The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel
for a short while, then, plants and beasts and men had time 1165
to stretch their carefree legs and raise a bit of crust
until on her thick hide she felt with mild annoyance
the myriad lice-race softly crawl and saunter by;
but when she scratched herself, all fell in tangled heaps,
and when she yawned, swift earthquakes gulped the towns 1170
till she could get some air and sink in seas again.
But just before she sank in waves or plunged in mire
the archer grasped one of her columns tight, and roared:
“Dame Crete, don’t sink again before my mind’s revenged!”
The slayer was growling still when footsteps sounded near 1175
as the gate suddenly opened and two gold-plumed lords,
as squat as jars, spoke greetings in a shrilling voice:
“The true son of the Bull-God, the sea’s unconquered king,
has with great royal kindness deigned to let you see him!”
With golden staffs, they showed the way through the dark halls; 1180
long rows of empty cellars, old worm-eaten stairs,
moss-covered gaping towers, and balconies half-fallen—
as though the palace once had been a dragon’s armor
where now his thin debilitated grandson sailed.
In the black wall a secret door gaped suddenly 1185
and a great golden room spread to their startled eyes.
Between tall double-axes on a high throne, the prow
of a great sea-battling ship, the monarch proudly sat
like a majestic sea-god carved from a huge pearl
and leant upon a coral tree that rose to his right. 1190
On low thrones round him, old sea-skippers sat and stank
like withered apples with their hairless senile flesh;
behind them sat plump eunuchs, guards of God and maids,
sly dream-interpreters, and bath-attending lords.
Naked young pages, all adorned with peacock plumes, 1195
some holding incense-burners, others long-stemmed lilies,
bedecked the throne like rich festoons and shone like snakes.
Idomeneus placed then in a goldsmith’s hand
a ball of solid gold, large as an infant’s head,
to carve God’s blessing richly on a holy rhyton. 1200
He ordered the skilled goldsmith to remember all:
“God stood on high and I stood straight on earth before him,
the great sun hung low to my right, the full moon left,
so that their double beams met in my dazzled eyes.
God spread his hands and gave into my trust the firm 1205
round disk of earth with all its souls and mighty laws.
I did not move, and held the whole world in my palms;
God questioned, and I stared straight in his eyes and answered.
I questioned too, and he replied like a true friend.
Gather your wits, O goldsmith, teach your crafty hands 1210
how to immortalize this meeting in pure gold.
Make infinite what lasted but a lightning flash on earth!”
He spoke, dismissed the goldsmith with a regal gesture,
then turning slowly with his half-shut snaky eyes,
suddenly hissed, and hailed the royal pair before him: 1215
“Great is the Bull-God’s joy this holy night to take
and taste in his wide mouth sun-lovely radiant Helen;
even though Chance is blind, God leads her by the hand.
Welcome, tall lily of the air, immaculate flower
that you may also hang from the god’s golden horns.” 1220
His mocking eyes gazed downward on the cunning man
but his soul trembled, for his mind divined some evil:
“Quite well do I recall your slanting sea-capped head;
somewhere on neighboring beaches once we met by fate—
you were a common shepherd, then, in a poor farm; 1225
yet got to be the frequent comrade of great kings
because your crafty brains gave birth to wiles and tricks.”
But the quick-tempered man reined in his heart and brain
and soothed his mind, recalling how in the dread cave
he stood erect before the one-eyed monster, Cyclops, 1230
and in clay basins poured out wine for that tricked brute.
“Hold tight your miseries, O my heart, and lick your leash,
put on a pleasing face, smile now and pour with skill
the new bright wine you bear here: Helen’s wanton eyes.”
The nimble-fingered weaver chose what woof to weave 1235
then signaled with his eyes to her for whom Troy fell,
and she with fear ascended the throne’s golden steps,
and with her rose and flickered that great lady, Fire.
Then the decrepit king sank his exhausted hands
in her bright hair till its perfumes unhinged his brain: 1240
“Warm is the earth, the hills are fragrant, and horns sway.
O heifer Helen, the Bull-God roars deep in my loins!”
The eunuchs smiled with pallid lips and swung their necks
so that their golden earrings tinkled jauntily.
The king spread out his hands, his wily eyes grew glazed: 1245
“Dear Bull-God, large-eyed father, when on the great waves
you saw this new bride coming with her naked breasts,
you bellowed as you licked your lustful, lustrous thighs.
Your grace is double, double your mind, and your horns double!
I know now why in my thick nets you would not snare 1250
my virgin daughter whom nine hunted night and day.
Let heralds with their conches blare in towns and hills
that God has found his bride, let Krino and her troop
dance with no fear now on the sacred threshing floor.”
Thus spoke the senile king and shook with smothered passion 1255
as the sly weaver watched the old man swirl in rings
and vanish in the whirlpools of his spinning mind.
Though frightened Helen signaled with her eyes for help,
feeling the beast’s deep breath already on her back,
bespurred Odysseus saw her quake, and was not moved: 1260
“Many think she’s a goddess and bow to her great power,
others embrace her as a woman and lose their wits,
for me she’s but a singing decoy-bird in my god’s hands.”
He brooded in his brain, then set the king a snare:
“With hand on heart, I bow low and salute the Bull! 1265
He stood a fisher on Crete’s shores, and pulled me in
with all my ships, deep in his bloody nets of love;
we sail now in his holy mouth—his will be done!
Helen, how fortunate! You’ll lie in the bronze cow,
for God is good and loves the fragrant smell of man.” 1270
But bitter gall rose in the king’s suspicious eyes:
“O treacherous man, even as you spoke, I knew quite well
what crafty trap you leant against my castle walls.
I loathe that man with blinders on who his life long
turns like a beast the slippery well-pump of his brain 1275
and, like a sterile mule, breaks no untrodden road.
And now you place the same snare by my castle walls:
a bronze cow with a white flame in its womb—fair Helen!
But my ax-bearing heavy God can smash all wills,
and you’ve come vainly to my house with torch in hand; 1280
O crafty fox, you’re caught now in my own god’s snare!”
Odysseus cast his piercing glances round him then
and reckoned that their skulls encased but thinner brains
and that God never thrusts his strength in d
ouble-axes
but in the muscular strong hands that hold them tight. 1285
Idomeneus watched the archer’s glances thrust
like swelling firebrands amid his myriad wealth
and said, as though his crooked brain decided then:
“I hold earth on my back, life is my heavy duty,
it’s only just that with my heels I crush this flame 1290
that rears its tongue, or it will swell and burn me down,
because, O evil-footed man, in every home you’ve stepped 1292
you came with torch to set a conflagration blazing.” 1293
Then the flame-sower felt deep fear, yet held his dread:
“There is a god of friendship who defends pure love. 1295
I came like an old friend to knock on your bronze gate,
and hold no blazing torch but only friendship’s apple.”
The king then turned to his plump eunuchs mockingly:
“This man who passed and stole his trusting best friend’s wife
dares talk of friendship! Why has the earth not swallowed him?” 1300
“A God commanded! I swear I wept till my heart broke!”
“And God was wise to thrust you deep in the Bull’s belly.
Try to escape now from his twisting, torturous guts!”
He spoke, and all the eunuchs laughed, till once again
their golden earrings tinkled in their downy ears. 1305
Helen then placed her suppliant hands on the king’s knees,
and round her neck a vixen’s blazing colors flashed:
“I swear I left my happy hearth of my free will.
A great god seized me and I followed joyously;
he came to play with me on grass like a white bull, 1310
then suddenly bellowed, shook himself, plunged in the waves
and placed me at your golden feet, still drenched with foam.
Now I rejoice to know you are the Bull-God truly.”
The king closed both his eyes, her voice seemed honey-sweet,
and she rejoiced, whose speech was cool as fragrant flowers, 1315
and her much-kissed and ruby mouth sang out once more:
“I ask one favor only for my wedding gift:
dear bridegroom, do not touch my sorrow-laden friend.”
Her body’s crackling warmth rose in the old kings brain:
“For your dear sake, my bride, I shall protect his head 1320
though God within me shouts it’s high time, Helen, now,
for his sly brains and eyes to vanish from the earth.”
He turned then to the archons of the women’s quarters:
“Go tell my Serpent Sisters to lave Helen’s body
with thick balms and aromas, and to teach her how, 1325
in seven days and nights, to mingle with God sweetly.
Let her lie on my daughter Diktena’s divan
but let not my cursed daughter Phida touch her ever.
Her friends shall be our guests in the rich archons’ room,
to eat and sleep as it befits a monarch’s wealth; 1330
their hated heads are guarded by the hand of Helen.
But never let them once take wing to flee the palace,
but keep them locked like eagles in a golden cage
so they won’t fly in light or their souls slip my claws.
Let the page boys remain; it’s time I bathed my body 1335
to give my flesh new strength and grace, to cool my mind,
for all night long I’ve battled with my heavy God.”
He spoke, the drowsy noblemen and eunuchs rose,
slaves ran from everywhere with torches, some bent low
and raised the heavy-laden, gold-decked king on high. 1340
The naked page boys, shaking golden perfume flasks
ran on ahead, sprinkling the way with flower-water,
and last of all the castle-wrecker strode: his soul
flashed fire from his twenty finger tips and toes,
and his gaunt head, all seven stories high, swayed in the air. 1345
VI
The cocks had not yet crowed, the shimmering stars still burned,
and earth, filled with closed eyelids and crossed hands, slept on
within an azure, cooling darkness flooded with fine mist
and sweetly dreamt that the great sun had risen already.
The Serpent Sisters raised their hands to the high hills, 5
their arms still tingling in the frosty breath of night,
and with their painted mouths sought to allure their god
to plunge to earth now in the guise of a strong bull,
“Descend, Bull-God! We’ve brought you cooling water here,
the feeding trough of earth now brims with meadow grass 10
and an unmounted calf shines in the greening pastures.
Come down to earth, male god, if it should please you now!
The wine vats seethe with wine, and the old crones have baked
you bread to tame your mind and sweeten your wild flesh.
By the great gate a pale unmounted virgin waits 15
and trembles, and her breasts are bare to the four winds;
she waits for you to come like a groom with his sweet knife.
Descend, Bull-God, on Mother Earth, and mount her now!
She lifts her tail like a young cow and moos and moans;
when shall your gilded horns shine from the high mountains?” 20
The Serpent Sisters shrieked and raised their gleaming throats
and crystal hands toward the high hills and waited, trembling.
The dew descended from the mountains, light, cool-plumed;
and like a white dove in smoke-silver olive groves
the Morning Star came down and played, blazing with light. 25
A tiny hoarse-voiced cock leapt on a roof and turned
his callow and inexpert neck to hail the sun
—that gaudy, spurred cock-pheasant with his gilded cockscomb—
and the sun, listening to his grandchild, leapt and shone.
A downy, milky light licked all the mountain rims, 30
spilled gurgling down the gleaming slopes, stone after stone,
and when a cypress tree saw it afar, it smiled
as though red roses climbed its peak and blossomed there;
a bent old shepherd led his flock, and his white beard
kindled like brushwood when he turned toward the bright slopes, 35
and his stout shepherd’s staff was splattered with fine gold.
The palace roofs then laughed, the double-axes woke,
the sacred snakes woke also and uncoiled in light,
and all the twisted bull-horns shone like crescent moons.
What joy the sun’s hot eye must feel, dear God, to watch 40
the world each morning hatch in light like a huge egg!
The brazen castle gates of day creaked open slowly,
the brains of men cracked wide, and thoughts like dithering larks
awoke and soared straight in the light, all wing and song.
Men wrapped their sashes round their waists, maids combed their, hair, 45
girls opened their black eyes enwreathed with violet paint,
and dressed like stars for festival—this was a rare day!
All climbed up chattering to the highest tiers of stone
where the poor sat and watched the archons’ ritual ring.
The sunburnt heads of males in wheatfields waved like grain, 50
their gleaming eyes burned in the misty light, the shells
worn round their necks and their brass bracelets laughed and tinkled.
Young girls then turned their eyes with stealth toward the great palace—
when would the bronze gates open, God, and spew forth all
the haughty palace dames with their patrician bearing? 55
The ancient gossips babbled on and on, their tongues
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clacked on like spinning wheels from morn to night, nor stopped;
the married matrons roared with laughter, maidens blushed,
and in the increasing rose of dawn all came to light—
chins, bosoms and cosmetics—till each maiden sighed: 60
“O strong Bull-God, grant that your grace may fall on me!”
But all at once all faces glowed, then chitchat stopped,
the palace gates sprang open and the hallways gleamed:
painted, bare-breasted, newly bathed with flaming graces,
the curly-haired and carefully decked grand dames appeared, 65
swaying and strutting step by step, ruffling their plumes
like wriggling wagtails, and perched, slow-winged, on the stone stairs.
Flickering in early morning mist like lustrous stars,
their earrings, bracelets, their ancestral neckwear gleamed,
and a sweet scent of musk flowed through the ritual ring. 70
Behind them toddled their pale-faced and wrinkled lords,
tall tufts of feathers on their heads, gold staves in hand,
with narrow painted lips like wounds that would not close.
Then the mob hushed, gaping like babes on wealth and lords,
and thus forgot their griefs, swept far by gold and glitter. 75
Scornful Odysseus sat among the sallow archons
and with his grappling glance cut through and scanned their heads:
“So this is Mother Earth,” he thought, “and these her children,
painted and pallid, a foot in the grave, awaiting the sun!”
He turned then to his glowering friend who crouched beside him: 80
“Hardihood, aren’t you pleased now with the upper world,
the handsome men that walk the earth, and their sweet maids
whose hair, new-washed, still smells of fragrant laurel oil?”
But his friend growled like a ship’s dog and would not answer.
The myriad-willed man harrowed with his gripping glance 85
the ladies, lords, and the vapid antheaps seated high
until an unforeseen compassion blurred his mind.
He turned once more with hushed voice to his stubborn friend:
“I never tire of watching how they walk on stone,
blossom like trees, and bare their throats like radiant stars. 90
They open earthen eyes, and all the world is born,
their earthen breasts become immortal spurting springs,
and I smell deeply now their sweat and their sweet breathing.
The hot brief flash is good where all earth’s creatures move,
live, laugh, and weep, and sun themselves on fragrant soil. 95