and when he bent his body and his ax struck hard,
they bent their bodies, too, and helped the old man work.
One day a black lightheaded traveler passed that way, 850
thrust secretly amid the leaves, and watched with fear
how monkeys, leopards, elephants and weasels ran,
assisting sons, to fetch the old man water, tools,
to open paths and to drag down the heavy logs;
even a bird with crimson wings flew through the sky 855
and fetched divine flame in its claws, the lightning bolt.
The crack-brained traveler rushed with haste pellmell to town
and told of the great miracle, and all minds shook.
The seashore filled with ghosts and demons; all who passed
closed their pale lips for fear of chewing the shrill sounds, 860
for they heard laughter and choked wails and piping songs
and the ax striking joyously to trim the craft.
All who passed by at night discerned the ascetic bent
and listening to the murmuring of the frothing surf
as spirits played about him and gleamed as white as foam. 865
With quivering startled eyes the night beachcombers saw
men, beasts, and spirits toil together to build the ship
as though the whole world suddenly had turned to friends.
The brains of men are always filled with wings and air,
nourished on bubbles always, and well fed with smoke: 870
alas, no spirits ached for the old man, and beasts
but snarled and left him all alone to fight the woods
with but an ax for comrade, and no other help;
the two alone hacked down the trees and planed them smooth,
the two alone stooped down and roughly hewed the hull 875
and gave shape to great freedom’s final savage wing.
He looked not like a bridegroom but a worm that swayed
its white head right and left, its feet, its hands, its arms,
measured and spun its white cocoon, measured and spun,
until its shroud drained from its heart and twined it tight. 880
A brave young man took courage once and sidled close:
“They say that beasts and birds with fire at night have helped
you build your holy ship—may all its nails be gold!—
and that ghost-craftsmen rise to aid you from the sea.
They say that water, earth, and air are your familiars 885
and that you sit enthroned in flames and give commands.”
He spoke, then stretched his trembling neck to catch each word,
but the deceiver answered with full brimming throat:
“They say that once Odysseus lived on this frail earth,
they say that once earth, sea, and air existed, too, 890
they say that Death once came and wiped the whole earth clean!”
The lone man spoke, then laughed until the seashore rang
so that the wretched youth took fright, and his jaws shook,
but as he ran, the slayer’s laughter pierced so deep
that the youth’s jaw and his teeth slipped his whole life long. 895
Then in great fear, the black town-dwellers fetched fine gifts
of votive offerings, cool fresh fruit and slaughtered game
to soothe the dragon who had beached upon their shores.
Each morning the pine tree that shaded the sea-cave
glittered with offerings hung each night by secret hands, 900
and the man-slayer laughed and plucked the tree all day.
Mothers crept close and laid their babies in his tracks
to give them strength, and hunters thrust their bows in sand
that his old feet might tread them till the azure beads
that hung on either end might blaze like piercing eyes 905
and guide their faultless aim till the prey dropped and died.
As all passed, stooped, along the ascetic’s shore and felt
the secret silent powers flow through them in streams,
a hidden joy and trembling coursed along their spines.
One day a fisherman came close with his reed rod, 910
opened and closed his pale lips thrice, took heart and cried:
“Ascetic, I’ve a word to say, but don’t get angry!
For sixty years I’ve thrashed and ached on the sea’s brine,
my hands are stiff and slashed, my mind’s a lump of salt,
I’ve seen triremes and freighters, arrowy skiffs and rafts; 915
some seemed like broad sea-turtles, some like sharp swordfish,
some sailed like nautili, and some like dolphins leapt,
but never have I seen a skiff like this you build:
I see a pitch-black coffin rising from its ribs!”
The flame-eyed boatman then with a calm gesture shook 920
the curled wood shavings from his beard and white mustache
and in the light his sad yet teasing voice was heard:
“Old man, I took a rule and measured my old body,
old man, I took a rule and measured my heart and mind,
I measured earth and sky, I measured fear and love, 925
the greatest happiness of all, the greatest pain,
and from my measurements, old man, this coffin came.”
The fisherman then lowered his brine-eaten face
and shuffled off without a word, trudged down the beach
and searched among the rocks for bait, plucked insects, flies, 930
and a long slimy worm with which to tempt the eels,
then stooping in a windless cove he cast his bait
and his long line far out to sea, but his mind fished
the ghost-ascetic, his strange words, his bitter laugh.
He felt a mute invisible fisher stooping down 935
above us all, called Death by some and God by others,
who casts his net and drags us all to his far shore.
His wicker basket is brimmed full of varied bait,
and to each one he casts that lure which each desires—
the mullet longs for urchins, the sea-wolf for herring, 940
the parrot perch for its own kind, the smelts for flies,
and the male cuttlefish swoons at the female’s glow.
We, too, like fishes puff and snap our greedy mouths,
nibble at the sweet bait of women, wine, and wealth,
then flounder with glazed eyes and rush down into Hades. 945
But as the fisher shook his head, he suddenly leapt,
for his reed shook—a huge fish must have gulped the bait—
and all his dark thoughts sank at once, his sorrows vanished,
his heart pulsed like his line, and his hand reached and tossed
as a red mullet, fat with spawn, writhed in the sun. 950
Ah, life was very good, his sons would eat that day,
and all the ascetic’s flaming words were mouthfuls of hot air.
Toward set of sun the next day as Odysseus stooped
above a hollowed rock and stirred the melted pitch
to smear his hollow hull, trimmed to a coffin’s shape, 955
he suddenly heard broad Kentaur’s steps along the sand
and saw him striding down the shore, holding his bellies,
while thick canary feathers flapped upon his back
as he rushed longingly and sniffed at the tar-pit..
His captain spied on Kentaur with a sidelong glance, 960
then made his voice serene to keep from frightening him:
“Welcome, broad-bottom, welcome greedy-guts, most welcome!
Heigh ho, your nose sniffed out the aromatic tar,
you’ve cast off earth from your pale chest, worms from your throat,
and rush to pull my oars again and to taste brine! 965
Dear comrade, my heart shakes and
yearns for you, and yet
on this last trip, I can’t take even your memory—
I beg you, dear old comrade, don’t reach out your hands!”
He spoke with a sad ruthless voice, then raised his eyes:
there on the beach, in a long row, like wounded gulls 970
with shattered ashen wings, his old companions perched
and gazed at him with small and beady glittering eyes.
But the wild waste’s strong lover filled his fists with sand
and flung it fanwise where the brooding shadows sat:
“Scatter, my brothers, vanish from my mind, I beg you!” 975
But like a squirrel the piper leapt on the ship’s prow
and set an airy flute to his pale cobwebbed lips,
then all his friends jumped on the deck and grabbed their oars,
long narrow shadows, till the vessel sailed through air.
Odysseus shut his eyes and felt with longing all 980
the waves strike at his flesh and beat like throbbing breasts
as in the night air a shrill mournful song arose,
the dark voice of the sea, that great bewitching tune
that cleaves the soul from flesh, crowns it with salt seaweed,
then slowly, gently, draws it toward the sky-blue gardens. 985
“It’s time the head broke and the whole world drowned in waves,”
the archer thought, and shuddered, then at once felt sad
that he would soon no longer see or touch, nor plunge
to cool himself within the sea’s vast blossomed rose.
He pitied his shrunk body, the earth’s great miracle, 990
on which he’d worked so many years that it might throw
love’s five long tentacles around the world, but now
that he had learned to smell, touch, taste, and see, the time
had come for this great wonder to disperse in air.
He clasped his hands about his knees, then cast his eyes 995
upon the sand and sea like a long grasping net,
and his mind glowed, a rain-drenched mountain peak in sun.
His narrowing glance scooped up a small and spiraled shell
that gleamed on sand like a man’s convoluted ear.
Slowly he reached his hand, picked up the little hutch 1000
and marveled at that serpentine frail sheath for hours—
work of a secret love and patience, year on year,
that shaped it gently in the depths of the dark sea.
Ah, how it glowed like mother-of-pearl, like the brain’s coils
that gathered every holy sound and strained to hear 1005
a crab or lobster scurry past, a storm that burst
high in the water’s infinite ship-battered blaze.
And now, behold, like so much trash the heavy breath
of the strong tide had spewed indifferently on sands
this wondrous seashell wrought with endless toil and care. 1010
The archer pressed the empty shell against his chest
as though he clasped a son, and suddenly, dear God,
a flood poured from the shell and drowned his heart and mind.
Once more the mighty athlete pitied his old body,
pitied his calloused palms, his stiffened wobbly knees, 1015
his feet that roamed the world, his lips that once had kissed,
and his eyes brimmed unwillingly, his dry throat swelled,
for his heart throbbed with pain that day and smelled the grave:
“O heart, erotic bed, where all day, all night long,
that loving couple, Life and Death, clasp tight, and kiss!” 1020
He spoke, then dipped his white head in the sea to cool;
his mind, that great wreathed athlete, cooled then and distilled;
once more he stretched upon the shore and slowly talked
as though both old and new companions swarmed the sands:
“By God, lads, what a thing is man’s remembering heart! 1025
Now that dark shades have crushed my lustrous mind
I well recall that white coast where my boat was wrecked
and my crew’s corpses sailed supine on waves, and I
was cast headlong upon the rocks and burst in wails:
‘I don’t want to live now in pain, let the waves eat me; 1030
my heart is crushed with battling both great gods and man—
let me now cross my hands, dear God, and drown in waves!’
Then as I sobbed in my despair for Death to come,
a small, small bird with crimson bill flapped in the sun,
hovered, and perched on a black boulder, wagged its tail, 1035
trilled twice or thrice with mocking glee, then flew away—
O bird, O soaring heart, who fetch a small grain-seed!
At once my exhausted heart leapt up with fortitude,
my entrails brimmed with blood and my bones filled with brain,
I saw the sea before me, the whole earth behind me, 1040
and there, between them, man’s soul sang with mocking glee
and on a dry black boulder hopped with blissful joy!”
Thus did the man of whirlpool mind speak to himself,
then rose, without awaiting words or counterwords
and, like the sinking sun, plunged headlong in the sea. 1045
When black night fell at length and wrapped the drowsy world,
the lone man fell asleep, disburdened, cool of heart,
and hung like a grape-cluster high on the tall cliffs of sleep.
Odysseus dreamt that, followed by his leopard cub
as hunting hound, he stalked the woods to track some deer; 1050
the earth grew wider at each step, the world’s face changed,
cypress trees bloomed with roses, cedars sprang with lilies,
and all black stones were twined with fragrant jasmine locks.
Animals strolled through woods like hermits, two by two,
birds like pure harmless spirits soared and talked in light 1055
and the hawk stopped and beckoned to the blackbird till
both perched on a fruit-laden vine and pecked at grapes;
the golden sun sat on a green sunflower’s stalk
and gazed, love-stricken, at the earth with a coy smile.
When the game-hunter suddenly saw a roe-buck move 1060
amid the shrubs, he knelt and drew his deadly bow
then sank his feathery shaft deep in the downy neck.
The deer sighed like a man, then knelt with buckling knees,
but as the archer rushed and grabbed the long-branched horns,
the wounded animal uplifted his large eyes 1065
that ran with tears like fountains on a shriveled earth
and gazed into the slayer’s eyes with mute reproach.
The mighty hunter shuddered and his mind leapt high
like a struck roe-buck that a secret arrow pierced,
and the two brothers gazed and wept in silence long: 1070
“Alas, my arrow missed its aim and struck my heart!”
But as his bitter thoughts still dripped within his heart,
a savage leopard pounced on the stag’s steaming flesh
and all at once fierce hunger rose in the archer’s mind.
He leapt, and from the leopard’s sharp teeth swiftly seized 1075
the deer’s fat thigh, then quickly cast it on the hearth
and sat cross-legged on earth and ate it to the bone.
Then as he wiped his beard and thick mustache, he said:
“A great and mighty tiger rules the living world,
I’ve never chewed before such lean and tasty meat.” 1080
He laughed, uprooted then the roe-buck’s branching horns
and slowly all things vanished in his toiling mind
till in the black and devastated night alone
two fists shone as they shaped a n
ew, most murderous bow.
When the sun sprang and struck the hunter’s laden eyes, 1085
he leapt erect and all his mind’s taut bowstring twanged
as though he still held an unseen death-battling bow.
All day the great god-slayer chased the swifting stag
with its large horns that sprouted high within his dreams,
and then returned at dusk with empty hands, and slept, 1090
supperless, but the stag rose in his dreams once more
and slowly, with proud steps, approached the hunter, bent
its neck and with its rough tongue licked the cruel crossed hands.
The archer felt the deer above him, its warm breath,
and did not move his hands for fear the startled stag 1095
would flee once more to sleep’s impassable forest crags.
Only his mind still muttered secretly, and pled:
“If you’re a demon, help me in my hunt at dawn,
if you’re a ghost-filled haunting dream, then scatter far,
for I won’t soil my brain with phantoms made of air; 1100
but if, my friend, you’re a live deer, I beg you, stay,
don’t flee, I need your horns to make a stout new bow—
come, let’s embrace like brothers in each other’s arms.”
He spoke, opened his eyes, but that most sacred stag
vanished, and as he watched the dawning light and mused 1105
where he might go to flush the mighty stag, he glanced
at the great pine where every dawn the people hung
their gifts, and there discerned a giant stag’s sharp horns.
He rushed with rage for fear they’d disappear again
like ghosts, but his fists grabbed and filled with longed-for horns 1110
that dripped with thick blood still and splattered lumps of brain.
The archer leapt with joy, for this sure sign that came
from the deep seashores of his dreams seemed a good omen;
then he sat cross-legged on the sand, and with strong hands
toiled hard and wrought with patient skill to shape a firm new bow. 1115
As he worked on he heard a sea-chant close at hand,
and when he turned his eyes he saw bronzed fishermen
hauling their nets along the beach, gleaming in sun,
lightening their toil and troubles with their rhythmic song.
They grasped each knot and slowly dragged the net ashore, 1120
strove on until their rousing song turned to a sigh,
and the old athlete felt a deep ache in his chest
as though he, too, were dragging the long net from far.
The fish-scales flashed like silver, the net dripped with foam,