O godly peacock of the mind, spread wide your tail,
they say your golden feathers glow with myriad eyes.” 520
The savage traveler paused and searched his mind a moment;
a double, triple, brilliant blossom smiled before him
with neither fragrance, roots, nor seed in murky air;
this man nor loved nor hated, all great passions passed
and were refined to nothing in his barren heart; 525
he was earth’s final shriveled bloom, the sterile chaff.
Odysseus filled his wine bowl and spoke solemnly:
“Many birds passed me in my zigzag voyages,
many wings molted, many souls rejoiced my soul;
thousands of dead I saw on land, thousands on sea, 530
until my eyes grew glazed to look on Death so long,
but slowly in my heart, fear, joy, and God’s desire
became a gallant outcry and a wing of fire.
The sentry of the mind shouts ‘Fire!’ and the gods quake,
the sentry of the heart shouts ‘Fire!’ and all hopes molt, 535
the sentry of despair shouts last, ‘My soul, don’t fear,
only you walk the wilds and set all things aflame.’ ”
The plump lord of the tower laughed and slyly winked:
“Unless my eyes have not well pierced your subtle mind,
nor senseless longings nor great gods have fooled you either; 540
sleeping and waking both are shameful, life is a game,
and still more shameful is our free and haughty mind
that gives in trust to life its wealth and expectations.
I also am the sea-mind’s sterile old sea-wolf,
I perch on the high masts, I spy to the world’s ends: 545
one night, O soul, you’ll sink in the great whirlpool too,
in Death’s grand cataract, you and the whole wide world.”
The tower lord stopped speaking, but his plump lips gleamed;
he gazed on all the earth and smiled at the pale sun
that sank in the warm lake like an accursèd ghost. 550
Once more his voice hissed in the flowering garden close:
“Why should we weep or cry, why should our minds despair?
Great joy to him who roams the whole world through and leaps
from flower to flower until the worms devour his flesh;
life bursts a moment in the brain, then disappears! 555
You too, I think, have seen the secret and winked at me;
give me your hand, O secret brother, smile on me now!”
But the stern mind replied to the frog-bloated man:
“One day I met a great striped tiger in a glen
and my heart leapt with joy so that I shouted, ‘Brother!’ 560
I dash into the arms of all that on this earth
laugh, love, or weep, that I may laugh or weep with them,
but you,. O quagmire lord, my mind rejects you whole!
Both of us know the secret, but you in great exhaustion
play with both Life and Death with sluggish mocking heart; 565
I rush, clasp in my arms the smallest worm, and shout:
‘Dear brother, I’m your companion both in life and death!’ ”
Then the great lover listened to his barking memory
and like a diver dragged up dripping coral words:
“One day on a far isle I saw a windmill creak 570
its wings with sluggish weariness in windless calm,
and as its millstones crumbled with no grain to grind,
the whole isle sighed and gasped as in the throes of death,
as though the tattered windmill were its very heart.
I almost choked with wrath and yelled to my wolf-pack: 575
‘Forward, my lads, haul up the sails, give life a shove,
I can’t bear now to hear my loved earth’s dying gasps!’
Such is your mind, O tower ghost! I must leave now.”
The buxom eunuch smiled; only the rosary’s sound 579
of clicking bead on bead was heard in the damp air, 580
and the soft echo of the fragrant amber kept
harmonious time with the reposed lord’s laggard heart. 582
He spoke then with a weary, slightly mocking voice:
“What at this moment does your heart long for, my brother?
Dancers or mellow wine, battles or sweetest song? 585
You are a strong-winged vulture, you must not leave now.”
The proud spread-eagle calmed his darkly beating heart;
jasmine perfumed the coolness, stars hung low and swelled,
for night had come, exposed her bosom and bared the moon.
Odysseus’ white hair glittered as he rose to leave: 590
“I’m very fond of dancers, battles, and old wine,
but while you’re at my side I don’t want to rejoice
in all this holy deathless wealth that flares and fades.
Time is a clinging shirt of flame that wraps my soul;
for you it’s but a cooling muck in which you sink 595
slowly with piglike pleasure till all joy is smirched;
aye, lord of mud, farewell, my slim flame says goodbye.”
The seedless man then puckered up his glutted mouth:
“Farewell! You’ve made my holy freedom poison here!
Only that mind was wholly free, I’ve thought till now, 600
that could strip off the veil from life and see her nude,
then taste all things indifferently with mocking skill;
but as I hear you speak, new whirlwinds gape within me
and toss those quiet waters where my swan-mind sails.
Aye, slaves, run quickly, bring the skiff, ply fast your oars 605
and swiftly land this stranger far on the other shore!
O dread still-beating heart that longs to eat the world,
farewell! Death will come soon and glut your mouth with earth.”
He spoke, and the sun-dancer beat his feet like wings,
strode through the fragrant gardens, reached the reedy shore, 610
as the plump eunuch clicked his amber beads behind,
unburdened and serene once more, and moved his lips:
“O grasping bird, how bright you gleam and flap in sun!
Sometimes it seems as though all wings shone round your head,
sometimes you seem to glitter nude as a plucked hen. 615
I’m glad my mind touched you awhile; I’ve had enough,
and now I’m glad to see you go, not to return.”
The mind that tamed all flame and made it pure as light,
then turned light back to fire and played with light and flame,
faced the great lord and with no joy or sorrow said: 620
“One dawn Death touched me lightly on my shoulder blade
and all at once my body shrank and my mind reared;
you are Death’s fingers on the shoulder blades of earth.”
Then the soul-snatcher ceased to speak; deep in his chest
he felt his shaken heart pulse as though zoned with cares, 625
as though he’d seen the last excrescence of the world;
when earth would grow diseased and strength disperse like smoke
such sallow shriveled souls would slowly molt in loam.
“Good luck to you, new forms, new joys of the upper world 629
that once by far Eurotas, by green river reeds, 630
naked and glittering, fought till Death himself stood still
and from his heart swore wrathfully at his black fate. 632
O man’s firm body, our virtue, nobleness, our pride,
that like strong shining bronze, with your lean narrow shins
and with your shapely flanks, your hips, and your broad chest 635
raise like a column all our hopes on this good earth,
you’re not a sheath that longs
for God to fill it full!
Body of man, you are a sword with two sharp sides
for whom flesh, brain, and the whole earth are your great sheath.
So long as you can stand on snowpeaks and gleam in sun, 640
all ghosts are your familiars, all gods are your fools,
and I place all my hopes on the earth that grows such flowers!”
The wandering man spoke to himself as in his mind 643
he spun old and still future hopes and tightly held
man’s holy pomegranate filled with babes and seed. 645
Thus with his precious treasure the sun-minded man
strode through the marshes with their mud-formed lotuses
and for the last time turned to watch the weed-filled tower
that, drowned in heavy-shadowed ivy, darkly glowed
in mist like an old windmill stripped of all its arms, 650
like bodies that soon rot when stripped of wings and souls.
Then the god-slayer sadly smiled and spoke with wrath:
“Aye, septic lotus, you have freed yourself from seed
and now your earthless roots hang in the hollow air.
Your fat loins fester, your mind rots, your heart’s a frog, 655
but I, crammed full of earth and blood, dripping cool dew,
still love and ache for Mother Earth and fight with Death.
I gaze deep in man’s entrails, on a woman’s breast,
and long for them to brim with joys and dream and seed,
to burst in flame and burn like deathless pyres in chaos! 660
I tread old men to dust, I merge young men and maids
with love that all night long they may reshape earth’s face.
I watch the seedless soul that fades and mocks the flame,
then rush behind it to light again whatever fades;
I sit by wells where it once passed and once more pluck 665
the gallant youths and maidens that had fled in fear
and draw them sweetly to the woods to merge in darkness.
I open homes it closed, till thresholds fill with children,
till ovens blaze once more and slender maidens sit
at the earth’s loom with joy, their heart a piercing arrow. 670
I love to roam through lands and towns where I can feel
the stalwart men at work, the mothers giving suck,
for thus are children born, thus is the world tilled,
thus does the soul I love rejoice and play on earth.
Summer and winter long the soil reeks in my heart, 675
the cuckoo sits upon my highest branch and sings.
Aye, tower lord, you weigh all poisons, mock the world,
but I don’t fear you, for new winds blow through my mind,
because each dawn the earth and man’s bold heart are born anew!”
Odysseus sauntered thus in the moon’s pulsing glow 680
and heard with joy the wild beasts thrusting through the shrubs
as their blue shadows slid with stealth amid the paths.
The wild hares danced in moonlight, the wild asses brayed,
the waters fell asleep at midnight, but the mind of man
kept vigil like a lion prowling the dark earth. 685
Softly a red she-fox emerged from thorny shrubs,
sniffed at the air to right and left with her moist snout,
then cocked her ears to part the sounds of solitude;
she held one paw curved high before she stepped, and when
she had well sifted all the scents and sounds of night, 690
she raised her tufted tail and slunk into the woods.
A dense gorge darkly glowed within whose towering trees
and plunging shadows the flame-minded man Was lost,
for his heart seethed and held its dark commotion still.
His mind still held the swooning face of Mother Earth, 695
thoughts of the leech-filled tower lord passed like a ghoul,
like an unerring forecast of man’s final fate.
“His soul is a ghost of light with not one drop of blood,
without one root in earth to drink those holy mothers,
Joy, Sorrow, Patience, and full-breasted, fertile Hope; 700
his nerves like dodder tendrils flap in empty light.”
The archer pushed on, struggling to dispel that ghost
and take some consolation from the beast-eyed night;
about him he saw, heard, and smelled Hunger and Lust
that prowled the dark in silence and aroused all loins 705
until the lone man’s heart rejoiced in its mud roots.
A thick-necked wolf passed through the windless woods and stooped
with empty belly and red eyes to sniff the ground
and find sheep droppings somewhere or a trace of hare.
The trees shook suddenly, uproar swept the trembling woods, 710
and monkeys shrilled and clambered to the topmost boughs
where with cupped eyes they watched until their hair stood upright.
Odysseus fell flat on the ground and hid in leaves;
his temples pulsed as though their hinges had come loose,
as though swift drunkenness had struck his kindled brain. 715
The hot night filled with bodies, her black armpits reeked,
and all the night-woods steamed with musk and heavy sweat;
insatiably the lone man peered amid the leaves
and like a startled rabbit cocked his ears to find
if evil nightmares crushed him or from too much moon 720
night’s visionary brain had turned to watery gruel.
Black naked women ran, their loins wrapped round with leaves,
and an old towering chief led them and rushed ahead
as blood dripped from his sharpened ax and his white beard.
Long necklaces of bloody ears flapped round their necks, 725
and as the gasping women reached a clearing, they fell prone,
and their old leader wildly rolled his bloodstained eyes
and shouted hoarsely in the windless calm of night:
“O God, I shout, but you don’t hear! I stamp on earth!
Rise from the ground and grab your ax, stand by my side! 730
Can’t you see I’ve grown old, you fool? My savage son
rushed with his ax to grab my females from my court
and I with great fatigue struck twice before I killed him!
Women, don’t scatter now, and don’t let your loins seethe
like those broad-buttocked mares who hear the stallions snort! 735
Shout to my God as I, until your throats grow sore!
Oho, you beast, rise from the earth! Rise up, my Lord,
I’ll string a necklace of twelve heads about your throat!
Ascend and eat my twelve sons in the moldy earth.
I’ll deck you with red wings so that your mind may soar, 740
and—do you hear?—I’ll pay you well: three buxom maids!
It’s I, the Old Chief, calling! Rise! Rise from the earth!
Now that their thighs and loins are strong, my greedy sons
hunt me to grab my women slaves! Rise up and slay!
Ah, decoys of our ripe male god, fling your arms wide, 745
yowl, tigresses in rut, till the great tiger comes,
raise your black breasts for bait so that his brains may crack!
Oho, deep armpits, cast your reeking musk and stifle God!”
Odysseus peered from leaves and thickets, raised his face
and watched the young maids scream and break in a swift dance 750
then raise their shining black breasts high and call on God
until God, like a strong man, loomed in the moon’s glow.
The old chief bellowed then and clapped his withered palms:
“Oho, a dread Lord smeared with blood and fat ascends
from the profound dark depths
of earth and shakes the world! 755
I like you! Thus did I also glow in youth, like you!
Ah, I’ve grown young again, my two dogteeth grow fierce;
come quick, roll up your sleeves; help me, I need you now.
But let’s come to an agreement first so we won’t quarrel
about the plunder and come to loggerheads once more. 760
What payment do you want? Don’t stamp your heels! Draw near!”
The dark god cackled and spoke boldly to the old chief:
“I want all of your female slaves; their black breasts please me.”
“They please me too! Look at me well, don’t reach your hands!
Mothers still give my children suck on their black breasts, 765
my hands can still flash flame to knock your daring down;
don’t set my teeth on edge; hold your reins tight, my Lord.
I, as the leading ram, shall give you three good ewes:
this old crone of a slave shall light your hearthstone fires;
this middle-aged housekeeper with her skillful hands 770
shall comb your grimy hair and smear you smooth with grease;
this young well-bedded maid will glut you with her lust.”
“Make way, and shut your mouth! I’ll choose whatever I please!”
“Then choose, you slayer! Glut your belly’s hollow cave,
but don’t dare set your grasping hand on this young maid; 775
I swear by my sharp ax, you slayer, you shall not have her!”
“Shut up, you shriveled fool! I’ll cram your mouth with dirt!
I stretch my hand above your flock and choose this girl.”
“You can’t have her! Don’t growl, I’m not afraid of you.”
“Oho, the old wreck shakes his hatchet and grows bold! 780
With two of my forked fingers, fool, I’ll break your pate.”
“Alas, you’ve quashed my skull, you’ve cracked my temples wide!”
“I want the prettiest girl you’ve got. Bring her, be quick!”
“It’s I who raised you from the earth, gave you an ax,
armed you with phallus, loins and brain. Is this my reward?” 785
“Fool, what reward? I’m God! No greater thief exists!
I pass by, grab whatever I please, and Death’s my purse;
I open it and pay in full with worms and loam.
Don’t curse, but press your ears to earth and listen well.”
“I hear my eleven remaining sons hemming me in, 790
and Death, the harehound, leads the way and sniffs my tracks;
stand by my side and help me, slayer; I’ll pay you well.”
“But first I want my full reward. Slay the girl now!”