Helen in Egypt: Poetry (New Directions Paperbook)

by Hilda Doolittle

  one swan and one cygnet

  were stronger than all the host,

  assembled upon the slopes

  and the hills of Aulis;

  she was born of a Swan,

  and I and our brothers,

  we are children of Zeus;

  I must wait, I must wonder again

  at the fate that has brought me here;

  surely, she must forget,

  she must forget the past,

  and I must forget Achilles …

  * * *

  … but never the ember

  born of his strange attack,

  never his anger,

  never the fire,

  never the brazier,

  never the Star in the night.

  Book Six

  [1]

  Initiation? Does Helen brush aside all the traditional philosophy and wisdom, to imply that enlightenment comes or does not come, as a gift, a whim “of this ancient Child, Egypt,” rather than as formal reward for recognized achievement?

  You may ask why I speak of Thoth-Amen,

  of Amen-Zeus or Zeus separately,

  you may think I invoke or recall

  a series of multiple gods,

  a Lion, a Hawk or an Ibis,

  as we were taught to think

  of the child-like fantasy

  of this ancient Child, Egypt;

  how can you understand

  what few may acknowledge and live,

  what many acknowledge and die?

  He is One, yet the many

  manifest separately; He may manifest

  as a jackal and hound you to death?

  or is He changeable like air,

  and like air, invisible?

  God is beyond the manifest?

  He is ether and limitless space?

  you may ask forever, you may penetrate

  every shrine, an initiate,

  and remain unenlightened at last.

  [2]

  She again recalls the Greek scene. For it is through her Greek identity that she understands. She has accepted what she does not understand, “this ancient Child, Egypt.” But she would gradually, it would seem, bring Egypt and Greece together. There is the treachery of Agamemnon, the betrayal of Clytaemnestra, of Iphigenia. These, from another world, still seem to claim her. Why? Obviously, because Achilles was involved somehow.

  You will not understand

  what I have taken years

  or centuries to experience;

  you may have a thousand loves

  and not one Lover;

  you may win a thousand wars

  and not one Victory;

  so I see further into the past,

  into the future;

  Achilles was the false bridegroom,

  Achilles was the hero promised

  to my sister’s child,

  promised to her,

  promised to me,

  promised to Iphigenia;

  it was Achilles who stood by the altar

  and did not interfere

  with the treacherous plan,

  the plot, they said, of Odysseus;

  it was Agamemnon who commanded

  her mother to bring her to Aulis,

  but it was Achilles, Achilles

  who sanctioned the sacrifice,

  the gift of his bride to Death.

  [3]

  “God does not weave a loose web,” no. Perhaps it is the beauty and proportion of the pattern that amazes Helen. It is not “in the oracles of Greece or the hieroglyphs of Egypt” that she finds the answer. It is in the simple remembrance of her first meeting with Achilles, and his recognition of her.

  Artemis brought her to Tauris,

  where her brother Orestes

  with his friend Pylades, found her;

  but there was another marriage,

  as yet unconsummate;

  God does not weave a loose web,

  nor do his Daughters, the Fates;

  it was years, it was centuries,

  it was a fleeting moment,

  but the Balance waited

  the inevitable weight

  of feather with feather;

  how can you find the answer

  in the oracles of Greece

  or the hieroglyphs of Egypt?

  you may work or steal your way

  into the innermost shrine

  and the secret escape you;

  some say a bowman from the Walls

  let fly the dart, some say it was Apollo,

  but I, Helena, know it was Love’s arrow.

  [4]

  But Achilles (“I tell and re-tell the story”) has been an accomplice. He, as well as her own father, would have sacrificed Iphigenia. Helen returns constantly to this theme of sacrifice.

  Why did he pledge her to Death?

  I tell and re-tell the story

  to find the answer;

  it was Clytaemnestra’s story,

  for Iphigenia remained innocent

  of the actual intent

  of the lure to the altar;

  as the light of the Star

  glows clearer, the shadow grows darker;

  his was an iron-ring

  but welded to many;

  Agamemnon? Menelaus? Odysseus?

  were they each separately

  encased in the iron-armour,

  was each Typhon, a Whirlwind of War?

  what did we know of any

  of our Lords’ activities?

  we lived alone and apart.

  [5]

  The dream? The veil? Helen is still concerned with Achilles’ question. “I have not answered his question.” She has tried to answer the question by returning to an intermediate dimension or plane, living in fantasy, the story of her sister. Death? Love? The problem remains insoluble. Does it? No. The mind can not answer the “numberless questions” but the heart “encompasses the whole of the undecipherable script,” when it recalls the miracle, “Achilles’ anger” and “this Star in the night.”

  Clytaemnestra gathered the red rose,

  Helen, the white,

  but they grew on one stem,

  one branch, one root in the dark;

  I have not answered his question,

  which was the veil?

  which was the dream?

  was the dream, Helen upon the ramparts?

  was the veil, Helen in Egypt?

  I wander alone and entranced,

  yet I wonder and ask

  numberless questions;

  the heart does not wonder?

  the heart does not ask?

  the heart accepts,

  encompasses the whole

  of the undecipherable script;

  take, take as you took

  Achilles’ anger, as you flamed

  to his Star,

  this is the only answer;

  there is no other sign nor picture,

  no compromise with the past;

  yet I conjure the Dioscuri,

  those Saviours of men and of ships,

  guide Achilles,

  grant Clytaemnestra peace.

  [6]

  But there is a way out. A memory or race-memory prompts her. Or even if she had been in Troy, a rumour of this story might have reached her. Achilles would have sacrificed “his bride” to Death, but under compulsion, and at the command of the Greek soothsayer, Calchas. Is Calchas here a substitute or double of the original Command? In any case, the iron-ring, the body-guard of Myrmidons surrounding Achilles, accept the dictate as final. Achilles himself, Helen argues, would have been stoned to death by the “elect,” if he had tried to rescue Iphigenia. This argument, on the material plane, justifies Achilles and Helen would call him back.

  How does the Message reach me?

  do thoughts fly like the Word

  of the goddess? a whisper —

  (my own thought or the thought of another?)

  “the Myrmidons, his own men,

  would have slain
him

  had he attempted to thwart

  the prophecy and the command

  of Calchas, the priest;

  the ships shall never leave Aulis,

  until a virgin is offered

  to Artemis; even at the last,

  the Myrmidons, his elect,

  would have stoned him to death;

  he stood armed at the altar”;

  I swerve about to surprise

  this Presence, this Voice,

  but the long arcade is empty;

  has Nephthys stepped from her pillar

  or her frame upon the Wall?

  is it Nemesis? is it Astarte?

  who are you? where are you?

  I call Achilles but not even an echo

  answers, Achilles:

  Achilles, Achilles come back,

  you alone have the answer;

  the dream? the veil?

  is it all a story?

  a legend of murder and lust,

  the revenge of Orestes,

  the death of my sister,

  the ships and the Myrmidons,

  the armies assembled at Aulis?

  [7]

  For she suddenly feels alone. She would share her happiness, she would proclaim the miracle, she would re-establish the Egyptian Mysteries in Greece, she would pledge herself anew to Achilles’ work, “to keep and maintain the Pharos,” and to the “sea-enchantment in his eyes.”

  Surely, I am not alone,

  there must be priestess or priest,

  there must be a family

  of this ancient Dynasty,

  a Pharaoh and a Pharaoh’s wife?

  have I imprisoned myself

  in my contemplation?

  has my happiness set me apart

  from the rest of Egypt?

  Achilles said, he had work to do,

  to reclaim the coast,

  to keep and maintain the Pharos,

  a light and a light-house for ships,

  for others like ourselves,

  who are not shadows nor shades,

  but entities, living a life

  unfulfilled in Greece:

  can we take our treasure,

  the wisdom of Amen and Thoth,

  back to the islands,

  that enchantment may find a place

  where desolation ruled,

  and a warrior race,

  Agamemnon and Menelaus?

  [8]

  But even now, it is not enough. She seems to have identified herself with her own daughter, Hermione, with her sister’s daughter, Iphigenia, and with Clytaemnestra, her twin-sister, “one branch, one root in the dark.” Now she seems to equate Orestes, her sister’s son, with Achilles. She had said of Achilles, “let me love him, as Thetis his mother.” Now of Orestes, “has he found his mother? will he ever find her? can I take her place?” She would re-create the whole of the tragic scene. Helen is the Greek drama. Again, she herself is the writing.

  Hermione and Iphigenia

  are protected,

  they need no help;

  but what of Orestes,

  my sister’s son, my son,

  driven by Fate,

  pursued by the Furies?

  has he found his mother?

  will he ever find her?

  can I take her place?

  I will wait but not forever;

  I will pray by the temple lake;

  Achilles will find me there,

  where flower upon sacred flower,

  await the coming of Light;

  I will watch and wonder,

  lost in an ecstasy,

  awaiting the Miracle,

  the Sun’s beneficent weight

  unclosing, disclosing each star …

  nenuphar by nenuphar.

  Book Seven

  [1]

  Phoenix, the symbol of resurrection has vanquished indecision and doubt, the eternal why of the Sphinx. It is Thetis (Isis, Aphrodite) who tells us this, at last, in complete harmony with Helen.

  Choragus:

  (Image or

  Eidolon

  of Thetis) A woman’s wiles are a net;

  they would take the stars

  or a grasshopper in its mesh;

  they would sweep the sea

  for a bubble’s iridescence

  or a flying-fish;

  they would plunge beneath the surface,

  without fear of the treacherous deep

  or a monstrous octopus;

  what unexpected treasure,

  what talisman or magic ring

  may the net find?

  frailer than spider spins,

  or a worm for its bier,

  deep as a lion or a fox

  or a panther’s lair,

  leaf upon leaf, hair upon hair

  as a bird’s nest,

  Phoenix

  has vanquished

  that ancient enemy, Sphinx.

  [2]

  Helen with her brothers shall be deified, because of that “Love, begot of the Ships and of War.”

  The Lords have passed a decree,

  the Lords of the Hierarchy,

  that Helen be worshipped,

  be offered incense

  upon the altars of Greece,

  with her brothers, the Dioscuri;

  from Argos, from distant Scythia,

  from Delos, from Arcady,

  the harp-strings will answer

  the chant, the rhythm, the metre,

  the syllables H-E-L-E-N-A;

  Helena, reads the decree,

  shall be shrined forever;

  in Melos, in Thessaly,

  they shall honour the name of Love,

  begot of the Ships and of War;

  one indestructible name,

  to inspire the Scribe and refute

  the doubts of the dissolute;

  this is the Law,

  this, the Mandate:

  let no man strive against Fate,

  Helena has withstood

  the rancour of time and of hate.

  [3]

  Clytaemnestra? This is a different story, perhaps to be continued or consummated in another way, in another world, perhaps to be presided over by another goddess, not Nemesis nor Nephthys, “but perhaps Astarte will recall her ultimately.”

  Clytaemnestra struck with her mind,

  with the Will-to-Power,

  her Lord returned with Cassandra,

  and she had a lover;

  does it even the Balance

  if a wife repeats a husband’s folly?

  never; the law is different;

  if a woman fights,

  she must fight by stealth,

  with invisible gear;

  no sword, no dagger, no spear

  in a woman’s hands

  can make wrong, right;

  do not strive to re-weave, Helen,

  the pattern the Fates decree,

  or tangle the threads of Nemesis;

  she is not Nemesis, as you named her,

  nor Nephthys, but perhaps Astarte

  will re-call her ultimately;

  neither she nor her son,

  by a sword or a dagger’s thrust,

  could alter the course of a Star,

  glowing by turns as ice, by turns, as fire,

  Agamemnon and the Trojan War.

  [4]

  Clytaemnestra’s problem or Clytaemnestra’s “war” was not Helen’s, but her Lord Agamemnon and Achilles have the iron-ring of the war or the death-cult in common. But Agamemnon, after the war and his rape or concubinage of Cassandra, the priestess of Apollo, meets dishonourable death, while Achilles falls before the Scaean Gate, with the “flash in the heaven at noon that blinds the sun,” Helen upon the Walls.

  The War is over and done

  for us in the precinct;

  the war she endured was different,

  yet her Lord resembled Achilles;

  when they reach a certain degree,

  they are one,
alike utterly;

  could they have chosen

  another way, another Fate?

  each could — Agamemnon, Achilles,

  but would they?

  they would not;

  but the Balance sways,

  another Star appears,

  as they step from the gold

  into the iron-ring;

  as a flash in the heaven at noon

  that blinds the sun,

  is their Meeting.

  [5]

  Helen had said, “I would change my place for hers, wherever she is,” but the legendary King of Egypt reveals the future, the mystery or the legend. Thai “flash in the heaven at noon that blinds the sun” claims Helen, while Clytaemnestra is “called to another Star.”

  She was Mistress of Magic,

  you are Mistress of Fate;

  are they the same? is there another?

  I listened and heard you speak,

  and Achilles answer you;

  I could not follow your thoughts,