The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel
Page 60
Earth has no heart, mind, ears, or eyes, but we, the leaders,
a mere fistful of souls, have heart, mind, ears, and eyes,
and one day earth will take our hearts for her example.” 1010
The lone man murmured with great calm, his eyes far off:
“Joy to that brain that holds all things and does not faint!
God spreads the enormous wing of good from his right side,
the wing of evil from his left, then springs and soars.
If only we could be like God, to fly with wayward wings!” 1015
Thus in the earth’s deep roots the two souls fought with Death
while on the traveler earth’s aristocratic face,
in her deep gardens, slender-fingered dancers leapt
and the blind minstrels raised their throats to sing of light.
Even the master minstrel found a novel song, 1020
crisp and delightful, to refresh his monarch’s mind,
and thus forgot the dread tune which his heart would sing.
But the king bit his venomed lips, for in his head
at night a heavy-shadowed nightmare had hit hard;
alas, deep in his sleep he’d seen a man’s black corpse 1025
with a huge bell about its neck, swaying in air,
touching the sleeping roofs with its low scraping toes,
and its black eyes dripped clot by clot on the dark earth.
All night he’d held it like a kite on a thin thread
and watched it sway and hover, watched that rotting corpse 1030
drip worms upon him one by one in a slow knell.
“Ah, when shall daybreak come to exorcise that carcass
that I may breathe pure air again and hail the sun!”
And as the Pharaoh longed for light, he saw the head
of a huge forty-footed man climb up the sands 1035
and cackle with a mouth of black teeth drenched in blood.
His dream diviners were struck dumb, his court fools cringed,
lady-loves, spread their arms, dulcimers shook with song,
but still the poison swelled on the king’s bloated lips.
A wily steward bowed at the king’s holy feet: 1040
“O long-lived monarch, now command your famous lords
to calm your mind with tales of their great deeds and joys.”
Old men retold their voyages, the strands they’d passed,
the many-thousand-plumaged birds, strange tribes of men,
the many speeding ships their two deep eyes had seen. 1045
A leching stalwart laughed, told of the girls he’d had:
black ones who smelled of corn, and slant-eyed yellow ones,
brown ones like wheaten bread and others white as snow
whose thighs had kept their coolness even in scorching heat.
A great magician dug up mankind’s ancient roots 1050
that move in beasts and clamber down to roots of trees:
“Earth is a tree on which men hang and sway like leaves,
on which kings climb to the top peaks and burst in bloom
then knit to sweet fruit, filled with seed, the world’s salvation.”
But the king grew wild, stamped his foot and yelled: “Be still! 1055
The more you talk, the more my fierce dream chokes my heart!
All of you hold worm-eaten bodies like torn flags
and wave them proudly in the damp and slimy air!”
He spoke and glared with rage on the high steward who shook
with fear and lost his wit and ready craft that once 1060
brought laughter, that frail bird, to perch on the king’s tree;
but all at once he smeared his crafty mind with birdlime
then bowed out backward toward the garden close, and vanished.
In the low dungeons the barbarians still fought on
to bid the earth farewell, some with pure wine and some with women; 1065
the lone man’s gallant friends talked quietly of Death
with undimmed eyes as though it were some foreign land
made of translucent veils, most fabulous, to which,
whenever a fair wind blows, the voyager sets his sails:
then Death draws near like an unwelcome friend, a hunter 1070
who spies life drinking by the stream like a shy fawn
and suddenly with his vulturous shade obscures the spring.
The archer, too, rejoiced to stoop with thirst and drink
Death’s shadow and his deathless water in one gulp.
He felt all his past life sweep in a lightning flash, 1075
waters rose in his mind, eyes, voices, lips and hair,
and Rala swept by suddenly, flashed like a star, and fell.
He smiled serenely and recalled how one day he
and Rala had roamed the burial glen to goad the embalmers.
Cadavers peeled and crumbled about their living feet, 1080
the earth grew fat with too much food in her vast entrails
so that the archer stuffed his nose to bear the stench.
Wading and stooped in stagnant waters, the wretched craftsmen
gutted the dead, scooped out their brains, and with black pitch
and healing aromatic herbs stuffed each cadaver. 1085
Others adorned a dead man’s face with rouge and paints,
and thrust into his pitch-filled guts old magic spells:
“I’ve never lied or killed, I’ve never had my fill,
I’ve never stolen water or disobeyed my master 1088
but groveled at his feet and trembled in his shadow.” 1090
Others amid the tombs, adorned with bridal pomp
the immortal dwelling of the soul now wed to Death,
and drew the furnishings most dear to the earth, the mind,
the sea, that it might lack not even a green twig,
Thus from the slaves’ black fingertips the drawings flowed 1095
with skillful craft, filling the walls with pleasing shapes;
life sprang like jetting water from the hand’s five flutes.
Down in the lowest strip, broad rivers flowed through grass,
reeds gently, freshly swayed like bodies of young girls,
and flaming flowers rose on the waves’ glitter, fish 1100
sped swiftly and danced gaily with bright upright tails.
Along the second strip the black earth spread, new-plowed,
and mud-soaked farmhands stooped down low and sowed the seed;
close by, within a new-dug ditch, a pair embraced
that earth and seed might thus unite and sprout in wheat. 1105
In the. third strip their masters fatly sat in shade
rejoicing with large eyes to watch their dancing slaves
and their blind bards sing in the sun with earth-filled eyes;
nude slender slave-girls came and proffered the great lords
bright flowers and cooling sherbets served on silver trays. 1110
Slim hieroglyphs like swift birds flew and soared in air:
“Life is most good, and drink is good, and song is good.”
As the much-traveled man climbed all life step by step
painted upon the rich-wrought walls, his heavy flesh
grew lighter step by step until he breathed pure air, 1115
On the fourth strip the Immortals shone like flaming birds
while at their feet the spirit like a nude worm crawled;
aye, Dame Soul quaked and held in her hands her open heart:
“Dear heart, it’s I who’ve fed you even with the milk of birds,
dear heart, it’s I who’ve never denied you anything, 1120
and now I ask you for one favor: O heart, confess not!”
The highest strip of all, still blank, enzoned the tomb,
and the far-sighted man longed to see what great shapes
more lustrous than the Immortals would adorn it now,
His temples gently throbbed when he saw an old slave 1125
climb up the scaffold, stand erect, and with both hands
scatter upon the blank strip blue and crimson paint,
and the archer shook to see tall flames, wild famished tongues,
clutching and streaming swiftly from mountain peak to peak.
Gone were the waters, wheat, and gods; pure flame remained, 1130
virgin and uninhabited, man’s ultimate heir,
and the tormented archer smiled to see how flame,
his secret fear, rolled now unruffled, beauty’s hem,
an ancient ornament that could no longer fright man’s mind.
The sun rolled and fell heavily on the streaming sands 1135
and the stone gods received him in their radiant arms
as their one only son, their faces turned toward light.
A conjurer stood upon the ladder’s topmost rung
and blessed a monstrous hawk-faced god hewn out of granite
by blowing upon his face old magic incantations: 1140
“I blow on your vast eyes that you may see the world
and all your faithful who bow low with well-filled palms;
I blow in your vast ears that you may hear earth’s roar,
our greasy hymns of praise and our fat flattering words;
I blow on your vast nose that you may smell far off 1145
the turning spit that roasts the meat of votive offering;
I blow on your unsated beak and your hooked claws
that they may clutch the skulls of men and eat their flesh
yet leave for us, their high priests, some rich scraps of food.”
The archer heard man blowing with his puny breath 1150
to bring to life that brainless, silent, granite god
with all the passions of unjust, unsated mortals,
and the man-killer yelled to God till his mind shook:
I blow on your vast hands! Raise them and smash the world!”
His breast caught fire and seven crimson suns danced up 1155
in the sand-smothered sky till earth, in his thought’s pyre,
turned red-hot like an iron sphere and climbed his mind.
The lone man suddenly feared the world might go to wrack,
then reached his huge hand hurriedly to grasp with joy
and sweetness Rala’s cool full-rounded breasts until 1160
his mind stood still, with the poor world then reconciled.
And thus in that last hour he took for recompense
and joy the full round shadow of a woman’s breast,
and as he closed his eyes to enjoy this last farewell
he felt this was not now a maid’s cool flesh but that 1165
he held the whole world in his palm and said farewell.
His hands thus brimming with but azure quivering shade,
the wages of his strife, the great world-wanderer waited
to vanish like a thunderbolt in the gaping earth;
life was a tranquil lightning flash where the swift eye 1170
barely had time to blink and watch foes, women, friends,
green shores and azure seas and a sweet thousand showers;
all earth in his ten fingers seemed like a lovely toy.
As he caressed that rich wage in his empty palms,
the dungeon doors burst open, the steward advanced with pomp, 1175
and the barbarians crouched on earth and groaned like bulls,
the comrades rose and slowly tightened their lean waists,
but the sly eunuch raised his shriveled hands and said:
“A heavy dream has struck our king until sweet wine
and tender kisses turn to poison on his pale lips 1180
and all his gentle heart-leaves shrivel in his breast.
Aye, strangers who’ve profaned our holy land with war,
whom dark exotic lands have bred in the far North,
who of you know of magic and ghost-binding spells
to exorcise our Pharaoh’s incoherent dream? 1185
Let him rise now! I promise full reprieve of life!”
But no one spoke, all hung their mute heads toward the ground,
till the resourceful man arose, who still in Death’s
enclosing pincers struggled to take wing and flee
Quickly he tore his clothes and smeared his eyes with mud 1190
to fight Death with the cunning both of fox and lion:
“I’ve studied all the crafts that bind or unbind man,
magic enchantments, witch-herbs, and six-pointed stars.
I shall decode the dream and fling it in empty air;
but that the gods may fall upon me and move my brains 1195
I shall dance first and utter frantic, raging cries
until my fierce head flames beyond man’s mortal powers.”
He spoke, then from the wall took down God’s savage mask,
threw it across his back and strode out through the dungeon door.
Earth smelled of lily and jasmine, naked maidens stooped 1200
and proffered court dames roses and their lords old wine,
slim dancers stopped by trees that dripped with the moon’s beams,
and cooling scented sweat frosted their weary bodies.
Odysseus smelled the fragrant world, and his mind spun,
his nostrils quivered, his eyes blinked and his ears rang, 1205
for all life flickered like a tongue between his brows;
dear God, if only he could make her stay forever!
A dizzy craving swept along his breast and thighs
until a tremulous fumbling dance flowed through his flesh;
he turned right and bowed low, then stooping left with anguish 1210
fell at the king’s feet, quivering, like a beast of prey.
The dance sprang in him suddenly, his bone-joints tingled,
his mind like a swift siphon sucked up feast and lords
till all his disembodied longing poised in air.
He shuffled through the first steps of the sacred dance 1215
holding his hands outstretched as though he begged for bread,
then slowly passed with mournful glance from lord to lord.
A strident whining bubbled in his quivering throat
as though small orphans wept with far, convulsive sobs,
and his mud-tattered rags flapped in the scented air. 1220
The smiling archons marveled at the stranger’s skill
in aping the uncaressed small orphans softly sobbing,
the sickly tramp who went from door to door and begged.
Then like a tiger crouched to spring, he clenched his fists,
raised one foot high in air like a curved twisted paw, 1225
and as his neck grew taut and his teeth flashed in darkness,
the carved mask of his god thumped on his back and groaned.
His feet leapt as in rage and drummed on the hard ground,
his savage hands pulled tightly at invisible bows
and unseen arrows whizzed with speed in the moon’s glow. 1230
This was no simple dance: war sprang in the rose shrubs,
black crows perched on the feasting boards and hoarsely cawed,
and the king gasped and leapt, by shadowy arrows struck.
The archer’s rage calmed down, his throat relaxed, and sobs
pierced through the night like wailing maids who tore their hair. 1235
The slow dance dragged and crawled, and now lean cripples roamed
and limped upon the earth, for the cruel war had stopped,
and blind men fiercely groped the ground with their bent staffs.
The lords laughed unabashed; in their mind’s eye they saw
their maimed slaves coming from the slaughter, stooped with spoils; 1240
only amid moon-shadows, far in the dense grove,
a girl recalled her lover and softly be
gan to weep,
The lone man fell and bowed down low at the king’s feet
then slowly, slowly mounted like the ascending sun
so that when the court dames and revelers finally saw him 1245
they shrieked out, terror-struck, for on the archer’s face
was tightly wedged his grinning god’s fierce, hideous mask!
The king screamed and reeled backward in his archons’ arms:
“Ah! That’s the seven-times-reborn sun-demon’s face
that struck me in my sleep! Help me or I’ll go mad!” 1250
But when the steward charged with wrath to seize the dancer,
the quailing king shrieked out again and stopped him short,
for as Odysseus fixed God’s mask on his fierce brow
six pairs of flames leaped from his arm-joints, head, and feet.
Then all minds crashed, veins swelled with fear, the whole world shook, 1255
and the man-killer, seizing his black-hilted sword,
leapt in a frothing dance about the monarch’s tables.
A wide-eyed, tall intoxication blazed in his head
as his feet whirled him on beyond both life and death
where he no longer whined, or fought, or wept, or begged 1260
but touched the black soil like a god till the stones smoked.
Then all at once he stood stock-still before the king,
broke in harsh laughter and fixed him with his mud-filled eyes.
The startled youth, conceived in orgy, reached his hands,
but with a thundering cavern-roar the sly man yelled: 1265
“Good is the quail, the blackbird, and the turtle-dove,
but of all birds I like the eagle, the cross-eagle, best,
and most of all when it holds a king’s head in its claws!”
The king, more dead than living, spoke with quivering lips:
“O evil spirit, choose those you want, but leave my land, 1270
pass quickly through the boundaries of my soil and soul!
May you be cursed! May my breath dissolve you in all winds!”
And then the king spat thrice so that his curse might hold.
Turning to his cowed courtiers he gave swift commands:
“Give him enough supplies to last at least two moons, 1275
let trusted guards conduct him to our far frontiers,
then cast him far out from our holy land to cleanse our kingdom!”
With slow firm strides Odysseus passed through night’s dance-ring,
plunged down the dungeons, opened the long tunnel’s door,
and his scared comrades milled about his sweating body. 1280
He stood erect among them and his thick lips steamed,