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.”