The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel
Page 100
and a bold god with flashing lightning bolts in hand 860
leapt high in the hushed darkness of a cave and cried:
“Where to, unlaughing king? I’m God, the world’s last limits!
There aren’t more roads for you to pass or straits to cross,
I am the end of sky, of earth, and of man’s soul!”
But still behind God’s back the king heard the sea’s roar 865
and God sank suddenly in the gaping mind of man
till the mind leapt on the king’s laughless head and cried:
“I only, man’s great mind, exist on earth and sky!”
But still behind these words the sea mocked on in foam
and the mind shuddered and clamped tight its shameless mouth. 870
Once more he took the road, dashed through the mountain straits,
trees met and parted, rocks split wide, then merged again,
and all about him the stones broke in whirling dance.
One morning his exhausted nostrils smelled salt air,
an endless empty sea roared at the faint king’s feet, 875
opened her frothing mouth and crunched the sandy shore
like a bitch-dog till Mother Earth shrank back in fear.
The poor king clutched his anguished heart to keep it whole
then grasped a log and hewed a new Unlaughing Man,
planted him like a bellbuoy on the foaming wave 880
then dashed in silence round the shore and swore an oath
never to stop until he’d circled all his land.
He ran around his wretched kingdom shore by shore
as days and nights passed by and emptied, full moons waned,
but still the unlaughing king ran shore by shore and wailed: 885
“I’m snared in a round trap! Alas, I rule an island!”
Cold winter came and went, the summer strolled and passed,
the snows fell once again, and one night the king’s feet
tripped on a sodden log so that he fell down prone
and in the morning saw he held the uprooted buoy, 890
for he had come full circle, and the noose closed tight.
The sea had mounted and begun to eat it whole,
its wooden knees had rotted, seaweed wrapped its feet,
and the white slimy sea-worms crawled and licked its soggy thighs.
The unlaughing king then flung his wooden mask far out 895
to sea and struck inland again with calm despair.
He suddenly came to a mountain heap of dead men’s skulls,
and shuddered, for he guessed he saw his own old masks,
the soul’s deep ancient sheaths, deep ancient ships in which
his mind had often sailed on deep oblivion’s sea. 900
His whole life was a pile of bones, and junkman Death
cackled through every mouth and wailed in every eye.
Groaning, he clambered up the heap on hands and knees
as the bleached skulls with gaping jaws rolled clacking down,
and when the brine-bleached bones turned red toward set of sun, 905
the panting king at length climbed up the silent peak,
sat down cross-legged, then gazed about him with great fear:
the sea roared everywhere and rushed to gulp his kingdom!
His pale mind shook, and smoke rose from his head until
in lightning-like recall he plunged in the serene 910
and azure sea of deep oblivion, then sprang up,
clutching cool-dripping rubies, turquoise, coral boughs
entwined with salts and seaweeds of his ancient lives.
He’d been a monstrous armored lobster thrust in rocks,
a weightless flying fish that longed to mount the air, 915
a hawk that pierced the clouds, a mole at the earth’s roots,
till skulls of myriad birds and beasts had wrapped his soul.
He’d growled a thousand years, he’d talked a thousand years,
at times he’d been a blood-smeared hunter, a rude rustic lad,
a rough clodhopper sowing and reaping the year through, 920
a sly and wealthy merchant and a fierce sea-wolf
who scoured the shores, tall at the prow, with ax in hand,
till his much-wandering blood had calmed for the last time
and turned to an unlaughing king’s transparent soul.
But now, behold, the warrior sat on his old shields, 925
well-sheathed within the various skulls he had once worn,
and his mind cast the last beams of its afterglow:
“At last I’ve found the secret, and my heart grows light:
the mind’s a lamp with little oil—blow, it goes out,
and all go with it, heavens and earth and the blue sea.” 930
Struck by this sudden thought, the king began to laugh;
he laughed, and mountains swayed, he laughed, and the world shook,
he laughed and the skulls gaped and broke in cackling cries.
But all at once, dear God, a sharp knife swiped his throat,
and he smelled Death approaching like a cooling breeze; 935
his laughter stopped and he grabbed earth in both his arms:
“Mother, let me still live a moment, an hour still!
Mother, don’t let me die now with still open gaping palms!”
The wet dawn slowly turned to rose and climbed the land,
and the light-archer, lying on his stony bed, 940
silently watched for hours the hermit’s forehead toss
with quivering billows in the squalls of heaving sleep.
“He deeply dreams what he desires, he’s born anew,
for sleep, that great magician, blows, and the dark body
drops like a black crust till the soul sprouts upright wings 945
and freely flies and sips the honey of each desire.”
Thus did Odysseus muse upon the dream-drowned wretch,
but all at once the old man’s lashes filled with tears
and he screamed, “Mother!” and flailed his hands the whole night through.
“Mother!” His cry rang clearly like an infant’s wail; 950
but the heart-battler gazed on the old man in silence
nor spread his hands to exorcise the savage dream.
“The old man’s living now the life he wished to live,
for dreams can cure the deepest wounds of waking day;
let him dream on, that his whole life might not go lost.” 955
The two town-elders, meanwhile, climbed the rocks with gasps
while armed young men behind them followed stealthily,
until at break of dawn the old men quaked to see
long flickering tongues of flame that lit up all the cave,
and they heard bronze shields clash as though two armies met. 960
But when it had well dawned, their hearts leapt up with joy
for the great cave-rock shone and swayed in a white blaze,
a mountain of bright quivering wings and gleaming eggs,
till the first elder raised aloft his shriveled arms:
“The rock glows as with myriad wings to soar in flight, 965
the dread ascetics talk of God at break of day!”
He spoke, both climbed, light-footed, one behind the other,
and slowly neared with trembling the now rose-red tomb
till in dim azure light they saw the crystal beard
of the unknown ascetic flow like a pure stream. 970
He held the open hand of their ascetic high
as though he read man’s fate within its gaping palm,
then raised his flaming eagle eyes and gently smiled
to give the pale men heart, and signed them to come close.
They crept up step by step with buckling knees, but when 975
they saw their hermit’s body in the peace of death,
all wept and tore their hair:
“Alas, our light has gone,
for our good ghost, our grandfather, plunges deep in Hades!”
Then the much-knowing athlete rose, and his eyes shone:
“Your great ascetic longed to return to his first home 980
but on his hand his soul clings like a beggar still
and stretches gaping toward your town and begs for alms—
my children, fill it with rich gifts, or it will eat you!”
The young men joined their shields and the old men their staffs,
then both raised high the holy corpse, climbed slowly down 985
the slope, and placed it underneath the town’s great oak.
All good souls quickly came to kiss the holy corpse,
but its hand still stretched open, warm and gaping still.
Odysseus loomed above the crowd and ruled their fears:
“This dead man wants no tears, his still unsated hand 990
will not close till it clasps the dearest thing you have.”
The dazed crowd shook and fell upon the gaping hand:
town elders cast their golden coins, young men their weapons,
chieftains the heavy bronze keys of the famous castle,
then mothers brimmed its gaping pit with their salt tears, 995
young maidens filled the palm with kisses, carnal musk,
and a small child hung on its fingers all his toys,
but the hand gaped with hunger still and cursed them all.
Keen wailing rose as the avid hand reached out to pull
down with it into earth the town and all its souls! 1000
Ah, what gift now could slake that dreadful hunger’s greed?
Odysseus felt the people’s pain, pitied their souls,
then stooped, dug with his nails, approached the avid hand,
silently filled the bottomless palm with earth, and then
at once the shriveled fingers closed, full satisfied. 1005
The elders fell and worshiped at their Savior’s feet,
young maidens clasped his knees, widows his hands, and begged
him to remain as the town’s guardian, their soul’s shepherd,
but the lone man pushed through the crowd and took his way,
proud to deny his wealth, his joys, his gains each hour. 1010
He passed the arched town gate and crossed through wealthy fields:
“What shall I do with this complaining life of ours
that sometimes makes me laugh and sometimes makes me sigh?
I rub it with my fingers like a laurel leaf
until my flesh and mind both smell of laurel leaves.” 1015
Thus freed of man at length, the soul of the saved master
whistled a lonely shepherd’s song in the sweet wilderness.
Once more alone, he raised the wretched dust of earth,
once more the forest like a shaggy beast arose
and dragged behind the ascetic with a furry tail. 1020
His new companions leapt like flying fishes high
in his mind’s waves and followed him to the far sea:
the young death-smothered prince with his large eyes
who with no hope took the most brave, despairing path;
the much-kissed, much-washed body of sweet Margaro 1025
that followed in a peacock blaze the lanes of love;
and now this old man, this unsated brain that asked:
“What is our life, and whence, and where?” this rampant hand
that sought reply from heaven and earth, that begged one word,
to which but one fistful of earth rose to reply. 1030
“Just as a traveler bends to earth and watches ants
struggling amid the threshing floor and lugging chaff,
then suddenly lifts his heel and grinds them into nothing,
thus does the human ant-heap strive on this poor earth;
but no great mind regards us, no heart mocks us even, 1035
only above us a foot hovers and stamps us out!
Heigh ho! with our great troubles and our gallant songs
let’s jump down the abyss, clasped in each other’s arms!”
The lone man marched all day as he recalled with grief
those hopeful youths who rose to assault the empty air, 1040
and the air gently blew and smashed them on the sands.
“But we, my comrades, we know the secret well, and with
no hope at all we mount our steeds and fight the air!”
Thus did he mutter to himself as the earth’s rose
dipped, and at dusk a river’s small cool-singing branch 1045
flowed through a sheath of rhododendron blooms and willows.
Rejoiced to find a friend with whom to march toward sea,
the lone man bared his feet to greet his comrade well,
but as he bent above the stream, his backbone thrilled
to see thick shoals of bride and bridegroom eels that swam 1050
to sea, turned silver by love’s fire, inflamed by passion,
all darting swiftly now to mate in the briny depths,
leaping and playing gaily, gleaming in sun and shade
like tangled snakes and rushing to entrust their seed
that eels, too, might not vanish on the impoverished earth. 1055
Walking the bankside with the wedding pomp, he mused:
“If only in Death’s briny depths we too could hatch
the inexhaustible new eggs warmed in our minds!”
After three days had come and gone, he reached a town
so wrung by pain that no smoke rose from the rooftops, 1060
for foes had passed and put to sword all virile men,
all small male children, all the lusty stalwart youths,
and left but the immature and flowerless small girls,
the withered widows, baggy-breasted dying crones,
who huddled now in their bare yards and wailed with grief 1065
because man’s sperm had perished from the town, destroyed.
Only a small male child had crawled into a pot
and thus survived the slaughter, and now mothers passed him
from lap to lap and gave him suck with tender care,
for all hope of their sacred race’s flickering flame, 1070
their forebear’s memory and their own homes’ ancient roots
distilled and hung now from his small and hairless worm.
Pallid and weak, the boy wailed in the women’s arms,
and his gold bonnet gleamed with myriad silver bells.
The many-souled man swiftly passed the wretched lanes 1075
where the poor women wept and wailed within their rooms,
while in the empty yards, deep in blood-splattered grass,
delivered she-goats stood and suckled their spry kids
and gasped with joy to feel their bursting udders flow.
At the town’s rim the suffering man stood on a knoll 1080
and gazed upon the widowed roofs that spread below
and the gold bonnet gleaming in the female flock,
then raised his hands on high and blessed the young male shoot:
“May man’s great seed not spill on earth and disappear,
may new men spring in time from earth, and in warm air 1085
raise futile wings and towers to make their hearts rejoice!
The earth is only shadow, yet the glad heart clasps it tight.”
The lone man now no longer counted days and nights;
each moment was the mother-well of deathless youth
so that he followed happily his compass heart, 1090
knowing that all roads led unerringly down to sea.
One dawn, upon the highest trees, those great forebears,
he spied some gaudy-colored rags tied to the boughs
as secret prayers to the dread spirits that cure all ills;
further on, tall and monstrous rocks with chiseled suns 109
5
shone in an open clearing heaped with votive gifts
of clay plates, honey, milk and dates that steamed in sun.
“Here’s Fear and Hope, the two great parents of all gods;
by this I guess there’s a large village not far off,”
the lone man said, nor hastened nor relaxed his pace. 1100
Then soon one day he heard drums beating everywhere
in the wood’s darkest depths, and others beat reply,
as though ghosts hidden in the trees proclaimed his coming.
The sounds woke ancient mystic terrors in the blood
—thick forests, dangerous hunting, women, swarming beasts— 1105
and the mind stooped and shuddered over a black pit.
What thousand-year-old savage life had passed this wood
with bloodstained ax of stone held tight in iron hands?
Memory, too, was a deep cave where wild beasts crouched,
and when they moved, the head creaked like a trap door sprung. 1110
The sun turned shadow-ward and birds perched on their boughs
as the much-wandering pilgrim crossed with longing hope
the noisy village gate of a child-swarming town.
His black eyes then grew tranquil as the night sea-wind,
fragrant with scent of women’s armpits and ripe fruit, 1115
washed all his sunburnt dusty body with cool waves.
In the blue shadows, the streets swarmed with many souls,
wizened old men sat cross-legged on straw mats and wore
green turbans or white lofty bonnets on their heads,
and a young maiden passed, her hair new-washed and combed, 1120
each thin lock braided with a pearl thick as a bean,
while on her nude breasts jangled amulets of bronze.
She passed with swaying steps, rang like a rattling snake,
shook her young hips most sweetly, smelled like a musk beast,
and glanced so piercingly with childlike painted eyes 1125
that the great old ascetic blushed and lowered his own.
He sniffed the tented long bazaar where slender boys
bent down and in stone mortars pounded spice and herb,
where old men ground in silence magic paints and rouge
and yearning girls in darkness bought them secretly. 1130
The wide-sleeved chieftains with their gold seal-rings rode by
mounted upon their wavy-humped and black-eyed camels,
and in their silken sashes new-cut roses gleamed.
Young women strolled with golden slippers, and all dripped
so with perfume, like savage birds flown from the woods, 1135