The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel
Page 103
Let all who have ears, hear! Let all who have minds, think!
Old man, my fable is ended. Now may yours begin!” 245
But Captain Sole tossed his proud head and laughed with scorn:
“Good riddance to that ape, she should have known her strength!
But if the lion should ever wish to enslave the beasts,
he need not fear: no greater jaw than his could eat him!”
He spoke, and the blacks laughed, then with great hunger seized 250
the spit and pressed round Captain Sole to run him through,
but the great archer cast his flaming glance within
the black men’s yellow eyes till they stepped slowly back,
then he drew near his brainless friend, caressed his hair,
unbound his holy hands and his pale bony feet 255
and in the fire cast the cords and flung his noose:
“Aye, you black crinkly heads, listen to what I say!
I’ve left no stone unturned, I’ve roamed all lands and seas
to meet this world-renowned chief of the imagination,
that he might give me that bright feather God had not. 260
The same nurse gave us suck, the same milk made us strong,
but our roads parted in this world nor met again,
for I took all the scoffing sea for my full share
and he soared high and took the empty air for kingdom;
but now the two milk-brothers meet, and the crowns merge.” 265
He threw small smelt for bait, and caught full shoals of fish.
The black men snarled like dogs from whom the meat’s been snatched,
but the sly trickster laughed and grabbed the old man’s limbs:
“Look, he’s all skin and bone! From too much brooding thought
he can’t make flesh enough for one good decent bite! 270
Chief, let him go; I swear he’ll come to his wits soon,
he’ll go with prudence to his tower, he’ll eat, he’ll drink,
he won’t give thought to strangers’ cares, his mind will dim,
till like a glutted hog his flesh will swell with fat.
Fellows, hold back your spit—where can the poor pig go?” 275
The black chief then made a wry face and bit his tongue:
“Better an egg in mouth than hens in my neighbor’s yard,
but since I fear your great curse, I’ll withdraw the spit;
it’s a good thing earth feeds us with more fattening fodder.
Now with your blessing, grandpap, we’ll strike camp elsewhere.” 280
He spoke, then blew his conch and ordered his black troop
to drive the slaves ahead, to set up hearths elsewhere.
But Captain Sole screeched loudly and poked his prudent friend:
“For God’s sake, look! They’re dragging off the slaves! Up, friend,
raise your mind high, for Freedom calls, and my palms itch!” 285
But the archer grabbed him forcefully and set him down:
“Hold on! Where do you get such strength, such dizzy rage?
You’re a disarmed old fool! Let well enough alone.”
But the old codger raged, his dreamy eyes flashed fire:
“I’m not disarmed! Justice is my protective shield! 290
Earth issued from the hands of God imperfect, foul,
and it’s my duty to perfect it, I, alone!
So long as slavery, fear, injustice rack the world,
I’ve sworn, my friend, never to let my sharp sword rest.
Follow me, all ye faithful! Be bold, lads! Don’t fear!” 295
He spoke, then dashed ahead, alone, with sword in hand,
toward the dark pass of the ravine where the slaves trudged.
The silver-lined air smelled of musk in the mild night,
the lizards slithered in their holes, and from far off
was heard the whining yowl of hungry jackals prowling. 300
With awe the archer hailed the wild ghost of the flesh:
“May you thrive well, rebellious heart of air-brained man!
You’ve fortified yourself with dream, nor wish to leave,
nor, O spread-eagle, deign to walk on earth again.
Stifled with fear and sense, the mind is yoked to need, 305
but you, O heart, keep two doors, and when sorrow strikes,
fling wide imagination’s golden gate and send
bold Freedom strutting like a peacock through the streets.
Virtue, you first descend here in deceiving dreams
to an unkneeling lonely heart that plows but air. 310
You know that you will burn and fade in flame one day
but you assault the deep abyss, turn flame to wing!
Good luck to you, my friend, may your mind know no better—
for you are the earth’s crimson wing, the only one she has!”
Mountains and rocks turned rose-red in the dawning light, 315
and the sun-drunken skylark with its tasseled mind,
confused by drinking too much light, burst into song—
heart, brainless soaring bird of air, wounded with light!
The more it sang the more it raged till the sun seemed
a pomegranate tree weighed down with fruit and flower 320
on which it hopped from bough to bough and pecked and sang.
A tangled skein of song and wing, it pierced the light
and vanished, but its melodies in a light shower
still fell and cooled the scorching throat of flaming air.
Dear God, with the bird’s song the earth forgot grim Death, 325
even Death forgot his scythe, and in enchanted dream
sat on a high rock listening to the skylark’s pain.
Wiping his lashless burning eyes, he sighed and moaned:
“Cursed be my wretched fate! If only I one day
might also lie on the green grass to hear the birds!” 330
But Death had not ceased speaking when at his shrunk feet
the crazy songster tumbled like a lump of earth
and a small drop of black blood hung from its red beak.
The lone man trudged from cliff to cliff all morning long
till in a glen he saw a village built of cow-dung 335
where pigs and children rolled in the mud lanes with joy
and a thick stench rose from the village filth and slops.
In a drugged yard old men and young with gaping mouths
lay stretched and breathed the smoke of secret, mystic herbs;
with sunken ashen cheeks and dry cracked lips they sucked 340
the dark and slowly moving dream of happiness;
this was their one joy and escape from wretched life.
Hunger and filth, man-eating foul hyenas, prowled
their homes, Death like a scorpion raised his stinging tail,
and as the lone man passed, green poisons splattered him: 345
“Life’s but a trap where the mind falls, all doors are traps
which we fling open with our dreams or our strong thoughts;
the more our freedom grows the deeper down we sink.
Man’s whole submission to all great necessities,
alas, may be the only outlet Freedom has.” 350
Thus did Odysseus muse, passing through stench and filth
to crystal meadow air wiped clean of human breath;
but when he saw a calf roped near a slaughter-shed,
a black sleek calf with a white spot stamped on its brow,
the cruel god-slayer stopped to admire it silently. 355
It leapt and danced with joy because for the first time,
freed of its mother, it sniffed and gazed at the wide world;
how the light soil heaved gladly to its tossing hooves,
how its moist nostrils still smelled of sweet hay and milk!
But all at once a red door opened, and the gay calf vanished. 360
/>
At last the stone-bare mountain ended, and there stretched,
far off, a sodden plain of black-green flowering marsh
within whose midst a green lake gleamed with a lone isle
where an old tower loomed, besieged by twining ivy.
The sun saw it but rarely, the wind barely lapped it, 365
sunk in foul stagnant waters, drowned in warm quagmires.
“How can the soul of man live in such vile morass?”
the lone man mused, and longed to meet the tower’s lord,
to see what human souls become in flowering bogs.
As slowly he approached the lake through tangled weeds, 370
a skiff skimmed from the island and shrill voices called:
“Renowned ascetic, greetings from our castle’s lord!
He begs that you will condescend to sup with him
and chat awhile with peace in the night’s nobleness.”
Odysseus leapt and sat upon the velvet prow 375
and then the rowers slowly beat the turbid waters;
a froglike people croaked, knee-deep in muddy marsh;
in the far reeds a sluggish hippopotamus
opened its dark jaws wide and yawned with lazy scope.
Two spotted watersnakes raised their entwined heads high 380
and still without uncoupling watched the sky and hissed
even though an ash-black hawk cut slashing circles round them.
As the black oarsmen rowed, the skiff slit through the reeds,
plowed slowly through thick turtles in the sluggish waters,
then wedged between gorged flesh-leaved lotuses that hung 385
their milk-white long-necked flowers like tall erotic swans
and marveled at their faces in the murky stream.
All year the female blossoms sail on the lake’s surface
while in the deep unmoving waters the male blooms
sleep and suck sluggishly the mud with long white roots. 390
Then in midsummer suddenly the thick warm waters move,
Love’s vehement South Wind sweeps through their secret lanes
and to the mud-sunk depths brings the great sweet command
till the impetuous male blooms break from their thick stems,
cut free from life and swoop up toward the sun to meet 395
the females and die sweetly as they fling their seed.
When the great traveler reached to touch a monstrous bloom,
Helen rose like a lotus in his memory’s pool,
and bloodstained battlements gleamed in the muddy lake;
his old friends rolled supine like shriveled leaves, and all, 400
countries, embracements, cares, sailed on Love’s drifting waves.
“Life is a wedding, Death a funeral, and we’re the grooms,”
thus the soul-leader mused, then laughed, and leapt ashore.
With regal mien, fat-bosomed, dressed in golden robes,
the great lord of the tower sat to greet his guest; 405
two slaves stood upright, cooled him with long peacock fans
as with plump fingers he serenely played with beads 407
of a frail amber rosary that rejoiced his soul; 408
but when he saw the border-guard cut through the reeds
he tried with sluggish effort to rise and bid him welcome: 410
“Well met, O great ascetic, fancy’s brilliant bird!
Like a white swan you pass through our black stagnant bogs
and our eyes glow to see you and our hands to touch you;
surely our minds will also glow to hear your words.”
He spoke, laughed cunningly, then with politeness ceased, 415
and the much-traveled man caressed the buxom arms:
“Well met, O female-swollen lotus, thick and fat!
You sit enthroned by turbid pools, root deep in pleasure,
then send your calm and seedless mind to bloom in sun;
I’ve longed to see how souls may thrive in mud and mire.” 420
The fat lord glanced obliquely at the great heart-snatcher
and did not speak but beckoned to his slaves who brought
a thick-haired lion pelt on which the lone man sat.
As night fell, rosy mists rose on the nacreous lake,
somewhere an azure fish, playing in twilight, leapt 425
in air with yearning eyes and flashing silver scales,
but then with gasping gills sank in the mud once more.
Like a hooked fish the Evening Star throbbed through the mists,
and man’s frail soul lamented in the nets of night.
Slowly the soft voice of the fresh-bathed lord then rose: 430
“The world’s news drifts above my tower like feathery clouds:
somewhere a new and mighty king appears, somewhere
a flock of wild ducks rise and hunters rush with bows,
somewhere a maid begets a babe with horns and tail,
somewhere a heavy hailstorm blasts trees in their bloom. 435
Thus did the great news of your coming pass our tower:
‘A great ascetic treads the earth, and mountains glow!
Joyous those eyes so worthy as to see his face,
thrice joyous the mind that stands beside his own great mind!’
Thus did the good birds chirp above my tower’s roof, 440
and now I see and hear you, and my mind grows calm;
your coming gives me such great joy, my tower shall raise
its yellow banner aloft with its long azure snake.”
He spoke, ordered his nation’s yellow banner raised,
commanded that two fighting cocks be brought at once 445
to amuse the weary mind and give the heart delight
before the feasting boards were spread or talk begun:
“Forgive me, great ascetic, but I like toward dusk
to watch cocks fight with fury and fall to breathless death;
they seem to me no different from great gods or men.” 450
Deep in his silent heart, the man of many minds
weighed sadly this great lord with his benumbing lips
and brilliant brain who in his gold cage cunningly
had locked tight various gods and thoughts and mocked them all:
“All turn to night within his brain and cast blue shadows, 455
joys cannot make him drunk nor sorrows crush his soul
for life has withered in his heart, may he be cursed!”
Meanwhile the two cocks faced each other, breast to breast,
beat their clipped wings with fury, stretched their scrawny necks,
circled the ring, scraped at the earth with sharpened claws, 460
tall, lean, shorn of their crests, their eyes hot burning coals.
They crawled close slyly, stalked each other with great craft,
then suddenly leapt like lightning, slashed and stabbed in air
till the ground filled with feathers, and then beak to beak,
unmoving, silent, baleful, held their rage in leash, 465
but swiftly leapt once more as wings and talons clashed.
Both thin necks streamed with blood; the eye of the small cock
spilled on the ground, and he rolled steaming, his wing broken,
but once more leapt with dauntless rage and clutched his foe
who struck at his head fiercely with his bloody beak 470
in swift sharp hammer strokes as though to drink his brains.
The small cock’s other eye spilled out, his brains gaped bare,
but still he fought on blindly, neck erect, and stabbed
in darkness till with hoarse choked cries he fell to earth.
Facing the yard, the victor swelled his breast with pride, 475
crowed thrice with shrill harsh cries to announce his victory,
and when in lust he heard the excited cackling hens
respond, he strutted, limping, toward t
he chicken coop.
The great lord of the tower laughed and clapped his hands:
“It’s only right the strong should kill and the weak die; 480
it pleased me, O great guest, that you gazed motionless
nor raised a hand to part these two contending lives.
I always goad my cocks to fight when strangers come
and watch them stealthily and weigh their souls with craft:
some break into applause with joy, some burst in tears, 485
some rush indignantly to part the peerless birds,
but you bent down and gazed with no joy, wrath, or tears.”
The man of free mind smiled and made his secret plain:
“Between the two eyes in my brow a third eye looms
that grinds together castles, mortals, gods, and birds. 490
When I watched your fierce cocks, my lord, I watched all men,
I watched both Life and Death in a grim strife on earth,
and my third eye remained unmoved, yet my twin eyes,
my lord, fought like your cocks with anger, joy, and tears;
but your mind’s a thick lotus—how can it understand?” 495
The tower lord gazed on the stranger with great unease
but once again a smile gleamed on his placid lips:
“It’s time that we, like the immortals who, they say,
set infant man loose on the earth to fight like cocks,
should stretch at ease with appetite by feasting-boards; 500
and when we’ve eaten and drunk well, wise words will come
and give the final spice to bread, the wine, the night.”
He spoke, then signaled to his slaves to serve the food.
Amid the honeysuckle vines the tables glowed
and the two masters slowly stretched their noble hands 505
and satisfied their hearts’ desires for a long time;
good was the breast of partridge, good the rabbit roast,
and like a hidden beast the old wine stalked their brains.
When they were gorged and their eyes gleamed, the tower lord
raised his full cup to toast the precious stranger’s health: 510
“That unconcerned great mind seems best that like a bee
gleans drops of honey from all things and then flies on;
thus with light wing I’ve also passed through women, wine,
food, arms, and from their poison gleaned a drop of honey.
Joy to that mind that sits on high and rules the heart! 515
When great souls pass my tower, I invite them all,
and when they spread their wings like dappled birds, I like
to crawl and pluck with stealth their one most precious feather.