the king’s head like a wine-bowl brimmed with fragrant spice:
“The pale old sun has set, a new sun mounts the sky, 245
the father falls in the dark earth, and the son sprouts!
A thousand welcomes, king! Plant roots in our good soil,
sprout up with goodly grain to eat, sweet blooms to smell,
make savage fire spring that all our poor may cook,
and when your strength’s exhausted and your loins are drained 250
then we shall meet, O short-lived king, in the deep dark!”
They spoke, then raised and placed proud Rocky on the blood-soaked throne.
The great sun with his laughter and his heavy breath
came down to the king’s court to grant his proud esteem;
behind him gleamed and waddled the corpulent great chiefs 255
carting their gifts of slain lambs, boar-tusks, and plump boys;
the new king’s humble subjects fell down prone, and bowed.
Blind minstrels lifted to the king their throbbing throats,
nude palace dancing-girls gleamed in the break of dawn,
but Rocky gazed far toward the woods and softly sighed: 260
“Where are my friends to see me now, where do they sail?
Where are you, deep and cunning soul, to smile at me?
I’m only worthy to be a grape in your grape-cluster.”
Leaning upon his sill, the new king raised his nose
like a lean hunting-hound who sniffs his master’s scent, 265
as though in truth he’d flushed some trace in the empty air,
for that same dawn the archer had crossed the desert sands
and thrust in Rocky’s jungle of luxuriant woods.
With heavy axes, Granite and a few brave youths
stooped low, drove on ahead and slashed at twisting vines 270
and cut a path through bloated leaves of monstrous trees.
Smothered in putrid mold, Kentaur could hardly breathe:
“Again God changes face and tries to scare our souls
with garments of rank mud, mildew and stinking slime;
when will he ever turn into a generous friend 275
and loom up in our path to give us friendly greeting?
When will he stand in the wild wastes one day and wave
his hands and bring us gifts of women, wine, and bread:
‘Hello, my lads, greetings to all! Welcome, black eyes!
Come on now, sprawl in my cool shade, eat of my bread, 280
I am your ancient great-grandfather whom all name God!’
But no such luck! He casts us down from crag to crag,
for though we’ve fled from sterile drought, here God takes on
his other face of leeching slime to rot us all.
Ah, what a feast all life would be had God my heart!” 285
Odysseus smiled with wryness but would not reply.
Days passed by, damp and dark, as the sun strove in vain
to pierce through thickset leaves and dry the septic stench.
Earth’s orgiastic juices soaked the tepid soil,
vine-twisted trees sprang lushly with damp hollowed trunks, 290
thick snakes swam in the marshes and small scorpions dashed
with joy to ripen their soft stings in moldy humus.
The chicken-hearted piper lagged behind with dread
and pressed his flute-trained ear against the rotting earth:
“Dear God, a ground-war rages, I hear moldering wings, 295
throats groan in their last gasps, jaws champ and grind away;
alas! our Mother Earth’s gone mad and eats her own!”
While his clairvoyant buzzing brain harked at the earth,
he heard a clamor of hoarse caws and myriad wings
as parrots passed on high like gold-embellished clouds, 300
and the light gleamed, a feather-woven multicolored stole.
Like a gold parrot, too, his mind leapt in his skull
till he forgot the moldy grinding earth, and cawed:
“Oho, I choke, I crawl on the earth, I shout with pain,
but when a small bird flutters by with crimson wings 305
then all my pain becomes that bird and my mind sings.”
The sun plunged downward and was lost, as the full moon,
like night’s white breast, brimmed with a pale and frothing milk,
streams shone like Nereids, lions’ manes dripped silver dew,
and rough-skinned gleaming tongues licked at the milky air. 310
The jackal’s wail rose in a piercing lamentation
and the hyena’s mocking screech made the night quake;
trees thundered, branch struck frenzied branch, huge elephants
plunged through bright moonglow, bathed and played in jungle wastes.
Night with its thousand eyes prowled earth like a wild beast, 315
thirsted, then went with fear to drink at water holes;
animals stretched their necks to sip, but their knees shook,
their lips strained one way and their eyes, their ears, another.
Odysseus hid his fear and listened to the night;
within the sodden stifling heat and tainted air 320
his sleepless mind uncoiled and spoke in the wild wastes:
“Steady your weak knees, archer; don’t let fear destroy you!
This fetid forest is your own God’s ruthless heart
swarming with insects, snakes, and beasts, flowers and stench;
Hunger and Love are here a pair of lecherous lions 325
that crawl in its black ditches with blood-splattered paws.
Prowl in that heart, my heart, like a fierce lion cub.”
Apes screeched amid the trees and swung down low to see
how those white creatures walked on earth, a new ape-race,
erect and tailless, balanced on two straight hind legs. 330
Broad-bottom roared with laughter and to the piper cried:
“What shall we call these—gods, or beasts, or dumbstruck men?
They look like my old forebears! When I wake in woods
a monstrous monkey leaps within my jungle guts,
strives to recall, and stares as on his native land!” 335
But the light-headed piper sighed in choked reply:
“I look on these dark woods as on dark tombs, and tremble!
I can’t turn back, and I’m afraid to push ahead;
I’m caught between two millstones here: the archer’s hands.”
Coarse-bellied Kentaur chuckled, then caressed his friend: 340
“Ho! Even he’s convulsed between his god’s huge fists!
Who knows what monstrous millstones grind even mighty Zeus?”
Granite kept silent meanwhile as he thrust ahead,
nor was aware of dark forefathers nor thought of God,
but as he swung his ax and cut a path through woods 345
his haughty fevered mind and thoughts flew far away:
“Ah, Rocky, pounce now like a lion here, and roar
and bellow till your gold mane gleams in the night dew!”
But Rocky sat upon his throne while the old chiefs
taught him with wisdom all a king’s responsible craft: 350
how to speak mildly like a lord, laugh like the sun,
and how to hold his feather aloft, a mystic sword.
Three shining maids stretched out for him on a soft bed,
three mighty Nereids of the hunt, the wheat, the well,
and held him tight to bear him sons that all might teem— 355
beasts of the mountains, holy grain, wells of the field—
and Rocky threw himself into a fat and regal lust
like a starved honeybee who dips its wings in honey.
Sometimes he played with life and mocked it like a dream,
but sometimes huge desires and cares burned in his breast 360
to se
ize his weapons, and lead his people in swift assault,
and like a dashing horseman breach the African forts,
string young men neck to neck like hanging partridges
and dangle young girls neck to neck on his steed’s saddle.
And who knows, for the earth is small, he might one day 365
upon his swift return meet with the archer’s troops:
“Well met, and thousand welcomes, friends! Draw back a bit,
my head is dizzy, lads, I can’t quite make you out—
is it great Granite’s shape that dazzles my dim sight?”
Far from each other, both lads secretly longed to meet, 370
but each performed that duty which his fate decreed.
One day as Granite found among some thickset shrubs
a suckling leopard cub sunk in a sated sleep,
he dashed and seized her in his arms, then with soft strokes
calmed down her striped and bristling back and her white belly. 375
The clumsy suckling struck at him with her small claws,
opened her frothing mouth until her milk teeth shone.
“Now here’s a fitting gift for the cantankerous man;
such is his savage heart, I think, but a bit larger!”
Thus Granite thought and smiled, then with great joy rushed up 380
and wedged the handsome beast into his master’s arms.
The archer stroked the cub as though it were his daughter
and felt it beating like a deep heart in his breast:
“Friend, I recall you said one night by the campfire:
‘I’ve loved and never had enough of two live things: 385
to watch flames lick their tongues, and animals at play.’
But you forgot to mention man’s own heart, my friend.
Now I rejoice, for in my fists I hold your gift
as a three-headed good: beast, fire, and gallant heart.”
He spoke, and his loud laughter fell like rain on leaves. 390
They strove for two moons to tear through the forest’s nets,
and every dawn, with his chin locked between his knees,
the archer crouched and listened to his crackling head
as though new powers were ripening in his savage skull.
Two contrary and diverging crossroads forked his chest: 395
his patience and his plodding mind showed him one way
but his unbridled warring heart climbed up another,
and he rejoiced, because both ways seemed equally good.
When the new moon at last cut through an evening’s dusk,
they left the last enormous trees, cut through the wood, 400
and night flew off with yellow eyes, passed like an owl,
until the sun’s red rose climbed up the sky and bloomed,
and the troop yelled with joy, rolled down and kissed the stones
that turned pale gold and glimmered in the slanting rays.
Broad-bottom dripped with moisture like a wet plane tree, 405
his beard had gathered moss, and plants grew from his sides:
“Now by the Almighty Sun, I’m musty and smell of mold!”
His dislocated bone-joints creaked, his bellies steamed,
and near him the green piper yawned, for his hot head
buzzed like a beehive from the feverish jungle heats; 410
the young men also stretched and shivered like wet dogs.
With pale and sunken cheeks then slender Granite gazed
at the far deathless mountains, and his glad heart throbbed;
the wandering man beside him sunned himself and heard
the pelting sun fall on his head, his neck, his sides, 415
gripping and fumbling at his flanks as its bright rays
caressed him whole, from top to toe, with loving hands.
The tranquil heart, too, like a rain-drenched butterfly
spread out its brilliant wings to dry in the hot sun
and felt that God was also drying his wet wings. 420
Twelve bright tattooed star-clusters shone about his waist
as the sun passed and with its flaming hands caressed
the mystic symbols of his fate graved round his loins:
twelve sacred zodiac stars, twelve axes through whose holes
the archer with his bow of light had shot gold shafts. 425
When finally his nostrils dried and his bones warmed,
Odysseus stretched on the hard earth, then shut his eyes,
and in his memory’s tail the woods became a feather.
The leopard cub played at the silent archer’s feet,
whetting her virgin talons on his savage flesh; 430
the two friends played and howled in a dread solitude
nor did the cub or lone man think of men or woods.
As Granite watched his leader play, he gently smiled:
“Master, you’ve dried your flesh like a wet sword so that
its cutting side might not be dulled, its blunt side rust; 435
I marvel how we saved ourselves from that foul marsh;
where is your gripping eye now marching off to, archer?”
He who could talk to beasts heard, but did not reply,
for he had voyaged far—how could he open his mouth
and give an answer to the voice of mind or friend? 440
He jumped up, blew the conch, and the whole army moved.
Together with the sun, the strength of man awoke
until the fiery wick of his long backbone burned.
Slowly the fields turned crimson as they reached tilled land
and saw their first men—naked blacks who dug the soil 445
and in their flaring nostrils wore long copper rings.
Their gleaming faces were carved deep with zigzag cuts;
one could walk up their jutting jaws to the hung lips
then up their flat coarse snouts into their bleary eyes,
climb up their slanting monkey-brows and soon be lost 450
in the mudholes and lice-pits of their mangy brush.
The happy comrades yelled with joy as though they’d found
their long-lost brothers in an unknown sun-washed land.
The blacks were bending, opening pits and planting seed,
while young girls danced to help them that the wheat might sprout 455
with heavy beards on thick strong stalks like their long hair,
but when they saw the white men, they all screeched and ran:
“The dead have wakened! Phantoms swoop down to haunt our town!”
they shrieked and moaned, clambering the mountain slopes with fear.
Granite ran on ahead, then shouted with great joy: 460
“There’s a large town in the glen! The oven fires are lit!
Come quick, let’s get there swiftly, lads, before night falls!”
But their arch-cunning master yelled and stopped his troop:
“It’s shameful when the belly rules and hunger sways!
Tonight we’ll sleep in open fields with empty guts 465
and not fall in a trap by breaching towns at night;
let’s see what the mind says at dawn when the earth’s bright.”
Without a word the troop stretched out amid the stones
with empty bellies till that sly mind-tamer, sleep,
came down like mountain mist and covered them with dreams. 470
Each dreamt that his dark troubles had a thousand faces,
and the heart-battler saw a black worm in his dream
that writhed and thrashed with violence on the murky ground;
immense dark undulating rays lanced through its skin,
the earth flashed luridly, the dry air flicked with flame 475
till the tormented man cried out with grief, “It’s God!”
then stooped and gathered it with care in his crude palms,
and there the black worm lay serenely in man’s
warmth.
As with his flaming breath the lone man thawed the worm,
the small beast slowly shuddered, shivered, then bit by bit 480
its thin skin cracked, its body opened, its entrails bloomed,
and in the sweet infusing warmth of man there sprang
and burst to right and left two thousand-eyed wide wings
till a bright butterfly suddenly filled the lone man’s palms.
The sentries yelled, and the archer leapt from his sweet dream; 485
three trembling blacks with feathers on their heads ran up,
fell prone upon the earth, bowed to the troop with awe,
then slowly, as their hearts grew bolder, raised their hands:
“O great white spirits, birds who snatch our souls and fly
far off to the other shore, dread carriers of the dead, 490
a lethal and black-taloned plague has swooped and struck us,
torn out our rotted guts and sucked our sickly souls!
O great White eagles of the sky, heal us and save us!”
But the sharp-witted man stamped on the earth with wrath:
“How does the wretched race of black man dare to come 495
to its white dreaded gods and beg with empty hands?
For whom do you think you browse your sheep or grow your corn?
The Immortals hunger, they want bison and flour to eat,
for only when they’re sated will they cock their ears
to black man’s supplications or the dark earth’s pain.” 500
The Negroes shook with fear, scattered like smoke, and soon
far on the sloping mountainsides their swift heels gleamed,
and the friends burst with laughter, but kind glutton scowled:
“Have you no heart, fierce beast? Didn’t you see their pain
and how their poor jaws chattered and their armpits steamed? 505
I’m hungry too, but yet I’d give them a kind word.”
The seven-souled man stroked his leopard cub serenely:
“You won’t do for a god, you pity men too much.
But never mind, we’ll heal these blacks for your sweet sake.
Piper, get up! I’ve hatched a way to stop your fevers 510
and perk you up by making you their town’s great savior.”
But the poor piper raised his flushed and fevered face:
“Oho, my ears roar of the sea, and my throat’s parched,
I’ve not the lips to laugh with now or strength to rise.”
Then the swift-handed man thumped him until he shook: 515
“Courage, my blear-eyed friend; with raucous jokes and cries
we’ll hack out an almighty god to trap fool man.
The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel Page 67
