and set off to find bread, to beg from door to door,
and he recalled himself as a great king when walls 570
crashed down and castles rocked though he but stretched his hand;
and he recalled a dazzling beach, an emerald cave
where he had seized a goddess by her long blond hair
with his coarse hands and laid her mutely on the ground;
and he recalled how he had stretched his hand one dawn 575
and launched his ship and left his native land forever
with all its ancient tombs, and vanished down the waves.
His full fist had enjoyed much, brimmed with satiation,
but never had it felt such joy as at this hour;
how good to stand now at a laboring man’s low door, 580
silent and proud, and stretch out a poor beggar’s hand!
Day glowed and tinkled like a dancer in all yards
as the world-wanderer, a clay bowl clutched in his hand,
knocked on the village doors adorned with birds and dragons.
Close by, an orchard bloomed where an old gardener stooped 585
and stroked with tenderness the mane of a bent pine
and pulled it gently down that it might fall with grace
like a large peacock’s emerald tail and deck the ground;
with an unpitying love, with gentle stubbornness,
the old man swerved and tamed the wild pine’s destiny 590
until Odysseus marveled at the mystic strife:
“If only by such fondling I could turn the course
of Death!” the lone man thought, watching the old man
battle the dreadful powers with patience and mute joy.
Just such a skillful, pitiless, erotic hand, 595
he thought, fights with our hearts, and some men call it God,
some Fate and humbly bow, but I call it man’s soul
that now has freed itself and takes what shape it wills.
He spoke thus to his mind, breathed deep the heavy scent
of blossomed plots, passed through the district wall by wall 600
till mocking fate, as though it followed with sharp eyes,
cast him in crooked and expensive lanes of lust.
The sun had set, and rutting males came down in droves
like strong cocks puffing out their glistening feathered chests,
and giggling women waited, row on naked row. 605
Like shiphead gorgons covered with bright heavy paints,
each stood firm-breasted by her door and laughed as sweat
ran down and thick rouge cracked on their wet cheeks, and dripped.
“Well met, my painted sisters! Your good health and joy!”
Odysseus shouted, right and left, with a wide grin, 610
but the young hens played shamelessly with his white hair
and the whole district clacked with goading jeers and laughs:
“Welcome to grandpap! Hail to his empty saddle-bags!”
The laughter rolled along the lanes like tumbling stones,
and lone Odysseus felt ashamed, sought where to flee, 615
like a rhinoceros pecked by myriad goldfinch flocks.
An ancient hag with sagging dugs stood by her door
and held two bursting pomegranates in her hands,
an old, old warrior of love who still could fight
with gallant strife on her worn mattress, old Dame Goody; 620
and now she ran to help the archer escape the jeers:
“Forgive them, they’re still young, old man; youth knows no pity;
here, take these pomegranates to refresh your soul.”
Odysseus grasped the fruits as though they were two breasts,
then through the laughter of lust’s sacred district swiftly passed. 625
He walked through virtuous neighborhoods and tossed his hair
to drive away the butterflies that filled his head,
then strolled along the beggar’s road with bowl in hand.
A young maid saw him pass and barred her door with haste,
three Negresses pressed by the wall to let him pass, 630
and he, a monstrous beggar, cast eyes right and left
and chose a house with a low newly whitewashed door
adorned with bridal fetishes in crimson dyes,
on whose stone lintel the fresh wedding wreaths still bloomed.
He leant on the doorjamb and knocked; then clogs were heard, 635
the joyous tinkling of bronze bracelets filled the yard,
the humble door was slightly opened, and a shrill voice
rang out as the new bride stepped back with fear to see
a tall flame seize her house and lick the buckling roof;
she wanted to cry out again, but the flame lowered 640
and a calm lion seemed to watch her house benignly.
But as the wretched woman’s brains reeled with surprise,
the great beast vanished in the light and an old man
stood in the doorway with his beggar’s hand outstretched.
Then the young woman sadly spread her arms and said: 645
‘We haven’t cooked today, forgive us; we’re poor peasants;
may the good god of beggars show you mercy, grandpap.”
But he smiled cunningly and wooed her with mild words:
“Three kinds of charity, small sister, bloom on earth:
the humblest, the most modest, that gives little, are deeds, 650
for these can nourish flesh and soul but a short time—
they last an hour or two, then from the memory fade.
More hard, more noble is that holy charity
we give, dear sister, when a beggar in our yard
stretches his hand, and a deep voice within us cries: 655
‘Ah, this is I who stand at my own door and beg;
God stands outside my door and cries for charity!’
And though you give no crust of bread nor move your hand,
the beggar is well fed, his heart grows strong, he bows
to worship your kind hand, then knocks on other doors.” 660
The new bride felt afraid and bowed her head toward earth
as her round bosom sweetly ached with new-formed milk,
and her lips, gorged with kisses, quivered in the dark:
“Father, there’s but one word I have to give you now:
‘God stands outside my door and cries for charity.’ ” 665
“Ah, my dear daughter, I’m still hungry; raise your eyes,
my fevered fist is empty still, my cheeks are hollow,
only the third great charity may fill my hunger.
It grabs and brims life full, it goes beyond death even,
it pities and feeds the entire body, it feeds our soul, 670
it pities and feeds the demons, it even feeds the gods,
for thirst and hunger, bread and water merge in One.”
The new bride shrieked with fear and raised her hands on high:
“Grandfather, my knees tremble; leave me now, I beg you,
go to some wealthy house and give your blessing there; 675
pity me, I’ve just wed and love my husband only,
and my whole bosom longs to feel my first son’s lips.”
Flaming Odysseus softly sighed and waved his hands:
“I pity you, maid, that’s why I’ve chosen your low door
and lean against your bridal house to tear it down; 680
in both my fists I hold and fling into your yard,
like burning coals, the third great charity!”
The woman shrieked with a dread cry, then bared her breasts,
and her words clove her female heart like a sharp sword:
“Take me, ascetic! Neither home nor deeds can hold me; 685
nor words, nor son I’ve waited for are now enough;
I’ll stand in the sun’s blaze erect and hold my long
The great bread-seeker sighed and squatted on the ground,
looked with compassion on the new-wed bride, and mused: 690
“My words have struck too deeply, I must take them back.”
He made his eyes serene then, hid the holy flame,
looked at the bride with tranquil calm and gently smiled
so that she felt her heart fill with both fruit and flower
until her lips grew sweet again, her slant eyes flashed: 695
“Grandfather, O my wits went wild as though sun-struck!
I passed through savage lands without one man or water,
without a son or husband clasped tight in my arms;
now I’ve returned from foreign lands, saved by your grace,
and find my husband’s odor, my own home again. 700
Sit for a moment on my steps; instead of alms
I’ll bring you food from Mother’s house to brace your soul
for you have saved me from most bitter dread, grandfather.”
She spoke, and the god-slayer closed his eyes and heard
her wood clogs on the cobbled street, the tinkle once 705
again of her bronze bridal rings against his ears
like laughing shingles of the playful sea, like fading thoughts.
Well-fed, toward dusk at length he turned to the dark glen,
passed through a forest of wild cypress trees and pine
about whose trunks and boughs were twined long snakelike vines. 710
Within a grove a naked maid had given birth
to triple children there, and now with hair unbound
rubbed herself on the trees and danced about their trunks
to make them fertile till they bore a thousand fruits.
Bound to a locust tree, a cow mooed piteously 715
because they’d taken her new calf, and all the field
lamented with the aching mother’s lowing pain;
and as Odysseus saw an old man stroke the cow
he, too, caressed her gently, took a lump of salt
which the young bride had given him, and as the cow 720
licked it she grew serene and soon forgot her son.
The old man laughed and to the stranger said with scorn:
“What pity to waste good salt! Let her moan all she wants!
So did I also wail the son God snatched away
but, weighed with other cares, I soon forgot him too.” 725
“Old man, another salt consoled you, we’re all one,”
the lone man murmured, and then made for the seashore.
The weather cooled as gathering storm clouds brimmed with tears
and lightning flashes flicked on the god-slayer’s flesh;
he heard the cocks still crowing on the roofs far off, 730
frogs croaked amid the marshes and small sparrows turned
and sped home, startled, perching on the swaying boughs;
all smelled a change of weather, a wild rush of rain.
Odysseus stopped and breathed the moist plant-fragrant air,
the autumn wind that plucked the leaves and stripped the trees 735
till like a spear-thrust he received the first swift drops.
Earth’s body cooled profoundly, a blue haze filled the fields,
the smell of soil and rain seeped in his furrowed head
till like a whirlpool he rejoiced for the last time
to feel the tall tree of his body allure the clouds 740
as shriveled leaves soon tangled in his beard and hair
and his eyes sweetly felt the first rain fall like tears.
But his heart suddenly leapt as a loud cry rang out:
“What do you stand and wait for on the scented soil?
For you no other autumn or first rains shall fall!” 745
He felt ashamed before the chiding voice, and vowed
to hack down trees at dawn and build his last new ship,
then crawled like an old octopus in a shore cave,
huddled in silence, supperless, and passed the night
with no deceiving dreams to soften his wild mind. 750
At dawn he went into the woods to choose with skill
his ship’s wood, pine and oak and the wild cypress tree.
The tall trunks creaked and groaned like masts in a swift wind,
the clouds hung down like sails, and all the rigging shrieked,
earth turned into a tossing frigate, north winds blew, 755
and the archer stood straight on the gunwale deck and felt
winds blow from his tall temples as from mountain crags.
Odysseus paced on the slant deck of the wide world
and foreign wares and distant strands rose in his mind—
earth was a trireme brimmed with women, wine, and fish, 760
with honeybee’s soft wax to fill a dead man’s lips, 761
and a black crow flapped on the prow to lead the way.
White swans with ruby eyes rose slowly in his mind,
warm downy reindeer, towering snow, and old man Death
like a white shuffling elephant in the cold night 765
that lures us on with his small, sweet, and saddened eyes.
Once more the voice rang out, like Death’s alluring song,
like a sad crawling cry that rose from icy wastes:
“What do you stand and wait for on the scented soil?
For you no other autumn or first rains shall fall!” 770
The snowbound athlete swiftly shouldered his sharp ax,
and as he searched the woods and chose from tree to tree,
they all cried out and beckoned with their topmost tips,
for all longed to escape at last and turn to masts:
“Aye, Captain Wind, take us and hew us into masts, 775
we’re bored with patience now, with happiness, with faith,
we long to crash down toward the shore and change our fate!”
The captain heard, but chose the strongest trunks nor showed
the slightest favor, for with ruthless mind he longed
to build a coffin, stout and strong, not an erotic bed. 780
On the drenched leaves the drops of rain both wept and laughed
and in each drop of rain the sun, too, laughed and wept.
The lone man stopped before the trunk of a huge pine
and saw upon its topmost tip a lean and hungry crow
that perched and shrieked as though it wished to chase away 785
the lone woodcutter who had raised his shining ax.
“I like this dragon pine and its black fruit of crow,”
the lone man murmured, as he raised his stalwart arms,
but the whole woods resounded as the great pine shook,
and the black fruit on the high boughs yelled furiously: 790
“Murderous water-ghoul, don’t strike! You’ll wreck my nest!
If you hack out a cradle, cursed be the son you rock,
if you hack out a plow, cursed be the seed you sow,
if you hack out a ship, may it sink in windless calm
and toss you toward a coast where the sharp reefs shall eat you! 795
You fool, all trees have souls, and even crows feel pain!”
The crow wailed on, but the ax roared and drowned its shrieks;
at the first wound he gave, the lone man knelt with awe
and slowly sipped the fragrant blood of the old pine
that he might thus become blood-brother with the tree’s good ghost. 800
He hacked away three days to pile wood for his ship,
and the blue sea washed in and out and drowned his mind.
Dear God, to build one’s coffin, to heap high the logs,
to come close swiftly to your tomb with each ax-cut,
to carol like a bridegroom blithely, to sink down 805
together with the sun and swim in the cool
sea!
He thought how on sun-haired Calypso’s distant isle
he had once swiftly built a ship to reach his home;
how sadly then the goddess sang, sweet, but in vain,
to keep him in her nets, in a god’s deathless splendor, 810
and now, just so, he strove to leave the green-haired earth.
At dusk he caught sea-urchins, fished, and with forked sticks
dug out the fleshy oysters that browsed in the dark weeds;
he roamed along the shores in search of the sea’s food,
laid sun-broiled fish in rows in hollows of sea-salt, 815
uprooted fresh sea-fennel, sat on the dry sand,
an old white elephant, and munched the fat-leaved herbs.
“Sea-urchins, mussels, oysters, help me, O my comrades,”
the lone man shouted as he cast his reed-harpoons.
When he sat cross-legged in the dusk at length, well fed, 820
then like a dragon-bird with bloody flame-smeared breast
the fiery soul perched on his head and shrieked and sang,
shrieked on and sang intemperately, a springtime finch
that sees her small eggs flashing in the sky’s blue depths.
It sang, and all the birds of earth and the mind’s passions 825
kept still to listen with erect enchanted throats;
and Death, who in that hour of dusk came riding out,
heard that untamed and crimson bird, reined in his steed,
and his soul listened for a moment, lost in song.
On other evenings, when his full day’s work was done 830
and the rich fish stew bubbled by the hearthstone fire,
the lone man stretched on weeds and softly hummed a song,
a mocking flutelike tune that wandering gypsies sing
to tease their monkeys into dance at festive fairs.
His memory listened to the hissing tune, and leapt, 835
a shameless monkey with a red bell-jangling cap,
and danced on its hind legs and mocked the listening gods
while its swart master watched with pride and clapped his hands:
“Whirl on, you old mad hag with painted crimson nails,
mock all you’ve seen and done, let loose all you remember, 840
blue, white, and crimson bubbling balls that burst in air!
O heart, I was born yesterday and I shall die today!”
With work, with memory and with mocking, laughing songs
the white sea-eagle passed his days high in his nest
and the beasts came to sniff his traces and to spy; 845
they crowded close and their eyes shone in the wet leaves,
the monkeys rushed about him screeching, aped his ways,
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