still fondled by invisible hands,
their thighs and loins enflamed, their small ears flushed with rose.
Then the bald piper swelled his chest, unsheathed his flute,
raised high his slender throat and sang an answering tune: 595
“Partridges wake at break of dawn, the green glens cackle,
the young son wakes at break of dawn to hunt with joy,
and Death wakes up at break of dawn and mounts his steed.
I also wake and hoist my sails and skirt the shores,
sometimes I laugh and sometimes weep or talk to winds: 600
‘O master wind, blow on, blow on, my heart has swooned
because two maidens, cross-legged on a rush mat, sing,
and the earth shakes like an apple tree and fills my lap.’ ”
Their father marveled, but his daughters spoke no word
yet trembled still like flickering flames that could not fade. 605
Odysseus then recalled old memories and encounters;
tall castles, women, seas, and caves rose in his mind
until he shook his head with force as though a cricket
had perched on his gray hair and rasped with deafening sound.
“Leave me alone, don’t bother
me, for I’ve loved much 610
those wretched apples that rot unplucked on the high boughs,
but they won’t do, for a new hunger gleans my heart.”
The stony-hearted man then choked his strong desires,
reached out his hands and gently touched the old man’s knees:
“Good was the food: may your sweet home be ever blessed; 615
good was the song: it gleaned our hearts like a sharp scythe;
may your great god, the river, send strong men to frisk
in apple trees with both your girls and breed you grandsons. 618
But we must leave you now, for we have far to go,
and a home’s honeyed bliss destroys a man’s intent; 620
comfort and pleasure do not match with our dark god.”
He spoke and rose, and all his comrades rose to leave.
The maids withdrew and sighed, then hung their zithers high
on the reed-covered walls among musk-smelling quince;
their heels flushed red like apples, they bent their slender forms 625
and from their dowries fetched their shining household goods,
unwrapped their flower-embroidered towels, still untouched,
and brought the holy strangers water to wash their hands.
Rocky stooped down and saw within the brimming bowl
the younger daughter’s face, her eyes, her slender brows, 630
till the warm sweetness of her flesh made his heart swoon.
Life spread her nets with skill about his loins until
his eagle heart for a moment was trapped like a wild dove.
In his mind’s eye he saw a river, a gleaming hut,
earth seared with panting tongue, the wilted wheat sun-scorched, 635
a cottage filled with sweetness, shade and fragrant quince
that hung down from the roofbeams, gleaming dulcimers,
a faithful wife who sat, in her calm cottage stooped,
and bared her glowing breasts to suckle her sweet son.
She suddenly sees her husband standing by the door, 640
her face lights up, and with her son still at her breast,
receives her man like a great king in his vast mansion.
And Rocky, a young plowman, spattered still with hay,
sits in the middle of his yard while his wife runs
to draw cold water from the well to cool his thirst . . . 645
Feeling his mind grow faint, poor Rocky tossed his head,
and as the young maid gave him an embroidered towel,
her small hand shook with her desire’s giddy need,
Rocky grew savage then, turned to his friend and growled:
“Captain, it’s choking here! I’m off for a breath of air!” 650
As though Odysseus pitied even his own heart,
he wandered slowly about the house unhurriedly.
If only the soul of man had myriad forms to serve it,
he’d give one body to earth, build it a lovely home,
dress it with soft and shining clothes and marry it off! 655
Then it would entertain each night all passers-by,
and when they’d eaten, the soothed mind would rove in talk,
and hear tall tales of lands and seas and far-off men,
and though it sat unmoving, roam the entire world.
But alas, the soul is poor, it has one body only, 660
and he’d already cast his own with ruthless speed
headlong from wave to wave down toward the wild cascade.
Thus did he brood, and bowed with reverence to both hearths:
the one bedecked with flowers, the other hung with pots.
“I bow to the four corners of the upper world, 665
mind’s four foundations: women, fire, wine, and bread.
Farewell! May God come to this house like a bright bridegroom!”
He gave his hand then to the old warm-hearted man
and to both girls who longed for children and had sung,
unshamed, their deep desire to every passing stranger. 670
The hand of one girl trembled in his heavy palm,
their fingers tangled then as though they could not part,
and the other girl’s hand would not close, as cold as crystal.
But when they stepped out and the river’s cool breeze blew,
their wagtail hearts grew firm, all magic spells dispersed, 675
and then the squint-eyed heckler teased his splayfoot friend:
“Kentaur, don’t ask me why I laughed! I almost choked!
You looked so shy, my gluttonous sot, and lowered your eyes
like an old dame of noble stock with puckered eyes!”
God’s fleshly ballast laughed until his tears rolled down: 680
“A crazy head can’t change! I choke in honest homes!
My palms will grow hairs sooner than my head get brains!
I’ve no doubt prudent talk is good, virtues are good,
they, too, have their own sweet charms once in a great while—
to sit on fat behinds and gab with good homebodies; 685
but I’ll be a woman-chaser until the day I die!”
The man of many wills walked last in brooding thought:
“I thank you, God, for these my nostrils, ears, and eyes,
my double kidneys, my hard thighs, my thorny thoughts,
but most of all for this insatiable vast heart 690
that loves all things on the bright earth yet sticks to none.”
Midnight; amid the wealthy harbor’s gold-prowed ships
their own poor vessel, dark and peeling, quaked with shame,
then danced with joy to see them come, and bobbed in welcome.
All the next day they rowed, rowed on and softly sang; 695
their hearts had never seemed so light, their souls so strong,
nor had they skimmed more smoothly on the foaming waves;
their ship was a swift gull that swept the river’s stream.
They had no bread to eat, no wine to stanch their hearts,
so once again took up their thieving tricks to live. 700
In vain did landlords line the banks to moan and weep
for their fine flour, their lambs, their flasks of barley-wine—
the wolf-pack shared the plunder on the prow, unruffled.
Fat Kentaur played the host, sliced up the meat, and laughed:
“Poverty wants a good time, lads, pain wants a party, 705
and when our last hope’s gone, let’s get the tables ready,
twirl our mustaches, lads, until our brains twirl, too,
and all thorns turn to roses, stones to loaves of bread,
so that despair turns round about and leads the assault!”
Thus did good glutton chatter till all lost their wits; 710
and so with jokes and forays, manly talks and deeds,
the dawns climbed quickly up, the evenings scurried down.
Meanwhile that thirsty mother, Drought, scorched all the fields,
and wheat, man’s firm foundation, died on its dry stalk
until the wretched people raised despairing hands 715
and beat their chests on the dry banks and groaned to God:
“Dear father, help or well go lost! Our wheat is dying!”
But God sank further in his muddy bed each day
and would not deign to rise and fructify the land.
The peasants groaned, beat on their drums, and their weak oxen 720
pushed to the riverbank and sniffed the dough-hard earth;
women and children straggled sadly to the dry banks
and farmers held as offering their last crumbs of bread.
When an old priest knelt by the bank and raised his hands,
the castle-battler stopped his skiff to hear the prayer: 725
“Almighty great grandfather and father of all Egypt,
great lord of grain, take pity: the eart
h’s stricken womb
begets no longer till men and gods both faint with hunger.
Descend, pour your thick waters, cast your mighty strength
and swell the veins of earth so they may spout with milk. 730
Support the bottomless belly, the base of all creation
that spreads in darkness like manure, feeds all the roots
of heaven and earth, for if it dies the whole world dies!”
He spoke, then stopped and smeared his belly with rank mud,
Then the much-suffering man cried out, and the keel shook: 735
“Swell all the sails, for my heart aches! I’ll hear no more!”
The crew was seized with a deep sadness till at dusk
the cowherd opened his wide mouth and mocked the world:
“God is a lucky shower, lads, rains where he wills,
forgets the widow’s vineyard but recalls the king’s, 740
gulps down your one but swells the king’s three-thousandfold!
Ah, master, if you think you’ll teach God anything,
then what a shame we left our feasts, our smacks and hugs,
far off on distant shores, for here we’re thrashed by hunger:
a garlic grasped is worth three thousand birds on wing!” 745
The wrathful archer frowned and struck at his friend hard:
“Glutton, I’d gladly give three thousand spitted birds
to catch that one uncatchable bird which slips my mind!
This is man’s noble task; if you don’t like it, friend,
the road sprawls all behind you; take it now, and go!” 750
But Kentaur hung his head and swallowed his hard words;
“Oho! You put me on my honor! I’ve stuck my neck out!
May he who now turns tail go hang, and the way back, too!”
The brave blood-brothers laughed, pulled stoutly at their oars,
slept hungry on the deck that night, and then pushed on 755
once more at daybreak up the muddy steep ascent.
As waters grew more shallow, the stream slowly sank,
the tigress desert on her belly crawled and snarled,
and all the sparse grass crouched with terror on the sandy loam.
How the earth sped, a whirling quoit hurled down the sky! 760
One night they skimmed in the destroyed Sun City’s port 761
then dragged their skiff ashore, found kindling wood and lit
a fire to eat their stolen and therefore tasty meat.
But as they ate among the ruins, they raised their heads:
the world was suddenly drenched in moonlight, on tall tombs 765
the moon’s funereal kerchief spread with azure hem.