The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel

  “Though there’s small milk at season’s end, it’s thick as curds,”

  they said, and taking heart sat cross-legged on the stones

  to marvel how divine flesh, too, must eat and drink.

  But as the archons gulped the milk to feed their minds, 325

  they heard on high tumult of wings, shrill vulture cries,

  and saw enormous flames that flashed on the far crags.

  The shepherds leapt erect and shouted with great joy:

  “It’s Rocky! He’s climbed and set the eagles’ nests on fire!

  Those wild birds plunder all our flocks! At the blaze of noon 330

  they swoop with sharp claws on our lambs and carry them off.

  The crags are swarming with their young, and Rocky swore

  he’d wipe out all that lawless tribe with raging fire.

  See how he grills them now like lambs on glowing coals!”

  Then both kings raised their eyes to the high crags and watched 335

  the eagles plunge in flames and shriek with agony;

  some with scorched wings fell sizzling headlong down to earth,

  some seized their fledglings in their claws and fled far off.

  They saw a slim form lightly leap from rock to rock

  and soon stand sweating by the king to pay him homage. 340

  The young man stood erect in the sun’s blaze and stank

  like a wild bull; his wedge-shaped beard, black as a crow,

  dripped laudanum and sage-sap, glowed and steamed until

  the archer marveled at the godly race of man,

  at this sharp, swordlike body fed with rain and sun 345

  that rose with raging wrath to storm the blazing air.

  “Old friend, I like this gallant youth, he strikes the eye;

  that broad back should wear bronze, those hands should hurl the quoit.

  Give him to me! Now spread your hand in regal gesture!”

  Then the king’s generous heart rejoiced to make the gift: 350

  ‘You give me great joy in this hour, my brother! Take him!

  I’ll not say no to spoil your mood; we two are one.”

  The landlord raised his voice and called his shepherd then:

  “I here renounce my vested rights and give you all,

  tough body and proud soul, to my world-famous friend, 355

  for in his service, lad, you’ll find your heart’s desire.”

  The shepherd scowled, displeased, for on the hands and face

  of his new master he could smell the sea’s sharp brine,

  and though he spoke not, schemed how to escape him soon.

  He roamed his pastures round and bid his beasts goodbye: 360

  “Farewell, high mountains! Ah, farewell, my prize milch cows,

  don’t weep, I’ll come back soon, my oars across my back,

  and turn them into ladles then to stir your milk;

  I’ll bring you sea-salt in my fists, dear lady lambs,

  I go to sea like a black ram to browse on the sea’s salt!” 365

  The king’s thick flocks were herded soon into their pens;

  the sheep rolled down in rows, ram-bells and shéep-bells rang

  and tumbled down the mountain slopes like cataracts.

  Goats with thin silvery bells leapt down; their varied horns

  —curved kissing half-moons, spreading boughs, or taper-straight— 370

  flashed in the sun; the he-goat with his haughty tread

  led like a lowering god and clanged his clamorous bell.

  Last came a shaggy ram with twisted horns, blear-eyed,

  who dragged himself with pain, drained out by too much lust,

  for all day long he’d leapt and tupped his rutting ewes. 375

  A few goat-boys lagged in the rear to pry out some

  stray kids who’d fallen in crevices or craggy clefts.

  The king stood up to watch and revel in his great wealth

  and looked like a stout gelded ram with twisted horns.

  “How swiftly beasts increase in the charmed man’s enclosures,” 380

  he murmured with great pride, and then lay down once more.

  On low round stones before the penfolds, milkers sat

  and filled their caldrons and clay pots with frothing milk,

  while Rocky in a corner penned a herd of goats

  and chose a tender kid to slay for the king’s welcome. 385

  A shepherd’s supper soon was spread on the grassy lawns

  round which their lords reclined, and peasants sat cross-legged,

  while in the quickset hedge lambs bleated and goats brayed,

  and like a master shepherd the good king rejoiced

  to talk with the young goat-boys condescendingly. 390

  He bent his mouth close to his friend’s ear and whispered:

  “If God had not predestined me to rule my people,

  I’d be a shepherd browsing herds on these far hills.”

  The demon-driven man laughed low, and boldly answered:

  “If God predestined me as shepherd on these high crags 395

  I’d give my lambs to wolves, plunge to the fields, round up

  brave lads and be wolf-leader of a fierce wolf-pack.

  And if God chanced to make me a leader of a people,

  again I should cast off my crown with proud contempt

  and sail away, stripped bare, alone on a small raft. 400

  It suits me, brother, to fight fate with lance and spear!”

  The sweet-faced landlord did not like these brazen boasts:

  “Brother, do not blaspheme, for it’s man’s sacred duty

  to tag with calm behind whatever his fate ordains

  and trudge her road to the far verge his whole life long. 405

  This is the only way that we can match the gods,

  for they, too, follow their own road like banked-in streams.

  May God forgive me for this weighted word I fling:

  he is a god who follows his fate to its far end.”

  But the bold captain disagreed, and his hair flamed: 410

  “I think man’s greatest duty on earth is to fight his fate,

  to give no quarter and blot out his written doom.

  This is how mortal man may even surpass his god!”

  The startled king moved from his place as though he feared

  both might be struck beneath the pine by a just bolt: 415

  “His mind’s decayed, his heart’s grown bold, his doom stalks close,”

  he thought, then closed his eyelids, shuddered fitfully,

  and flattered sleep with secret wiles to come and take him.

  The sleepless archer stretched on quilts beneath the pine

  and marveled how the stars in the pine needles swayed 420

  slightly and fell amid night boughs like plundered petals.

  His eyes were still unsated with that rich-wrought field

  where stars gleamed town on town and whitened nest on nest;

  Zeus, that deceiving star, and Sirius, the night-prowler,

  blazed as the great Star-River rolled and drowned the night. 425

  He closed his eyes and thought that he had lain with joy

  to sleep at the sky’s roots, that the vast tree had bloomed,

  that pure-white blossoms fell and fell and showered his brain

  until his mind plunged down to sleep like flowering constellations.

  While the two kings slept on beside the hedgerow paling, 430

  Helen afar lay sleepless in her golden room

  attended by the chattering slaves she’d brought from Troy:

  ladies of noble birth who had once gleamed in courts

  but in black exile now had withered away with weeping.

  “Dear waiting-maids, good ladies, in my heart there rears 435

  that toppled tower, alas, and that far, fleeting joy.

  I hold in my hands like a white rose that limpid moon

>   which for the last time shed its glow on your dear homes

  that now lie threshed and ruined on the plundered sands.

  Somewhere a sweet wind blows, memory grows fresh, and what 440

  was lost on earth returns immortal to the mind;

  last night my old wounds swelled, my old desires returned,

  for in this palace stalked that murderous man whose snares

  toppled the famous walls of your far-distant land.”

  Thus the swan-seeded lady spoke, and threnodies 445

  fell like spring showers in a wooded valley glade.

  Their famous castle towered again, their houses gleamed,

  their chambers teemed with children, feasting boards were spread,

  soft beds were readied and the sweet strokes of hands began

  until the oil flames reared like wide-eyed witnesses. 450

  Then their heart’s threnody became a bitter song:

  “O swift bird fleeting through the sky, let down your wings

  that I might hang from your white neck and fly the fields,

  that my dry throat may be refreshed and smell of brine;

  then like the wild rock-partridge who has lost her young 455

  I’ll take my eyes alone with me, drink water only, 456

  roll in my country’s ashes wherever I may find them, 457

  and wail wherever I find my lone son’s cradle hung.”

  The sad tune broke in uncaressed and hopeless throats,

  for in the gray or black hair of each noble lady 460

  her precious castle shone, a bloodstained golden crown;

  Paris still rolled his curly head in Helen’s lap,

  and all, queen and her slave girls, sighed, made kindred all

  by aching passion for that far-off, bygone joy.

  While the sad slaves lamented, far in distant woods, 465

  in mingled moon and setting sun, cock-pheasants stepped

  and strutted round their females till their cockscombs swayed

  in all the erotic dance’s dizzying vertigo,

  and feathers molted till the female chose that male

  to crow in victory last who leapt the highest in light, 470

  then raised her tail and took the chosen seed deep down

  in her small flaming body and made it ever immortal.

  Amid old ruins, female spiders armed themselves,

  slung poison in their tails, stored venom in their veins,

  swelled up with lust and crawled to pounce upon a mate. 475

  In the sea’s glaucous depths the female cuttlefish

  lay on soft sand like a white bride, her belly trembling,

  and ink-black bridegrooms, struck with longing, swarmed close by,

  while emerald nights and days passed far above, and yet

  not one dared spread a tentacle to touch the bride. 480

  A fisher in his torch’s blaze threw soothing oil

  until the sea spread smooth and he could spy far down

  the erotic gathering as he cast his spear, and then

  slowly drew up the female cuttlefish with craft

  and scooped in nets the following and lascivious wooers. 485

  Air, sea, and land burst with lust’s frenzied vertigo,

  the mind, even like the heart, got drunk, and the queen sighed,

  dismissed her maids, and on her mother-of-pearl divan

  bent over the magic crystal eye to watch her fate.

  At first she could discern but a dark bubbling stream, 490

  then traced the water longingly from bank to bank

  till slowly in the flowing pool her eye discerned

  a small ship scudding, filled with hairy-chested men,

  and at the prow a pointed cap like a tall flame.

  But then she tossed her black locks, and the crystal moved, 495

  the murky waters rolled again and the ship vanished.

  Then slowly new signs etched themselves on the swift stream:

  bull-horns and golden palaces, full suns and moons,

  a bent old man who counted pearl-strings, bead by bead . . .

  But misted by the warm sun-lovely lady’s breath, 500

  the holy crystal drained, the pearled, immortal pool

  rolled sluggishly as a white swan sailed on its stream

  with straight, mute throat and vanished in her open bosom.

  All night she stooped above that crystal eye, entranced,

  and watched the swan pass like a dream through her dimmed brain; 505

  and thus her maidens found her stooped in heavy sleep,

  at daybreak, when they softly slipped into her golden chamber.

  But far in the high hills the Day Star leapt with fire

  and struck all rested eyelids, woke the dreaming kings,

  for mountain sleep had filled their weary bones with joy. 510

  They gorged themselves on goat’s milk, and in the young day

  hailed mountains, shepherds, sheep, then followed close behind

  by reed-slim Rocky, at whose tread the whole earth shook,

  plunged down the beetling mountain paths and slippery stones.

  A fierce sirocco rose and the olive trees turned silver, 515

  struggled and howled as if to uproot themselves from earth;

  the grainfields, still uncut, tossed like a troubled sea,

  and raging clouds of thickening dust eclipsed the sun.

  “A wrathful god swoops through my fields and stalks my wealth!”

  So thought the’ regal landlord as he whipped his steeds; 520

  they tossed their necks and snorted, tore through the far fields,

  shot through the vineyards, groves, and grain like lightning bolts,

  swept up the palace’s steep road at drop of noon

  and beat on the great castle gates with foaming breasts.

  Helen was standing on the tower with rapturous joy 525

  as the wind’s savage tumult struck and swept her mind.

  She wore a rose-flame gown embroidered with gold wheat,

  a silver-winged cicada kept an ardent guard

  on one pale shoulder while an ivory half-moon sank

  with deep fear in her bosom’s dark and downy cleft. 530

  Her blue-black hair, new-washed with magic perfumed balms,

  coiled like a castle round her head in three tall tiers,

  and as the great gale struck her by the tower, she seemed

  like a long flame that licked the battlements with greed.

  Her black eyes gazed far out beyond the fruited fields 535

  and broad Eurotas that rolled on to the far sea,

  laden with laurel, myrtle, osier and rose-bay.

  Suddenly on the reed-glad bank far off, the two

  great kings shone like two insects, like two golden scarabs,

  and Helen sent her slaves to the high tower to call them. 540

  After the tiring journey, Menelaus longed

  to sink in lukewarm water and ease his weary flesh

  that he might come before his people cooled, refreshed,

  and watch his young men playing at their skillful games.

  But the home-wrecker lightly leapt the tower stairs 545

  two at a time, shining with youth, to talk with Helen,

  and the seductress felt her soul, like a small bird,

  leap, too, in her notorious body, and flap its wings,.

  but she reined back her fright, gazed at the ground, and smiled.

  Then the soul-snatcher slowly stalked his tender prey, 550

  a lion who in the water’s glitter spies a doe,

  but when he could have stretehed his hand and seized her throat

  he stood before her heavily and held back his strength.

  Slowly the god born lady raised her downy eyes,

  looked in the sly abductor’s face and boldly spoke: 555

  “In that strange eye you gave me once to watch my soul,

  I stoo
d by a black prow beneath your shade, Odysseus!”

  Before the seaman’s eyes there flashed his bloodstained dream

  —the godlike amputated flesh—and his heart softened:

  “I heard your cry borne on the wind, and I’ve come, Helen. 560

  Your soul must not go lost and leave no trace behind.”

  She moved her black arched eyebrows and her painted lips:

  “One night when I felt choked with restlessness, I strolled

  on the sun-terrace, raised my arms, and called you twice.

  I’ve never called but that the air’s become a man; 565

  now here you stand full in the sun, and just behind you

  I see a ship with hoisted sail, a sunburnt crew,

  and all my future tossing on the endless waves.”

  Then she fell silent, watching the far fields, the hills

  and the old river that cut through earth like a slim snake. 570

  She smiled, and in her smile the whole world suddenly seemed

  to be a deep, round, miracle-working crystal sphere

  in which her shadow slowly passed like a black swan,

  but when she turned, no tremor shook her crystal voice:

  “When will you come to take me, midnight or break of day?” 575

  The heart-seducer touched her sun-bright shoulder gently:

  “At break of day; we’ll stand by my ship’s prow by dusk.”

  Then they fell silent, and Helen left the tower serenely

  to gather her rich garments and her precious gems,

  for none should go to war without their proper weapons. 580

  As the home-wrecker from the watchtower cast his eyes

  on the far fields, a trenchant longing suddenly seized him

  to shriek out shrilly like a hunting hawk high in the air.

  At length the people left their threshing joyfully,

  descended to the river, washed themselves, then climbed 585

  to sit at ease on the palaestra’s shady stairs.

  The workers’ faces glittered as at length they stretched

  their scraggly bodies on stone seats, worn smooth by time,

  and gaped at archons dressed in white who sat on thrones

  and held tall gold-tipped staffs, like tribal chiefs or kings. 590

  Far down, on sandy stretches fenced by river reeds,

  the young men chafed with longing for the games to start,

  and like crisp water-sprites shone in the sun’s refulgence.

  The callow youths were parted in three warring camps.

  At one side, an old gymnast talked to the workers’ sons 595

  to put them on their mettle and whip up their pride: