then turning southward once more stretched his bowstring taut
and cut the quiet air with a new conjuring spell: 445
“You too, O gallant South Wind, with your downy cheeks,
bring us your crinkly black-skinned men, your clouds, your rain,
your precious ivory tusks, your hides, your heavy gold.
Enter our castle like the prince of fabulous tales,
dark-skinned, with wet and sweating hair, with slender hands, 450
followed by long, long rows of camels and bronze bells.
Prince South Wind, here’s your castle gate with silver knockers!
O East Wind, from whose golden egg the day is hatched,
and you, West Wind, whose keys unlock all doors at night,
O my great brothers, I shall build you towering gates 455
that your proud necks and handsome bodies may not stoop
when with twelve princesses you come at dawn or dusk
to stroll amid our narrow lanes with silver sandals!”
These conjurations the gate-sower cried aloud
as he shot fiercely at the four foundational winds, 460
and chosen gallants dashed along the arrowy paths
to find the swift bronze wings and set up boundary stones.
When fate’s full circle had been finished and bound firm,
all marched with axes, spades, and hoes to dig foundations,
and when four corners reached the depth of two tall men, 465
the archer exorcised the cornerstones with blood.
At first he slew six cocks, then six fat hens, those twelve
great gods whom once upon a time on azure shores
he’d worshiped with both fear and joy, to his great shame;
but now he cut their throats to bless new battlements 470
and longed for a new guide, called on another god:
“I slay you twelve slaves, Lord! O, crush them with your feet!
May these twelve ancient thoughts of mine, my brain’s old toys.
crow in your spacious courts each dawn and lay their eggs!”
When he had slain his twelve old gods, he longed for a still 475
more glorious votive gift to bless his city walls,
and slit his left hand’s regal vein and poured his blood:
“Good are the springs of Mother Earth, and good her milk,
good is wine also, and the strutting peacock, too,
who spreads his tail and strolls in the Cimmerian skull; 480
and man’s and woman’s sweat is also holy, good,
miraculous, and falls like heavy seed on earth
to fructify her sweetly and to wreathe with pearls
the sacred brow of virtue; but that huge red rose,
that mystic flaming beast, the blood of a proud man, 485
I hold to be the greatest spell of all to bless
and found gods, castles, or great thoughts. I pour my blood
to root your city firm, to raise a bristling camp,
tall towers for you to lean on, and a hard stone head
to guard your stubborn mind! O heavily wounded Soul, 490
O Bird, I spread you food and drink: come down to perch!”
He spoke, leapt from the pit, and portioned out each task:
one gang of workers hewed the stones, one cut down trees,
one great group built the walls, another chased wild game,
old women fought the ovens, maidens kneaded bread, 495
and all sang workers’ songs to lighten their new tasks.
Men’s voices rang and clashed, but like sweet silver bells
or gurgling water ran the women’s warbling tunes
till glutton thought of old times with a sighing heart:
“Alas, if only you were here to play, dear piper, 500
the stones would mount up by themselves, one on the other,
and our whole town would rise without one armpit’s sweat;
but now, where can you be, my dear, what roads devour you?”
But to his moaning sigh no soul replied, for all
were twittering like the happy birds of spring, entranced 505
with love, who built their nests in which to lay their god
like a huge egg that he might hatch them sons and daughters soon.
Time passed as swiftly as a bird’s bright honeymoon,
trowels and cleavers flashed, the smell of new-cut wood
rose as the town climbed like a tree and filled the air 510
while souls soared with it like ecstatic singing birds.
When they stopped work at sunset and pressed round their fires,
the archer strove with patience to etch his dread god
deep in the hard flint minds of his most simple people:
“Now hear me, brothers, and cock your minds, for I shall speak: 515
God does not sit enthroned on clouds nor in black Hades,
nor flits like empty shades through man’s imagination,
but he, too, walks the barren earth and struggles with us.
At times he turns into a plowman after the spring
rains fall, or to a boatman tossed by foaming seas, 520
at times into a soldier who grafts his blood with ours.
Now he’s become a master-mason for whom we fetch
stones, wood, mud, souls, and as he works with joy, he sings.
When the day’s work was done last night, I saw him stand
to watch what had been built and munch a crust of bread; 525
his long beard in the sunset gleamed like burning thorns,
and as he smiled he murmured happily, Well done!’”
The people listened, and at dawn when all hacked wood
or fetched mud hurriedly, or built their walls, all felt
they hewed and built their god’s great body on firm earth. 530
Slowly the town took form in sun and filled with sound,
crenels and ramparts rose, the four broad town gates shone
till streets and lanes with all their tributaries rolled
like streams with still unfinished homes on the far banks.
“Ah, how the great thoughts of a full man spread their roots 535
upon the ground and then take shape with sticks and stones,”
the lone man murmured as he watched his craftsmen toil.
He judged each soul in action, marked deep in his brain
each strength, each bodily movement, and each grace of mind;
he’d picked already what great workers were most firm 540
with their sharp tools of trade for earth, or sea, or air,
yet placed above them the sharp-spoken and cruel lancers
who held the keys of manliness, the seal of honor,
but highest, the mind-battlers, the full fruit of strife.
The town formed like a body in the archer’s mind; 545
all rushed to the same goal obediently and worked
toward their full-rigged, invisible monarch in their hearts.
At night, when all cooked by the fire’s submissive flames,
the master-craftsman counseled his hard workers well:
“God wants no separate hearths or double-bolted doors; 550
who in his croft corrals his children, wife, and beasts
walls up all virtues, makes them idle, chokes his god,
till the whole world’s confined within his private gate.
Within God’s city is no separate husbandry;
let the young man in rut seize what girl fills his eye 555
and thrust deep in the woods to enjoy the lightning bolt
then part again at dawn before the sweet flash fades.
But let old crones and codgers, mankind’s useless trash,
die quickly and return once more to the good loam
that their tribe’s roots may eat and drink and bloom in grandsons. 560
Let all youths grow to manhood in wide courts a
part,
far from their parents’ heavy shadows, free of heart,
for this town, brothers, is the town of all brave sons
who shall surpass their fathers and set their prow for God!”
He spoke and showed the palpable, apparent walls, 565
the body of his God, that each day inched from earth;
but when the great-eyed man remained alone at night,
his town’s invisible ramparts creaked and rose in flames
and purple smoke from the four walls of his great head.
Blue, secret castle doors where Death might come and go, 570
laws and injunctions, hopes and orders rose and swelled,
but all were pale smoke spiraling in his mind’s great fire
nor yet would condescend to be enfleshed in words or law.
One day as he was spinning in his mind with care
on what great fertile law, custodian of all virtue, 575
he might make fast a town that strained beyond man’s reach,
he heard a whirring sound as of a thousand wings,
stood still and saw tall earthen columns, cracked and dry,
from which dense clouds of winged ants burst like swirling smoke
until the sky was blackened and the sun eclipsed. 580
The great lawmaker thrilled to see the wedding stream
soar to create in light the mighty destined groom,
and as his mind spun round the mystery of the world
the cloud fell down on earth and heaps of gray-ashed ants
swarmed on the ground and floundered with bedraggled wings. 585
The deadly and fierce wedding had ended in bright air,
and those who held God in their guts and reached the bride
had filled her body with battalion-forming seed,
but heaps of wretched flagging grooms expired on earth,
for the all-sucking god had now no need of them. 590
A fundamental hawk-eyed goal flashed through his mind:
“This is the sign I’ve yearned for, this is my great law!”
he muttered as he rushed to see the great soul-strife;
but birds had smelled the loot already and swooped down,
mute serpents slid and gulped, gold-beetles, scorpions frisked 595
and chewed the soft, exhausted grooms with greedy haste.
Earth shook with sweet reverberations as beasts filled
their bellies while man’s mind browsed over all, refreshed,
and with unsleeping eyes gazed on the just, fierce law.
“Whatever blind Worm-Mother Earth does with no brains 600
we should accept as just, with our whole mind, wide-eyed;
if you would rule the world, model yourself on God.”
Thus did he think, then swiftly to his building turned, 603
but held all laws etched in the tablets of his mind.
Finding broad-rump befouled with mud from top to toe, 605
as he helped finish first the old men’s wretched homes,
the exasperated archer flung sharp, taunting words:
“Quit mollycoddling the old men, softhearted fool!
By God, at times my demon tempts me to round up
all useless codgers on the cliffs and shove them off!” 610
Such cruel words pricked the heart of the compassionate man:
“Ah, murderer, you don’t even ache for your own father!
Mark me, one day you’ll be cast down from age’s cliff!”
The archer’s claw-sharp mind reared up, his temples throbbed:
“By God, when my mind rots and my flesh wastes away, 615
I’ll climb to a high peak and cast myself to death!
And when my soul at length gives birth to our town’s laws,
then know that I shall scorn to turn toward the cruel Archer
to help his interests or find ways to flatter him.
God is the warrior worm of which I am the head; 620
on me let triple pain and triple malice fall!”
The lone man drew apart and in his mind there rose
a rugged old man’s rock before the city’s gates
from which he’d push off all the senile patriarchs.
He formed stern laws within his heart, then on the slope 625
sat down and grasped a huge smooth slab to carve his granite laws.
At night as all sat cross-legged by the fire in talk
and drank a bit too much, the archer teased poor glutton:
“Potbelly, we’ve worked hard today, and now at night
let’s solve a little riddle for joke and recompense: 630
what would you say is the greatest good on all this earth?”
Big-bellied glutton with a sigh exposed his heart:
“To sit bathed by the seaside after a long trip;
to eat and drink with friends, while from the garden close
you hear your shuttered women laugh and chatter on; 635
to sit at dusk as a breeze blows and wafts the sea’s
salt brine, mixed with the fragrance of lean, spitted lamb.”
But the archer cut in sharply with a scowling face:
“To march to battle with brave friends at break of day
and find a sea of foes that billows down the field, 640
then suddenly, as you turn, to see God at your right,
mounted on his black steed, but pale, trembling with fright,
and then to stretch your arms and give his heart support!”
Kentaur spoke not a word but broke in a cold sweat;
he should have had another, more carousing master 645
who’d keep a feast spread day and night beneath the trees
and like a woman nibble life away in shade
nor give a damn about dream-towns, nor wish, dear God,
—what nerve!—to re-create the very world God shaped!
Since it was glutton’s fate to fall in savage hands, 650
alas, he might as well kick up his heels, and sing!
Thus did God’s bulky ballast brood deep in his heart
nor dared to open his mouth or speak his heart’s desire
because the lone man sat in darkness and flashed with fire.
In truth the archer felt a flame gnaw at his heart 655
and longed for that dread hour when he might strew the flame
on all, and let who could withstand the terror survive.
Next day a heavy downpour burst, and heaving clouds
tossed like frenetic dragons in the lowering sky;
some from the black lake mounted and seized all the air 660
while zigzag lightning flashes crashed in the dark woods.
The drenched town-builders scurried laughing into caves,
their bodies steamed, their eyes sparked in the lightning bolts,
and the resourceful man, like a huge octopus,
admired their glistening forms, his mighty tentacles. 665
“These now can bear the ruthless secret on their backs,”
he thought with pride, and turned with joy to speak to all,
but as he pondered in what way to slant his words,
the downpour ceased, earth laughed and wrung her dripping hair,
the rainbow hung on high amid cool waterdrops 670
and craftsmen clambered up their scaffolds eagerly.
The archer stooped and stepped out of the cave, alone,
and on his lips his silent secret hung and trembled still.
Moons came and went, the wheel of earth rolled slowly on,
the rainy season stopped, a pale light winter passed 675
until the still-unbearded wheat stirred in its seed.
Earth grew her hair, the mountains swelled, the ground awoke,
the cuckoo bird perched on a bough with brooding thought,
and as it spun spring’s sweetness in its breast, it heard
the sun-adoring god deep in its heart, “Coo-co
o!” 680
and all at once its black eyes glowed and filled with flowers.
“Coo-coo!” its straight throat echoed, and through all the fields
evergreen oak shrubs budded in the quickening breeze.
The flag and sword-grass broke in bloom, wild lettuce laughed,
and the first sprouts pierced through the bark till the trees cracked. 685
Together with all plants, the blood of all youth bloomed,
a giddy sweetness swept their brows, their knees gave way,
until their knowing master smiled and called a halt
to work for three whole days and nights of holiday.
He sent a youthful herald with apple cheeks of fuzz, 690
his naked body decked with flowers, to shout through town:
“Young blades who flaunt a thin mist on your upper lip,
young girls whose breasts have suddenly risen high and firm,
now listen to our master craftsman’s proclamation:
All trees have swelled with sap, birds pair off on the boughs, 695
God walks the earth like a green lad or breasted girl,
and all earth seethes with life, and all hearts burst in bloom.
Forward! Let brides and grooms of God adorn themselves,
let girls new-washed and lads with their carnation stalks
arm themselves now for war to cast each other down! 700
For three nights let them fight embraced in the cool cave!”
Thus did the bloom-decked boy scatter the happy news
and the lawmaker joyed to know that soon with bliss
the unbearable sweet swoon of flesh would knit to sons.
Slow in his heart he turned the wheel of earth and life 705
until he planned to dedicate four fetes each year:
one for unmustached youths, one for all full-grown men,
one for the bones of age, one for the rotting dead.
How else might the crude crowd, if not with giddy dance
and fetes, forget the salt sweat of its daily toil— 710
and in those ways it could—with song, with wine, with dance,
and with the body’s tight embrace, mount step by step
to reach that mighty warrior, that great lover, God?
All this the lone man spun in his mind as the night passed
and the sun rose, a drum stretched tight with lion pelts 715
that boomed in the high heavens and startled the young maids.
They wove wild lettuce flowers about their virgin brows,
the young men wore the sword-grass bloom, and both linked arms
while that good dame, their Mother Earth, looked on with pride
to see her youths roll toward the cave in full cascades. 720