The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel
Page 113
“Our fishing boat, that tramp, sails one day here, one there,
and I shall sing a gallant song, my rowers all,
until your arms sprout boughs, until your minds turn oak!
A mighty king sat high within his seashore tower 240
and wore a golden crown; he drank and heard his heart
laughing like shingles of the sea in his glad breast
till his gold crown fell in the waves and disappeared.
Then the king’s laughter ceased, for cobwebs filled his heart,
and he sent heralds through the world on horse and foot: 245
‘Listen, all lands and seas, these are the king’s commands:
He who will plunge in the sea’s depths and fetch my crown
shall wed my only daughter as his high reward
and be my only heir, and king of all the world!’
The king cried out, and lands and seas roared in acclaim 250
for a brave youth rose up to take the deep sea plunge
and slowly stripped till he stood nude on a high rock.
Neither a golden crown nor a sweet princess shone
within his manly mind that scorned to seek reward,
and as he bid the world farewell, a voice rang out: 255
‘Why do you plunge toward death, brave youth? Open your eyes!
You’ll not rejoice in a girl’s arms or golden crown!’
‘I know that in the sea’s dark depths I shall not find
a crown, a king or a king’s daughter, not one god
to marvel at my pure and disinterested deed; 260
souls may be sure of golden crowns only in death;
but even so, if rewards were there, I swear that I
would never take the plunge toward death with such great joy.
Farewell, O earth, for you were worthy to bring forth
souls brave enough to do great deeds with no false bait!’ ” 265
As the archer sang in the wastelands, his heart grew bold;
ah, had he but a thousand lives, a thousand crowns,
he’d throw them all into the sea, then strip and dive!
He sped down swiftly through the waters, holding Death
like a curled rose, and deeply smelled its bittersweet, 270
intoxicating fragrance as his moved mind swooned with joy.
One night a strong wind blew, the clouds piled in great heaps,
the sea and sky merged into one, and the keel sighed.
Unsleeping all night long, the lone man fought the winds
until at dawn he barely saw through frenzied storm 275
two dragons loom before him, two rough roaring peaks
whose ridges he felt quake and crack as he drew close.
He gripped his tiller proudly, and his brave chest swelled, 278
for he knew these were Yes and No, Death’s mountain peaks
that loomed at the world’s end, that gaped and closed and smashed 280
all ships which dared to pass beyond the world’s last bounds.
He heard shrill cries, spirits that croaked like greedy birds 282
and had a hawk’s cruel claws and scabrous female dugs.
Kneeling, he seized the tiller tight in his right hand,
pulled at the sail’s rough rope with his left hand and fought 285
with silent courage, open-eyed, to reach and pass
safely at this dread moment mankind’s last confines.
He heard one shrieking mountain rage and roar out “No!”
but “Yes!” the other answered in a tranquil hush.
At last he skimmed his craft along a windless peak, 290
and as his red sail passed beneath rough hanging crags
the mountains swayed with massive flocks of swirling birds.
The wild-game hunter laughed until the waves resounded:
“Oho! the dread scarecrow that guards man’s last confines
is but a tranquil mountain of white eggs and birds!” 295
He pushed and slid his coffin in a pearly cave,
tied it with a rough hawser, climbed the craggy rocks
and took with him his piercing arrows and long bow,
for the birds swooped and shrieked till the rocks seemed to shake.
Climbing on high with back bent low, he joyed to hear 300
the mountain slopes resound and flutter right and left
as though his shoulders sprouted with tumultuous wings;
eggs glittered in black hollows, the rocks smiled serenely,
and all the promontory moaned like lovesick doves.
The white-haired archer mounted still with bloody feet, 305
and when he reached a barren peak and turned eyes south,
his heart like a sea-eagle flapped its wings and shrieked:
before him spread an endless, mastless, sterile sea.
A freezing fierce wind blew, the sun hung in a mist,
and the great athlete’s jaws began to shake with cold; 310
but as he searched for twigs to build a warming fire,
thick hail burst on the crags with a tumultuous roar
till his unbridled and rebellious head rang out
like a rough boulder in the harsh and pelting hail;
but he stood upright, growled, and mocked his barren head: 315
“Hey, white pate, blockhead, how much longer in this world
will the rains drench you, the snows freeze you, the suns scorch you?
You’ve turned thick hide and stone! Haven’t you had enough?”
When the huge hailstones ceased, the sun once more appeared,
and the quick-handed archer built a fire, stretched his bow, 320
brought down thick flights of birds, strung them along his hearth,
and when he’d eaten, he stuffed his apron full of eggs,
then clambered down the crags, stretched on his coffin, crossed
his hands, and gave himself to a light death, to sleep.
When he awoke toward dawn and saw the maidenhair, 325
the swift rock-swallows cooing lovingly with joy,
the pale cool light and honeyed sweetness all about him,
he shook to think he’d sailed into the land of myth.
His thoughts had fluttered far off to Calypso’s cave,
and hour by hour he waited for that sun-blond head, 330
that firm immortal form to flash deep in the shade,
but her bright head seemed long in coming, and his thoughts thrust
in other deep cool caves, on other azure shores,
like a sea-bug that crawls and fumbles in rock clefts.
Slowly his brain distilled, his thoughts fell into place, 335
and then the lone man yelled with joy amid the rocks
for now he knew he liked much better than all joys,
than even the act of love, to roam at the world’s end,
to light huge fires upon the guardian dragon’s peak
and gather eggs on its man-eating dark abyss. 340
When the cool weather cleared, the archer rigged his sail,
loaded his coffin with the loot of birds and eggs,
then laughed with joy and cried farewell to the world’s last frontiers.
He left behind bounds of the possible, all joys
of man, and thrust into a virgin sea where no 345
ship passed, no pilot soul had crossed her shoulder blades.
Ash-colored seabirds swirled and cawed about his mast
to marvel at this new swordfish with double fins
and the red upright wing that swelled in the cold wind.
At night in the man-murdering soul of the wild wastes, 350
as the blind boatman spread his pincers gropingly
on the dark waves, he felt the touch of shaggy claws.
“The sure reward of him who finds new roads is death!
My soul, don’t cast your eyes about, don’t cock your ears,
don’t seek
companions now, you’ve cut off from the herd; 355
cling tight, O soul, to the pure breath of solitude.”
As the black current strengthened and the pointed prow
skimmed swiftly, frothing southward with no oars or wind,
Odysseus shuddered one cold dawn, for in his mind
the swift thought flashed: this was no current or plain sea 360
but an unleashed mute whirlpool that now swirled toward death.
“Ahoy, my gallant soul; don’t whimper, swift-eyed girl;
life’s but a song, sing it before your throat is cut!”
The pallid sun-cock rose with plucked and molted wings,
and as it slowly crawled and limped on the sky’s rim 365
the archer gazed at his old friend with grief and mocked:
“One day amid my flocks I saw my stalwart ram
tup row on row of buxom ewes and then, drained dry,
crawl quivering with shrunk bags beneath a fig tree’s shade.
O sun, you’ve also tupped a thousand shores and seas 370
and now stand shivering in the shadows with shorn hide!”
But all at once his laughter ceased, he cocked his ears,
for a deep bellow crushed the tempest-churning waves,
and the swift-dying man leapt up and thought he’d reached
the sacred pit of doom at last, the killer’s mouth. 375
He cupped his hand against the sun and saw the waves
far off flash silver as they swelled and seethed with foam
while all about them flocks of savage seabirds swirled.
“Dear God, the wonders of the world are without end!”
He had not finished speaking, held in wonder still, 380
when a swift whirlwind of fish seethed and spun him round
so that his skiff plunged wildly as he dashed to seize
both sail and oar and push clear of the wrecking tide.
The sea turned stone as a thick hurricane of fish
with roe-filled bellies and white scales flashed swiftly by 385
while birds plunged greedily and gulped shoal after shoal.
The suffering man strove to head off the perilous flood
but stopped with gaping mouth and let his rudder kick
on seeing a huge beast astride the fish cascade.
Its mouth glowed darkly in the light like a sea cave 390
in whose vast pit swift shoals of little fishes plunged.
From the beast’s nape a gushing spout of water sprang
in a rich gaudy rainbow scattering in the sun,
a water-mast on an exotic frigate’s deck.
When in the tumult at long last the roar was lost, 395
the lone man clasped the marvel in his inner sea,
happy that in this final hour, before his eyes
would shut forever, his mind had seen this fierce assault.
He shut his eyes and smiled, for recollections crossed
his memory’s dark ravines and drowned him in their flood: 400
the blind and silent river flowed of that ant-swarm
that once poured round his city like a swallowing death;
the blind moles who had sniffed the earthquake scurried past,
and stars fell which he dreamt one night had crawled like worms
and eaten all the last leaves of his sleeping heart. 405
The archer still with secret admiration mused
on his white head, that buzzing slanting wasp’s nest filled
with stings and honey, that gleaned fields and shores in flight.
“What is this life, what secret yearning governs it?
There was a time I called its lavish longing God, 410
and talked and laughed and wept and battled by his side
and thought that he, too, laughed and wept and strove beside me,
but now I suddenly feel I’ve talked to my own shadow!
God is a labyrinthine quest deep in our heads;
weak slaves think he’s the isle of freedom, and moor close, 415
all the incompetent cross their oars, then cross their hands,
laugh wearily and say, ‘The Quest does not exist!’
But I know better in my heart, and rig my sails:
God is wide waterways that branch throughout man’s heart.”
Thus spoke the voyager’s untrammeled heart and mind 420
as the rough sea grew greener, wild with smothering mists,
and the North Wind grew sharper as with chilling breath
it blew and on the tiller froze the lone man’s hands.
Clouds dragged like sluggish smoke along the sea’s expanse,
drenched and corroded every bone and swelled each joint 425
till the soul huddled like a chattering, naked bird.
One dawn upon the waves he saw the first ice floes,
thick lumps of bobbing human heads that rose and sank,
that lightly tossed and touched his prow, then skimmed far off;
at the sky’s rim the sun now rose at drop of noon, 430
rolled through the mists, exhausted, then sank once again,
unable now to mount the earth like a fierce bull.
But one damp dusk the lone man gaped with startled eyes:
the sun had sunk, but a white-yellow banner spread
and softly fluttered in the sky with silver fringe; 435
slowly a rich-wrought fabric rolled, ribbons unwound,
rubies and emeralds glowed and pulsing sapphires streamed
till at its top a saffron tempest burst in gold.
As the god-treading athlete skimmed through the sky’s blaze,
myriad rainbows dangled from his crystal beard 440
and all his glittering coffin brimmed with precious stones;
when he spread out his hands, his fingers dripped with pearls.
It was as though the banner longed to seize the sky,
assault dark Tartarus, too, and take possession there.
Long vines of flame spread their curved tendrils through the air, 445
hung with grape-clusters of thick light, then slowly swayed
as though rocked gently by a warm erotic wind.
“I never dared to think I’d wear this lustrous crown,”
he mused, and skimmed through fields of Death adorned with roses.
He hung his new stag-bow across his sunburnt back, 450
and both his black flints lightly scratched his crystal chest
as regal wreaths passed ring on ring above his head:
“Thus, when a mighty king returns from a great battle,
a dome is raised of myrtles, laurels, and red roses
beneath whose arch his hacked and reverent head may pass; 455
I’ve come from a great war, and all the arches bloom—
a thousand times well met, ancestral, lethal castle!”
He spoke, then spread his hands to greet his gathered people there.
That same night as Odysseus bent above his tiller,
exhausted, his mind wandering in a drowsy daze, 460
the night moonlit and starry, the sea smooth as milk,
a silent shrouded phantom suddenly loomed beside him,
and then before his hands could grasp the trailing oars,
his keel smashed gently, mutely on hard crystal ice.
Then the much-suffering man leapt to escape his fate 465
and fight grim Death by swimming in the open sea,
hoping to find some sudden rock on which to cling.
Like a cracked shard the green moon floated through the sky
close to the break of day as the unconquered man
struggled to find some land which his blue nails might clutch. 470
For hours he fought Death stubbornly and still held high,
nor would surrender to the sea, his bloodstained head.
“Sun, my old friend, appear! Give me some light to fight by!
If
I’m to die now, let it be in your warm light!”
He spoke, and the compassionate sun in sadness rose, 475
and as its fragrant light fell on the desolate wastes,
Odysseus cried with joy and swam toward a near crag.
His frozen fingers clutched with frenzy at the rock
till the death-battler slowly dragged his body up,
and then fell, blue and bloodstained, on the whetted claws. 480
A sweet and lethal sleep rushed down to wrap him round
as though his regal veins had cracked and all his blood
and all the world poured out and drained his body dry.
But still his vigilant mind kept guard in his hard skull
and yelled until the sleep-drowned beast leapt up with fear. 485
He jumped to his feet once more, but the cold cut his flesh,
his pallid lips refused to close, and his teeth chattered,
though still his heart stood firm and struck like a strong hammer.
Where was the blazing sun, alas, the yellow sands,
the fragrant rhododendrons and the girls at play? 490
What joy to have your ship wrecked on a sunlit coast
where sea-nymphs with free-flowing hair, when you awoke,
took you at dusk along the beach to a gold palace!
But then he plugged his memory, mutely tossed his head,
and with blue body slashed with wounds, limped on the rocks. 495
Ice wastes spread everywhere, not even a crow’s cry
was heard, snows loomed like frozen castles or turned tame
and stretched in long smooth sheets, deep azure in the shade.
No breath of man, no fragrant smoke rose from man’s hearths,
no beast’s damp nostril misted the cold crystal air. 500
Frightened by the inhuman silence of the snows,
Odysseus then recalled mute noons and speechless nights,
the haughty palaces he’d burned, the hush that spread
at dusk and wrapped the ashes when the flames had ceased;
he then recalled the dead that lay in the cool grass 505
with their blue silent lips, their ears plugged from all sound,
though always one worm slowly bored its way, and this
was one small solace in the speechless solitude—
but not one comfort could be found in this white hush.
The lone man shuddered, opened his mouth wide to shout, 510
but though he strove, he could not utter a crow’s croak,
then clutched his throat in fear and closed his dangling jaw:
“It may be I’m already in Death’s crystal realm,
that soon like a white elephant with crimson eyes