The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel

by Nikos Kazantzakis

nor man, not one soul in the inhuman hush replied,

  and the worm buckled on its arms, took a deep breath, 140

  crawled slowly up the dying archer’s body, coiled

  between his eyebrows till he shuddered, raised his eyes,

  and saw a Shadow sitting on his foaming prow,

  coiling, uncoiling silently, flickering in light,

  swift-spinning like a top, changing both form and face. 145

  Sometimes it turned to a lean crow that honed its beak,

  at times to a fierce ship’s dog yelping round the prow,

  at times to a black peacock with wide-spreading tail.

  The sealskinned skiff sped like an arrow through the waves

  and an erotic jet-black swan gleamed on its bow 150

  with ruby eyes that in the pale sun sweetly burned.

  Slowly the shade distilled into a stooped old man

  with snow-white bushy hair, a beard like a swift stream,

  and a warm cap of blue fox-fur perched on his head.

  In his deep sockets flashed a pair of small black eyes, 155

  and slowly with his bony arms and narrow hands

  he pushed his shadowy oar with sluggish weariness,

  and the swift-minded archer wanly smiled and guessed

  who now had seized his oar and sat on his sharp prow;

  his old ribs opened and his thin bones faintly creaked 160

  to make room for his long-expected mighty guest.

  For a long time he neither spoke nor moved, but as

  he watched his old friend, sweet compassion moved his heart

  so that he opened his blue lips and bid him welcome:

  “Ah, Death, how old you’ve grown, my dear, how white your hair, 165

  how much misfortunes and black cares have maimed your flesh!

  Your face, like mine, bears the same slash in the same place,

  wherever my flesh is scarred, your flesh is wounded too,

  and there between your eyebrows a small worm lies coiled.

  I bend my face above the water and see your face. 170

  O Death, great Temple Sacristan, O faithful hound,

  you’ve zoned my shadow like a shadow my life long,

  rushed forward like a king, or lagged like a low slave;

  how much you’ve suffered and grown old on earth with me!

  Welcome, dear friend, lie down that we may rest together.” 175

  Death in reply but sweetly smiled and fixed his eyes

  on the calm darkened eyes of the fox-minded man,

  and the two gazed together silently for hours

  and gently rowed on the smooth pearly threshing floor.

  The sleepless sun caressed the two old heads until 180

  their white and stubbly beards burned like a brushwood fire,

  then it hung down like a gold tassel from their fox-fur caps.

  The heart filled and could take no more, hands overbrimmed,

  the mind’s full flower turned to seed and scattered wide

  with joy on the salt waves of the ancestral plain. 185

  The lone man’s mind burst open and his memories poured

  like cascades down his temples in the vast solitude.

  Behind him the Wheel softly, mutely turned, his brows

  creaked, and Time, an ancient python, opened its mouth

  and spewed all it had swallowed till they gleamed once more. 190

  Odysseus shook with joy—he had not lost one drop

  of memory, and rejoiced in all his myriad heads

  that glittered in long rows, snow-white, jet-black, or gray.

  An old man, white with years, stood in the sun, thick-boned,

  and a mature man that scaled castles and clasped women, 195

  or plundered sea-lanes by himself in rotting hulls;

  on a high threshing floor a youth hurled a stone quoit,

  his mind a rosebud still, with savage virgin leaves

  as yet unfurled, and held his famous voyages

  and his far-distant future deeds in leaves immured. 200

  Still further back, the lone man watched his body fling

  small boats upon the waves, in shape of a lone child

  whose spirit like a fearless captain rode them all.

  Then, as a suckling child, he seized his mother’s breast,

  bit its rose nipple deeply with a ruthless greed, 205

  and as she laughed and wept, she felt this son of hers

  would one day seize life’s holy breasts and suck them dry.

  The suffering man could trace himself no further back;

  within his parents’ bodies he had seethed like fever,

  strolled in his father’s loins past the betrothed one’s door, 210

  and as his virgin mother stooped with trembling fear,

  she felt her son’s feet kicking in her untouched womb.

  His mother by her window sewed her bridal clothes,

  and when she stooped, her locks fell on her working hands

  as her swift fingers flew and the embroideries rose 215

  from her small heart and spread and soared until they wrapped

  her secret dreams with yellow and with crimson wool.

  She stitched blue seas and ships and oars, black dwarfish men,

  and her tall son, their captain, zoned with a red belt,

  till her young maiden mind like water poured and flowed. 220

  Thousands of years before all parents saw the sun,

  he’d flashed like foam on water or like flame in caves,

  or twined about a plane tree like a cunning snake.

  He’d learned with patient stubbornness, with his great Mothers,

  Silence and Earth and Sea, how he might mount at last 225

  on loam one day in a man’s form and live his life.

  “Brothers, together now, let each one gird his arms,”

  cried Death’s antagonist to all his myriad forms;

  “one of you take a child’s toys, one a young man’s youth,

  another a man’s lustful craze and two-edged sword, 230

  and let the last one mount that pure-white steed, the soul,

  and plunge to Hades like a proud slain conqueror;

  my lads, it seems to me that Death has come full cycle now!”

  He gathered all his memories, held Time in his hands

  like a thick ball of musk and smelled it in the wastes 235

  with flaring nostrils till his mind was drenched with scent.

  Time melted in the lone man’s fingers till his nails

  dripped with aromas like the birds of inner Asia

  flown from rich woods of nutmeg blooms and pepper root.

  He was drained pure till life turned to immaculate myth, 240

  and into tranquil princesses his fearful thoughts,

  for in his mind dread God distilled like oil of roses.

  And as Odysseus smelled the ripe and flaming fruit,

  a sweet swoon seized him, all his entrails came unstitched

  and his veins opened with unutterable relief 245

  and all his body’s armored net which once he cast

  to snare the world—nerves, bone, and flesh—became disjoined.

  The five tumultuous elements, that strove for years

  to forge the famous form of the world-wandering man

  shifted and parted now and slowly said farewell— 250

  earth, water, fire, air, and the mind, keeper of keys.

  Like five old friends who have caroused the whole night through

  then stand at dawn by crossroads, for the talk is good,

  and make half-hearted stray attempts to part at dawn

  but find still more to say and stand with door ajar 255

  and still hold hands and twine their fingers, lingering still—

  thus like these five old friends who had caroused all night,

  the archer’s five strong elements, his five proud friends,

 
stood at the crossroads of his brain and could not part.

  The mighty athlete then caressed his white-haired head. 260

  “O nacreous, pearl-lined jewel-box, O brimming head,

  in you the seeds of the whole world became one kin,

  for trees, birds, beasts, and man’s own gaudy generations

  all rushed to sprout within you, not to plunge to Hades,

  but now that they’ve all sweetly met and merged like brothers, 265

  it’s time, dear head, that you were smashed! Fall down, and break!”

  The lone man spoke thus to himself and with sad love

  gazed on his elder brother who still lightly sat

  enthroned on the dark prow, deep-scarred with ancient wounds.

  How many ancient memories, what sweet conversations 270

  strolled slowly through his mind, sailed on his speechless mouth!

  The many-faced man smiled, and the same gentle smile

  spread on his old friend’s lips and turned to a wide grin

  while his small flaming eyes gleamed like a black swan’s.

  The hunting mind of the god-slayer dashed in the fogged 275

  and distant woods of memory and flushed out his pains

  till his misfortunes cawed and scattered like fat quails,

  and in remembrance his life’s voyage burst and blazed

  in his white head like a blood-trailing falling star.

  He plunged and clutched from cliff to cliff, but once again 280

  his fate’s wheel flung him to another deeper gulf:

  “O Tantalus, O great Forefather, blessed curse,

  O bottomless mouth, O hoping yet despairing heart,

  O hunger by strewn tables, thirst by cooling streams,”

  he cried, and greeted hunger like satiety, 285

  and his old grief like joys, when once he’d roamed the world.

  “All gods and all my ships have rotted in my hands;

  nothing remains of my proud friends but a small tuft

  of gray hair in my fists, memories, and fragrant dust.

  I clutched at trees to keep from plunging down the gulf, 290

  but trees broke from their roots and left in my bruised hands

  a slender quivering grass blade, a faint drifting scent.

  As a last refuge, then, I clung to my only son,

  but my son pitched me off unpityingly and rushed

  to cast his parent in mid-road and reign sole lord. 295

  With force and rage I rushed to leap man’s narrow walls

  and at a large-eyed vast idea clutched with pride,

  but it climbed up my body’s tree like a spry ape

  and played with my head’s apple, gently chewed and munched

  till it had eaten all, then leapt to another tree 300

  and plucked another’s head and sucked another’s brain.

  I raised a great god on earth, but one blazing dusk

  he sank like a large town in earthquake and thick smoke.

  My hands shone in this world like tall fruit-laden trees

  filled with great joy and gallant pride still unconsoled, 305

  but now I bring them to wry Death filled with air only!”

  As the great archer spoke thus, he caressed his hands,

  his feet, his thighs, his white-haired chest, his sturdy loins,

  and his most precious, thousand-wounded, martial head.

  Raising his eyes, he saw on the bowsprit before him 310

  his old friend watching with a sweet yet bitter smile,

  and as their eyes met in the icy wastes, they gleamed

  like scorpions at their honeymoon, like streams, like snakes.

  The emerald waters, drenched with light, reflected both

  the white old men, a pair of silver swans that sailed 315

  unsinging, though their slim necks overflowed with mute

  and sad songs of departure till the waters glazed.

  As both friends drifted in the sun on turbid waters,

  the multivoyaged man recalled a flaming rose

  he’d seen one day weeping in rain on a cliff’s edge; 320

  full-blossomed, fallen down supine, with open heart,

  despairing, hushed, unmoving in the darkening dusk,

  its petals shed and fell drop after drop like blood.

  This rose now blossomed on his memory’s darkening cliff,

  its tears still glittered and its bloodstained leaves still fell 325

  slowly within his memory, his remembering heart.

  Even a rose could make the archer’s heart still sigh,

  but he felt shamed once more, raised his eyes toward the prow,

  and as Death smiled and swayed, canaries flock on flock

  sprang from his armpits and the hollows of his palms 330

  till the town-battler stared, the rose dispersed in air,

  and from the open cage of his cracked memory flocks

  of gold canaries flew and covered his black prow.

  A thousand years ago, on Crete’s blood-splattered shores

  one noon, his friends had smashed the castle’s brazen gates 335

  and massacre raged through courtyards, and the women wailed,

  yet he could now recall not one old man or maid

  who seized his ruthless knees or stretched their necks to die,

  but only massed canaries in golden cages high

  in air that shrieked and smothered in the turbid smoke. 340

  At that time, as he’d sunk in slaughter’s swooning daze,

  he’d neither moved his lids nor raised his eyes aloft

  to pity the gold birds that in the blazing flames

  vanished, though guiltless, with their high-born mistresses,

  but now, dear God, they’d sprung to life, and from those far 345

  most wretched shores had flown and perched on his brain’s boughs

  until his white head warbled like Death’s iron cage.

  As the lone man rejoiced in their despairing song

  he saw a deep-blue butterfly that hovered close

  above Death’s white-haired head, landed with fluttering steps, 350

  then got entangled, floundering, in his long mustache.

  But old Death, tickled by the downy wing’s caress,

  alas, sneezed on the prow with sonorous relief

  so that the lone man laughed and wished him health and joy.

  But the poor startled butterfly with fluttering wing 355

  flew quivering past the castle-wrecker’s shoulder blade.

  How did this fragile soul, dear God, find itself here

  in this white wretched bitterness, the sea’s last rim?

  The archer shrank back mutely as the butterfly

  perched on his mossed mid-brow, and memory leapt within 360

  his heart like a dark beast and slowly chewed her cud

  as an old harvest-month returned, for once more Crete

  shone in the sea’s midst, crisp and warm, with curving shores.

  Her haughty summits glowed rose-red that hour in light,

  and all her virgin thorny mountain-ridges laughed; 365

  amid the esteemed great continental Mothers, Crete

  shone like a playful gold-haired siren who with joy

  now stretched on azure waves and sunned her naked form.

  And once upon a time, on a small tiny fold

  of her strong body, curly-haired girl-gleaners laughed 370

  and sang the ancient love laments of vintage time:

  “Alas, you were not made to lie in the cold ground, 372

  for you were made, my dear, to lie in a maid’s arms

  in sweet May gardens the night through, while in your lap

  ripe apples tumbled, almond blooms rained on your hair, 375

  and red carnations hung in rings around your neck.” 376

  But no maid’s mind was on the sad thought of the words,

  for doves, caresses, kisses
swirled to the wild tune,

  and flocks of waggish lovebirds laughed on all the vines.

  The learned young men who carried grapes to the wine press 380

  stripped off the bitter pod of song and in its heart

  found and exposed the sweet fruit of its double breasts,

  then tossed their curly hair, seized swiftly the sad tune

  and to the maidens’ wails replied with love refrains.

  Within their master’s courts, the many-voiced wine-vats, 385

  brimming with vintage grapes, groaned with resounding din.

  Blond, naked, strapping men hopped in the vats and jigged,

  for all were drunk and dazed with the grapes’ acrid wrath;

  their hanging thick mustaches dripped with the wine’s must,

  grape-stems got tangled in their armpits and long beards 390

  and must poured thickly from the troughs into huge tubs.

  The archer’s old friends drank in taverns, stretched on sands,

  and fate still hovered round the rich-wrought castle gates,

  but when their master passed and beckoned, then flames roared

  and the whole castle writhed and swirled like autumn leaves. 395

  Glad in the thickening smoke to find his duty done,

  he would repose at evening like a working man,

  or slowly like a sated household snake digest

  his plunder, golden rings, plump gods, and wealthy kings.

  But on the ground he suddenly saw in its last gasps 400

  a quivering and blind butterfly with tattered wings,

  and his eyes brimmed with tears, the heartless man’s heart cracked

  till with his nails he dug the soil and thrust it deep

  as though he buried his beloved daughter there;

  of all the world-renowned and sacred Cretan town 405

  only one deathless quivering butterfly remained.

  Ah, all things merge in kinship in our final hour;

  the down of a small wing is balanced in the mind

  and weighs as much as the most glorious realm on earth.

  What joy! No man is paid for life’s fatiguing trek; 410

  he counts, recounts his wages in his heart but finds

  two or three rose-leaf drops, but two or three small wings.

  “All, gods and sons and wars and thoughts, all, all were grass,

  frail grass on which I browsed like a strong elephant,

  but now, an old man with white hair and whiter brains, 415

  with no cruel master in the sky, no cares in Hades,

  I’m launched and slide in the close-fitting gaping ground.

  To whom shall I shout now, ‘Well met!’ to whom ‘Farewell!’?

  Not one soul bears me company, not one soul greets me here.”