between the vineyards of God and man and chokes our hearts.
Earth spreads out southward, lads, and the mind plucks a rose,
then hangs it down his echoing ear and bursts in song!”
He spoke, and two bright dolphins gleamed far off and chased
each other like two golden gods in play, then sank 1015
once more in foam and plunged within their emerald caves,
and in the archer’s eyes the two plump dolphins shone,
a lustrous pair, as though thoughts flashed in the mind’s eye.
Diktena in the sun next day unloosed her hair,
braided, unbraided, combed it, and sang a tender song; 1020
but neither did she keen her wretched father’s death
nor weep for her fair native land now wrecked by fire.
She smelled approaching Africa on the sweet breeze,
tall palm trees sprang like cooling fountains in her mind,
thick honey-filled bananas, pulpy prickly pears, 1025
till in the maiden’s velvet eyes there swiftly flashed
a stud-descended river-god with his blue beard.
Though but a virgin not quite twelve, a promised bride,
she’d gone to grant her flower to the rutting god.
Thus did the musk-maid sing, cross-legged upon the prow, 1030
and five rough souls fell silent and perused her song:
“Wine is a beast that butts, god is a beast that kills,
the virgin too, dear God, is a beast when her time comes.
She beats her mother with hard words, her brother too,
nor at the bed’s far edge or center seems at ease: 1035
‘Dear Mother, I can’t sleep; I dread my sleepless nights.
I walk in gardens, Mother, and fragrance makes me faint,
I sit at my loom, Mother, and patterns come alive
till from the circling hem sea captains file in rows
and laugh and come alive, Mother, and sit in my lap 1040
until I cry with pain and all the neighbors hear.’
Three years ago—today the fourth year starts—I wept
at my poor loom till Father’s heart was stirred with pity:
‘Your breasts are hurting, child, set sail for Africa,
the male god there will work his wonders on the sands; 1045
with his great grace and strength, my child, you’ll soon get well.’
They armed a pure-white frigate with a pitch-black mast,
they sat a shaggy god astride the splitting prow
and soon one night we slid in Africa’s black embrace.
‘Where’s the seducing god? On whose door shall I knock?’ 1050
They laved me with strong balms, they dragged me to the river,
and my bare breasts and myrrh-washed tresses steamed with scent.
And when the storks had closed their wings and the sun sank,
I stepped down God’s dark staircase, roamed his garden close
until the cool mute moon rose In the misty date trees 1055
and I crouched naked in the ancient river’s beard
and held a pomegranate and bit a myrtle twig,
and my nude belly glowed in dusk like virgin woods.
I crouched and heard the feet of men crunch on the sands,
night brimmed with scent, sprawled naked by the riverside 1060
and sighed like a ripe maiden gnawed by solitude,
and I, too, sighed and felt her deep nostalgic pain.
With heavy-lidded eyes, I leant on flowering jasmine,
a breeze blew, veiled my belly with white blooms, and still
I waited for the god to mount me in a man’s shape. 1065
Sleep seized me for a moment, though it seemed like years:
I saw a mother writhe in childbirth on hot sands;
her bowels burst, she shrieked and, with the cry, cast up
a baby girl as though it were a prickly pear.
Then rain poured down, God fell in showers on mother and child, 1070
and the poor mother sank in mud next day, and died,
and her small orphaned daughter screamed with hunger pains.
A tigress with full aching udders heard the child
and came each dusk and suckled her, and came each noon
and combed her russet hair with her long rasping tongue. 1075
Twelve years the tigress-daughter grew on the hot sands,
and on her twelfth she felt her woman’s strength at last.
Then she looked right, and yawned, looked left and soon began
to shout in the still desert and to scream in rain:
‘I am a woman now, and my breasts rise like towers, 1080
I can’t hold back my strength much longer, I want war;
I raise my weapons and march forth, let men beware!
I am a woman now, a cooling well that floods
the sands till barren earth sprouts flowers and brims with men.
I am a woman now, I conquer death with kisses!’ 1085
The young girl shouted, loosed her hair and rouged her breasts
then came toward dawn on a great city with tall towers,
with strong bull-smelling youths and opulent old men.
In the cool shadows by the castle gate she stood;
all roads beneath her feet rolled down like tumbling streams 1090
as from her echoing’ throat there brimmed the sweetest song.
Guides and their beasts stood still, all strong gatekeepers gaped,
the young men seized their weapons, the rich locked their shops,
all pregnant women heard and cast their sons too soon,
but still the unruffled girl sang on with lifted throat. 1095
At dusk they spread for her the hides of snow-white bulls,
and when the young girl whirled in dance, with flowing hair,
men’s curly locks caught fire, all castles burst in flame,
and caravans stopped far off and watched the leaping blaze:
‘That’s neither a castle burning nor a shepherd’s fire, 1100
a maiden must have stripped her breasts for a man’s sake!’
Three nights she danced and burned, but when the third sun rose,
she moaned, then shrieked and fell down dead on the white hides.
And I, too, shrieked, leapt up in fright, and my dream vanished;
but straight above me, with his curly deep-blue beard 1105
God smiled, and his sweet lightning bolts flashed in his hands.
Ah, both my breasts caught fire, my yielding thighs gave way,
and all night long I laughed and played deep in his arms
and then at dawn I bowed to his great marble phallus,
laved it with honeyed thyme, and as a necklace hung 1110
my double golden breastplates and my crimson girdle,
and felt God kicking in my womb like a small child.
Set sail, my lads, our God has had my maidenhead;
haul high a red sail on my vessel’s mizzenmast
that my dead father may rejoice to glimpse it from afar.” 1115
Diktena laughed and stopped her undulating song,
blinked her flirtatious eyes, and then her serpent tongue
flicked from her throat gone dry, and licked her scarlet lips.
Rocky glanced fiercely at the maid crouched by the prow,
but she had coiled on the archer’s knees like a sly snake. 1120
When stars at last had twined the sky with jasmine vines,
the comrades’ minds grew calm, night spread upon the waves
like an erotic feast-day until the entire crew
sank in the flowering groves of sleep and in their arms
clasped Africa as though they clasped their virgin bride. 1125
Meanwhile the archer, whose bold mind disdained mere dreams,
took Diktena at midnight in his arms with stealth,
and she,
a virgin twelve years old, unskilled in play,
trembled in the man’s arms, adored him like a god
as both twined round each other’s limbs with joy, and merged 1130
like twin sweet almonds nestling in their milky husk.
At daybreak the sly man detached himself, and laughed,
then turning to his crew’s lust-laden eyes, he said:
“Good waking to you, men! Now tell me of your dreams.
I dreamt that I held Africa in my arms all night!” 1135
But the crew felt that on his lustful lips a kiss
still padded like a savage beast, still rose and fell
on the dark cliffs and chasms of his hairy body;
they laughed, and scratched their thorny beards with upturned palms.
A strong gale gripped them from the north, and they stopped rowing; 1140
the sea-horizon bent like a taut bow in which their ship,
arrow of some great hero, sped like a swift swallow.
The comrades talked about a hundred topics then;
one brought to mind his native town, one old desires,
and one let loose his mind far south and tried to guess 1145
what they would see and do in Africa’s hot suns.
Wind-spinning Orpheus spun tall tales of dragon lore:
“It’s said the dragons know that all their monstrous strength
hangs by a small, small hair that crowns their massive heads,
but others feed between theire eyebrows a red ant 1150
whose death would cause their dragon souls to melt away.
Old tales, yet I believe them; water, stones, and air
hold mighty secrets, but how can man’s grubbing soul
see them, since all day long it pokes in earth for food?”
The wretched mudlark sighed, and the spread-eagles laughed, 1155
but then the lone man scolded his unfeeling crew:
“Don’t poke fun at the piper’s words, O lame-brained fools;
I see them like the spry cock-pheasant’s gaudy wings:
they fly like man’s prismatic, hollow fantasies,
but brothers, when the hunter catches them and plucks them, 1160
he’ll find firm flesh to eat, strong brains to knit his soul.
I have no red ant on my brow, no dragon’s hair,
but in my heart I hold a secret, and that’s my strength.
Listen, dear friends, and I’ll reveal that secret now.”
The salt tars stretched their hungry necks, their minds gaped wide, 1165
and then their beast-emboldened master laughed with joy:
“Remember, comrades, that in dreams our shoulders sprout
with soaring wings, our hearts swell up with monstrous strength.
Though armies of our foes spring up, we hitch our belts,
leap over plunging chasms and dash on toward the fight, 1170
one against thousands, in a fine contempt of death,
so long as our salvation’s secret flares in sleep,
for all life is a pallid dream, an airy toy.”
Then the mind-archer laughed, plunged his hand in the sea,
splashed all his crew companions with the salty spray 1175
and shot the arrow of his double glance with skill:
“All life is a brief dream: I know that I shall wake
and all my deadly dangers and provoking pains,
so soon as the black cock shall crow, will fade in air.” 1179
Mutely his comrades raised his words in their hushed minds; 1180
like a black cloud which swiftly spreads above a field
and covers all in a cool mantle of fine mist,
thus did his words drift over them and fog their souls;
but when they woke at daybreak, strengthened by strong sleep,
then Granite frowned and hit back with a bold reply: 1185
“Last night you shot at us your light and poisoned arrows
nor even thought, man-killer, that our knees might buckle.
If life’s a toy, a dream, how shameful then to strive
and lick the quarry’s shadow on the ground, like dogs.
Better to raise our hands and tear the nets which sleep 1190
the weaver weaves, and let our souls fly off like dreams.”
The archer tied the sail-ropes first, and then replied:
“I like the dream, and I for one will raise no hand,
but if you want to know who made us drunk, then hear
my words, unpeel them if you can, eat and grow strong: 1195
Learn that it’s I who serve and also drink my blood,
it’s I who hang about my mind the jester’s bells,
and then, ahoy, I clap my hands, cackle and jig!”
But Granite closed his mouth, and Orpheus softly spoke:
“Lads, though I know quite well that life is but a myth, 1200
I’ve not the strength to serve myself and get drunk too;
a great king pours me wine and I, his fool, get drunk.”
Then the fat guzzler groaned and shook the mizzenmast:
“Faugh, but I’m dizzy! All words, wings, and no red meat!
I’m hungry! It’s time to spread our humble victuals now, 1205
and if our roast is shadow, Granite, as you’ve just said,
by God, I’d like to know one day what real meat’s like!”
He spoke, and all fell greedily on red-blooded meat,
but Diktena curled tightly round the archer’s knees,
and thought they spoke of dreams with brainless male bravado. 1210
How they forgot the kiss, the only certain good!
But she said nothing, glad to tame her hunger now,
and munched her food in silence like a newborn calf
and waited patiently for sleep’s alluring hours
that she might crawl in her man’s arms and drain him like a leech. 1215
On the next day the waves began to grow light-green,
and Rocky, as he fondled the sea-meadows, thought:
“The great god of this sea must be a kingly shepherd
who drives his flocks to pasture with his crooked staff.”
And the world-wanderer opened wide his mind’s deep pit 1220
and welcomed the green waters with their mud and seaweed;
as rivers silt the earth, his mind filled up with shale.
Then at long last, toward sundown, coasts shone softly rose
and beaches swarmed with life, fishing boats crossed the waves,
and slim, bronze-plated warcraft, many-storied galleys 1225
with tiers of rowing slaves who sang a worker’s song.
A blue dusk fell, then night, and in the steaming haze
prows passed with strange erotic bowsprits, hawk-nosed gods,
and huge dung-beetles bearing suns on their black backs.
Unslaked Odysseus watched all with attentive eyes: 1230
“Comrades, the earth is endless, like the soul of man.
Open your eyes and plunder all, stuff your chests full,
I see great order, blind obedience, antheaps of men,
for other gods—half men, half beasts—rule in this land;
open your skulls, my lads, let this world enter too!” 1235
He spoke, and their bones creaked, their savage bosoms opened,
for the new partridge-snare spread now like drunkenness,
embroidered with blue skies, strange prows, and muddy loam.
Slender white storks flew swiftly through the violet air
and in their narrow beaks black water-serpents writhed; 1240
two red flamingos paired, then smoothly rowed and flashed
like two enraptured thoughts and sailed on toward the sun.
The archer’s restless heart for a brief moment calmed
and tightly merged with the upper world in brotherhood
for earth seemed now most pure, good for the hear
t of man. 1245
At length they slid with slow oars on the sandy beach.
“Welcome, dark Africa! Lay up your oars, my lads,
for night has fallen; we’ll breach the river’s mouth at dawn.”
The archer spoke, and was the first to leap ashore.
All scattered, gathered brushwood, built a blazing fire, 1250
then cooked a fish stew, brimmed their gourds with heady wine
till their brains laughed and cackled like the seething drink.
But the mind-spinner, mute, unmoving, watched the shore, 1253
as the broad river like a blood vein coursed his mind,
then heaved a sigh and spilled his wine cup on the sands: 1255
‘We’ve moored, friends, by the mightiest river on all earth.
Its wellhead, like God’s own, is hidden, dark, untouched;
some think it springs from the sky and falls like cataracts,
others, that earth’s own entrails burst to give it birth,
others descend it from the high snow-covered mountains; 1260
no one has seen as yet its deathless swaddling clothes.
Three men once vowed to row their life long toward the south: 1262
white-haired grandfather, sturdy son, and downy grandson.
After ten years, the grandfather died with oars in hand,
and his son thrust him deep in earth and seized the oars; 1265
he passed through towns, waste valleys, rains, and scorching heat,
his hands froze at the oars, his hair turned snowy white,
but still the river flowed and seemed to have no end.
Then after forty years he sighed and crossed his oars:
‘I’m dying, dear son, receive my blessing, take up my oars, 1270
and don’t give up these weapons, drink at the spring’s root!’
The grandson cast his father in the stream and clawed
both oars, then all alone rowed on the deathless waters.
For forty years he rowed until his hands grew numb;
he went from stubbornness to spite, his mind forged on: 1275
Where will you take me? You’ve eaten father and grandfather too,
but I shall drink your deathless water one day, for spite!’
Long rows of years, like caravans, drifted down the banks,
the young man’s mouth gaped toothless, his hair thinned and fell,
his legs grew crooked and his fingers stank with wounds, 1280
but still the exhaustless endless stream poured from the south
and like a date leaf his prow sailed the infinite tide.
And when on the stooped grandson hopeless old age fell