The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel

  Look at the loving pairs that pass in light and flowers, 50

  all woven of swoons and sorrows, tears and trembling air,

  each pierced like swords by cruel, invisible sons they long for.”

  Then in his saddle the proud man with peaked cap rose,

  snapped a tall flowering branch, then gave it to his friend,

  when lo! the branch became a wing, the wing a sword, 55

  until the king’s mind reeled and his sleep blazed with light.

  A mild wind blew, roads opened everywhere like roses,

  and he rejoiced at the road left, at the road right,

  yet longed to whip his horses and drive straight ahead.

  He stood thus at the great crossroads where freedom blew 60

  like a sweet breeze toward all four corners of his head,

  for earth was good, the mind ran everywhere and sought all roads.

  His soul profoundly plunged in freedom’s deep delight;

  dear God, his youth revived, the cypress tree bore flowers,

  and memory stripped and lightly danced like fantasy 65

  till even the worm that crawls from far to eat each man 66

  sprouted its gaudy wings and soon forgot in flowers.

  And when in freedom’s gentle breeze the strange dream faded

  —it was but a brief lightning flash—at that same hour

  the cock was falling toward the courtyard tiles, and there 70

  closed its red wings, swelled its long throat, and crowed

  until the coward king in his dream’s dazzling fog

  heard the cry strike his mind like the sun’s radiant spear.

  He leapt and smiled as though he’d seen some lovely dream,

  but he’d forgotten the wonders of that flowering night 75

  and only in his heart still held a drop of honey.

  Striding with haste to his large yard, he ordered slaves

  to yoke his costly chariot with two pure-white steeds,

  fill his engraved wine-gourds with thrice-old mellow wine,

  and bring a spitted lamb, warm bread, and fresh-plucked fruit 80

  His proud soul longed to ride his friend about the grounds

  and show off his abundant wealth and strike him dumb;

  already he rejoiced to guess his friend’s surprise.

  When many-willed Odysseus stood before the door,

  the king approached him happily and spoke with joy: 85

  “I can’t believe you’re still here in my house, dear friend;

  I couldn’t sleep all night for fear you’d fade away,

  and now in day my heart beats like a hawk to see you;

  come mount, dear friend, let’s gallop through the upper world,

  I like to feel you close beside me, knee to knee.” 90

  The archer, who at morning kept his spirit locked

  till the sun pried it open to speak in human tones,

  climbed close-mouthed in the chariot but rejoiced in heart

  to reach the mountains soon and breathe the crystal air.

  Slowly they rumbled down the crooked path to town 95

  where crowds at daybreak swarmed with lifted arms around

  their two ancestral altars raised to Fear and Laughter,

  meek gods of poverty that shone in the dawn’s light;

  but the offerings hung in air, for no one yet could tell

  which of the gods would seal their fate and fortune soon. 100

  When the town elders saw the white steeds gleam, they ran,

  pressed round their king with questions, hung on his fat lips,

  till he smiled graciously and raised his hand aloft:

  “Give votive gifts of honey to your good god Lalighter,

  for I stood sleepless guard above you all night long 105

  then sent my men on foot and horse with laden mules

  to fetch the foe full wineskins, sacks of grain and gold.

  I didn’t spare my wealth or goods to save my country!

  Choose from my fat flocks now the best of all my calves,

  slay it on Laughters altar, and let my people spread 110

  a feast to drink their king’s good health who like a father

  kept vigil night and day to guard earth’s happiness.

  And now, my faithful councilmen, hear this good word:

  Let all young men tomorrow prepare for games of skill.

  Let them adorn their bodies and bedeck the fields 115

  for we must try to please our guest, our glorious savior.”

  He spoke, then flicked the horses with his golden whip,

  and the town elders scattered through the crowd, held high

  their king’s word like a ripe and downy dandelion

  and scattered the frail seeds with shouts along the morning air. 120

  Then both kings, shining like two flaming stars, swept off

  toward the far fields, leaving behind a star’s lean trail.,

  After long silence, Menelaus suddenly touched

  his comrade’s knees and with great anguish thus confessed:

  “Old friend, my heart’s ashamed and does not condescend 125

  to fool and bait my people to retain my realm;

  my soul longed, for a moment, to tell the entire truth,

  but when I caught your glowering glance, I stopped in fear.”

  The weaver of minds smiled bitterly and mutely scorned

  a mind that had not learned as yet how the world’s governed 130

  and what a cruel and crafty heart a leader must have;

  his mother had made this king a lamb, fate made him shepherd.

  “Old friend, though your lips smile, yet you don’t say a word.”

  The sly man opened his month as though his flesh had ripped:

  “My mind was far away on shepherds, lambs, and gods.” 135

  He spoke, and his wound closed, his, mind engulfed his tongue.

  Silent, he hailed the holy field, the new-cut stubble,

  the crocus-colored soil of summer’s blazing heat;

  earth lay in downy haze like a child-bedded woman

  threshed by dark pains of late but who, exhausted now, 140

  released and tranquil, turns to smile on her son gently.

  The strange, rapacious man sighed in his stifled heart;

  his mind had never been yoked or broken to the plow,

  nor had he longed to live like his field-working father,

  but sometimes, when he’d watched the ripe corn from his prow, 145

  vineyards and olive trees and peasants stooped to earth,

  he’d sighed with sadness softly, fearful his crew might hear him;

  you’d say that some old plowman still plowed through his blood.

  He saw, in a poor hamlet, bone-warped women working,

  flat-chested, hairy-armed, voices most crude and harsh, 150

  whose husbands, lost in distant wars and distant seas,

  left them with bodies uncaressed, untilled, unwatered.

  The mind bends down to female earth, both merge as one

  and join as wife and husband, swarm with offspring soon,

  with hogs and grain and girls and dreams composed of clouds, 155

  and the great couple in the sun caress and fructify.

  But at his side his wealthy friend weighed all things well,

  and in his anxious landlord’s eyes could only see

  in the whole world but gain and grain, what’s yours, what’s mine.

  The king stood straight in his chariot, unrestrained, and spoke: 160

  “As far as your eye sees, dear brother, mountains, vales,

  fields tilled or fields unplowed, fat meadows, all are mine.

  My vineyards flood my fields with wine and make them harbors,

  my olive trees turn to green seas until I hear

  their cool smoke-silver waves at dusk from my sun roof, 165

  and when my bees swarm up in clouds, the sun?
??s eclipsed.”

  The landlord’s mouth filled to the brim, his chest puffed wide,

  and his soul turned to a deep jug that gulped his fields.

  But as he spoke, his face’s threshing floor grew dark,

  for blue-eyed men in rags, with hatchets in their belts, 170

  scattered like thieves in the blond fields to glean the stubble,

  and manlike women, whinnying, gave their babies suck.

  Sighing, the landlord turned to his fox-minded friend:

  “Like blond ants, brother, these bread-hungry people fly

  to glean poor scraps from harvest, olive crop, and vintage. 175

  All day they rage and raven, all night long in rut

  they couple shamelessly on grass about their fires.

  They stomp like giants on my ancestral soil! I fear them!”

  The snake-man bared his fangs, laughed long, and shot his sting:

  “All the old legends will one day come true, my friend; 180

  these are the dragons now; it’s time for us, the dwarfs,

  to scramble up the chick-pea bush and eat chick-peas!” 182

  The king gulped down his secret wrath, and whipped his steeds;

  he could not stomach talk of poverty and downfalls.

  Then soon they came to olive groves within whose shade 185

  they cooled their eyes and brains scorched by the burning fields;

  that year the olive trees were blessed with fertile fruit

  so that the king crowed with delight: oil brimmed his brain,

  oil presses ground within him, oil jars rose in heaps,

  crude oil poured tumbling in huge vats while oil soup steamed, 190

  and deep jars, smeared with oil, shone glittering in long rows

  until from too much grinding and from too much joy

  the king in light stood shimmering like an oil-drowned mouse.

  But he soon wearied and spread his arms toward the cool shade:

  “I’m scorched with heat, let’s lie down by an olive’s root 195

  and have a bite or two to rally our tired flesh;

  it’s gone through much, poor thing, and needs a little rest”

  The archer then dismounted, grunting, bit his lips

  so that no scornful word might heedlessly escape him,

  and when both stretched in the thick shade, reapers at once 200

  ran up with brimming jugs to quench their master’s thirst.

  The king, sprawled on the grass, recounted all his gain,

  his honey, wine and oil of a fine and fertile year,

  while the unyoked mute slayer of men beside him thought

  how fat his comrade’s nape had grown on the lean earth. 205

  They drank the undiluted wine till their brains blazed

  and all the olive trees lit up, each branch a lamp,

  each tree a candelabrum filled with brimming oil.

  The lizard glued its belly to the earth in bliss,

  the cypress raised its slender length from the white ground, 210

  and in the cricket’s careless head the whole field burned;

  the sun, like a lean leopard pounced and prowled around

  the ripe grain, olive groves, the two friends sprawled in shade,

  till suddenly the archer turned to his friend with love:

  “O Menelaus,” he cried with throbbing voice and heart, 215

  “let’s leave at once! Abandon all these vines and fields!

  Youth blooms upon our temples twice! Death comes once more

  to take the lead—let’s follow him no matter where!

  Though no sweet woman’s body waits where Death’s road ends,

  new higher castles rise, my friend, new higher cares!” 220

  He spoke, then leaning closer, gripped his comrade’s knees,

  and he but turned his wine-dazed head toward the tree’s bole:

  “I’m tired; I’d like to rest a moment on the grass.”

  But the home-wrecker crouched like a mad, snapping dog

  and growled between his teeth in rage, “Then I’ll snatch Helen!” 225

  Yet, as he spoke, he wryly smiled and swept the field:

  “I was born yesterday, by God, and I shall die today;

  the earth has time enough to stand and chew her cud;

  with eons before her and behind, what does she care?

  We come and go like flames: ‘Good morning’ and ‘Good night.’ 230

  Great joy to him who grasps the lightning flash in time!” ‘

  ‘He spoke, then shook his spirit free from dizziness

  and leant against the olive tree to plan the seizure;

  but all at once he lay stark still with staring eyes

  and gazed on the tree’s bark where a cocooned cicada 235

  struggled and slowly squirmed to pierce through into light.

  Stretched on the ground, Odysseus watched and held his breath.

  Like a warm body buried alive, wrapped up in shrouds,

  the poor worm twitched to pierce through its translucent tomb

  in a mute, heavy war with death, till the archer stooped 240

  and with his warm breath tried to help the writhing soul.

  Then lo! a small nape suddenly slit the shroud in two,

  and like a budded vine leaf, soft and curly, poked

  a blind, unhardened head in light, swayed gropingly,

  then strengthened soon in sun and took on form and color. 245

  It stretched its neck and struggled, crawled from its white sheath,

  unglued its soft feet from its belly, clutched with bliss

  the tree’s gray bark, then slowly stretched its body taut

  until its fledgling wings unfurled and shimmered in air.

  The honey-pale cicada basked in the simmering sun, 250

  and the three rubies on its brow burst in three flames

  as it plunged deeper still in the world’s warmth and scent.

  Fixing its glassy, greedy eyes on the tree’s foliage,

  its soft smoke-silver body overbrimmed with song

  yet made no sound, enraptured still by sun and light 255

  and the huge joy of birth as on earth’s sill it stood

  before it entered, speechless, numb with the world’s wonders.

  The man of many passions quaked and mutely watched

  how the soul pokes through earth and squirms out of its shroud;

  and thus the world, he thought, crawls like a worm to sun, 260

  and thus the mind, in time, bursts like a withered husk

  from which there spring, time after time, new finer thoughts

  until the ultimate great thought leaps forward: Death.

  Then as the subtle man lay on the ground and brooded,

  he heard the king scream in his sleep and leap awake: 265

  “As I slept here on grass, a dread dream crushed me, brother:

  I dreamt we strolled on earth together, arm in arm;

  crimson carnations sprang up from our sauntering steps,

  ‘our words soared high like eagles in the crystal air,

  but my eyes turned to clay and suddenly spilled on grass.” 270

  The murderer shivered and his heart was clogged with blood,

  but he restrained himself and gently touched his friend:

  “The lances of the sun were hot and heavy this noon;

  let’s rise and cool our hearts high on the mountain’s ridge.”

  Then they set out, passed olive groves and distant vineyards, 275

  fresh fields where horses grazed, wild wastelands where bulls browsed,

  and slowly climbed the mountain slope’s steep, sunlit paths

  until the highlands gaped with wide mouth and devoured

  horses and kings, then once again closed tight behind them.

  At length they stepped on Mount Five-Fingers’ breast and rode 280

  through a smooth pass between two cliffs by cool winds tossed.
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  Hornbeam and ash grew thick, fat fir cones puffed and swelled

  till their hard kernels burst with heat in the sun’s rays;

  high up, at all the firs’ forked peaks, new tips sprang up

  and like green thirsty tongues stood straight and drank the light. 285

  They saw a wretched mother hang her sickly son 286

  in clefts of blasted rock to take the lightning’s strength,

  whose bolt had cloven the earth like a two-bladed ax.

  She pummeled the hard rock and yelled in the deep chasm:

  “Dame Fire, rise up and lick my son’s consumptive cheeks! 290

  Ax, seize and heave him by his arms, give him your strength!

  Flame, I don’t want a sickly son! Sharp ax, decide!” 292

  When the archer heard the mother, his heart leapt with gladness:

  “Mother, good health and joy!” he cried. “I stand amazed

  and praise your scorn not to give suck to a sickly son! 295

  If only Mother Earth chose with such care as you!”

  He turned to share his wild joy with his bosom friend,

  but he was standing straight to admire with sated eyes

  how white amid the tufted pines gleamed row on row

  his sheepcots, barns, thatched huts, dairy and cattle pens, 300

  and how as far as high plateaus, on rocky crags,

  his flocks shone in the sun and rang with silvery, peals

  so that the highlands seemed to sway with black-white wool.

  The landlord spoke then in a loud and boastful voice:

  “Brother, lift up your eyes, for the world’s face has changed; 305

  in the low meadows moisture eats the jocund bells,

  but here goat-bells and ram-bells peal in well-tuned sounds,

  and when you lie in my thick groves of pine beneath

  my penfolds, you’ll forget your cares and fitful passions;

  the mind’s a sheep and grazes on green pastures, too.” 310

  He spoke, dismounted from his chariot, and with short legs

  stippled with sweat, trudged slowly up the high plateau.

  The shepherd dogs smelled their approaching master’s scent

  and jumped on his beloved breast, barking with joy;

  from the steep crags his old familiar shepherds plunged 315

  and welcomed to their cool greensward their visiting king.

  “Tonight we’ll sleep close by the croft; spread sheepskins there,

  and bring us pailfuls of fat milk to quench the flesh.”

  Thus did the king command, then lay in a pine’s shade

  and the old pine rejoiced to give its shade like fruit. 320

  The shepherds ran and brought full frothing jugs of milk: