Helen in Egypt: Poetry (New Directions Paperbook)

by Hilda Doolittle

  but Proteus revealed to me

  your past, the tale of Troy,

  your legend, your history;

  Proteus enchanted me,

  he disclosed the mystery;

  when they reach a certain degree,

  they are one, alike utterly,

  though Achilles woke from the dark,

  and her Lord was cast

  into the lowest depth

  of Cimmerian night;

  yet even Cimmerian embers,

  burnt out, extinguished and lost,

  will flame anew if God

  wills to re-kindle the spark;

  God willed that Helena

  be joined to Achilles,

  that Clytaemnestra

  be called to another Star,

  Ashtoreth, Ishtar,

  Astarte …

  [6]

  “Helena shall remain one name, inseparable” with the names of the twin-stars or the star-host, “the thousand-petalled lily.”

  Be still, I say, strive not,

  yourself to annul the decree;

  you can not return to the past

  nor stay the sun in his course;

  be still, I say, why weep?

  you spoke of your happiness,

  I was near you and heard you speak;

  I heard you question Achilles

  and Achilles answer you;

  be still, O sister, O shadow;

  your sister, your shadow was near,

  lurking behind the pillars,

  counting the fall of your feet,

  as Achilles beneath the ramparts;

  you spoke and I heard you speak;

  I heard you call to your sister,

  I heard you conjure her name

  and the name of the Dioscuri;

  be at peace, I have learned of the priests

  the decree of your destiny;

  I have talked with Proteus — or —

  another (whoever he be,

  he manifests variously);

  Nameless-of-many-Names he decrees

  that Helena shall remain

  one name, inseparable

  from the names of the Dioscuri,

  who are not two but many,

  as you read the writing, the script,

  the thousand-petalled lily.

  [7]

  But only if she accepts, without reservation and without question, the decree of the Absolute, the King of Egypt, Proteus or Amen, “the Nameless-of-many-Names.”

  Seek not another Star,

  O Helen, loved of War,

  seek not to know

  too much; the painted script,

  the scroll, the hieroglyph

  is written clear,

  the sail is set,

  the ship waits in the harbour;

  grieve not for Clytaemnestra,

  for the Fates

  have woven royal purple for her bed,

  have un-crowned her unhappy head;

  she sleeps, call not, awake

  no soul to doom

  of old remembered hates;

  the Nameless-of-many-Names

  (Amen, you called him here)

  will re-inform, habilitate, re-make

  his own, even the lost, even the intemperate;

  asleep? awake? a phantom or a dream,

  Helen, the sails are set.

  [8]

  The Dream? The Veil? Obviously, Helen has walked through time into another dimension. But the timeless, hieratic symbols can be parallelled with symbols in-time. Helen herself had realized this, on her first meeting with Achilles, “the shape of this bird is a letter, they call it the hieroglyph.” There are other hieroglyphs, Thetis has reminded her, a grasshopper, a flying fish, an octopus — these are Greek symbols of a Greek sea-goddess — “Helen — come home.”

  Strive not to wake the dead;

  the incomparable host

  with Helen and Achilles

  are not dead, not lost;

  the isles are fair (nor far),

  Paphos, the Cyclades;

  a simple spiral-shell may tell

  a tale more ancient

  than these mysteries;

  dare the uncharted seas,

  Achilles waits, and life;

  beyond these pylons and these gates,

  is magic of the wind, the gale;

  the mystery of a forest-tree,

  whispering its secrets upon Cithaeron,

  holds subtler meaning

  than this written stone

  or leaves of the papyrus;

  let rapture summon

  and the foam-flecked sand,

  and wind and hail,

  rain, sleet and the bewildering snow

  that lifts and falls,

  conceals, reveals,

  (the actual

  and the apparent veil),

  Helen — come home.

  LEUKÉ

  (L’isle blanche)

  Book One

  [1]

  Why Leuké? Because here, Achilles is said to have married Helen who bore him a son, Euphorion. Helen in Egypt did not taste of Lethe, forgetfulness, on the other hand; she was in an ecstatic or semi-trance state. Though she says, “I am awake, no trance,”yet she confesses, “I move as one in a dream.” Now, it is as if momentarily, at any rate, the dream is over. Remembrance is taking its place. She immediately reminds us of her “first rebellion” and the so far suppressed memory and unspoken name — Paris.

  I am not nor mean to be

  the Daemon they made of me;

  going forward, my will was the wind,

  (or the will of Aphrodite

  filled the sail, as the story told

  of my first rebellion;

  the sail, they said,

  was the veil of Aphrodite),

  and I am tired of the memory of battle,

  I remember a dream that was real;

  let them sing Helena for a thousand years,

  let them name and re-name Helen,

  I can not endure the weight of eternity,

  they will never understand

  how, a second time, I am free;

  he was banished, as his mother dreamed

  that he (Paris) would cause war,

  and war came.

  [2]

  And now she is back with the old dilemma — who caused the war? She has been blamed, Paris has been blamed but, fundamentally, it was the fault of Thetis, the mother of Achilles. There is the old argument regarding mésalliance, a goddess marries a mortal, some social discord is sure to arise. The traditional uninvited guest introduces the fatal apple of discord. But Helen outlives, as it were, her own destiny and “Helen’s epiphany in Egypt.”

  Was it Paris who caused the war?

  or was it Thetis? the goddess

  married a mortal, Peleus;

  the banquet, the wedding-feast

  lacked nothing, only one uninvited guest,

  Eris; so the apple was cast,

  so the immortals woke to petty strife

  over the challenge, to the fairest;

  surely, the gods knew

  that Thetis was fairer than Helen,

  but the balance swayed

  and Thetis was a goddess,

  and Helen, half of earth,

  out-lived the goddess Helen

  and Helen’s epiphany in Egypt.

  [3]

  There is more to it. She would have taken the “wisdom of Thoth” or of Egypt “back to the islands.“Now on Leuké, I’isle blanche, she would reconstruct the Greek past. Thetis had said, “Achilles waits,” but he must wait a little longer. He was given to her with the mystery, the miracle, in another dimension, in Egypt. But there is this world of which Thetis had spoken, of forest-trees, involuted sea-shells, snow. Helen had lived here before. In the light of her inheritance as neophyte or initiate, she would re-assess that first experience. It is true that Love “let fly the dart” that had sent Achilles to her, but it was Paris who was the agent, medium
or intermediary of Love and of Troy’s great patron, Apollo, the god of Song.

  He would set the Towers a-flame;

  Hecuba’s second son would undo

  the work of his father, Priam,

  and of his brother, the valiant

  first-born, Hector;

  was this, was this not true?

  they met, Hector and Achilles,

  and Achilles slew Hector,

  but later, a bowman from the Walls

  let fly the dart;

  some said it was Apollo,

  but I, Helena, knew it was Love’s arrow;

  it was Love, it was Apollo, it was Paris;

  I knew and I did not know this,

  while I slept in Egypt.

  [4]

  Surely, her former state was perfect, but now the temple or the tomb, the infinite is reduced to a finite image, a “delicate sea-shell.” It is Thetis who has given this image to her, simple spiral-shell may tell a tale more ancient than these mysteries.”

  O the tomb, delicate sea-shell,

  rock-cut but frail,

  the thousand, thousand Greeks

  fallen before the Walls,

  were as one soul, one pearl;

  I was asleep,

  part of the infinite,

  but there is another,

  resilient as fire — Paris? Achilles?

  [5]

  But Thetis? She has summoned Helen out of Egypt with “Achilles waits.” But Helen is back in time, in memory. While “Achilles waits,” she reconstructs the early story of — “Eros? Eris?”

  What is Achilles without war?

  it was Thetis, his mother,

  who planned this (bridal and rest),

  but even the gods’ plans

  are shaped by another —

  Eros? Eris?

  [6]

  What boat, what “skiff” has brought Helen here? And how was she brought? Was it in a dream? It seems so, for she says, “I woke to familiar fragrance.”

  A sharp sword divides me from the past,

  yet no glaive, this;

  how did I cross?

  coast from coast, they are separate;

  I can recall the skiff,

  the stars’ countless host,

  but I would only remember

  how I woke to familiar fragrance,

  late roses, bruised apples;

  reality opened before me,

  I had come back;

  I retraced the thorny path

  but the thorns of rancour and hatred

  were gone — Troy? Greece?

  they were one and I was one,

  I was laughing with Paris;

  so we cheated the past,

  I had escaped — Achilles.

  [7]

  Now Helen’s concern is anxiety about the Sea-goddess. This is her island. Helen has been recalled from Egypt to a Greek union, marriage or mystery, by Thetis’ “Achilles waits, and life.” But for the moment, her overwhelming experience in Egypt must be tempered or moderated, if, “in life,” she is to progress at all. It was Paris, in the first instance, Helen says, who “had lured me from Sparta.” Now again, Paris lures her from Sparta or from her dedication to the Spartan ideal. She is laughing with Paris, there are roses. She is running away, as in the scene of her “first rebellion,” to “hide among the apple-trees.”

  And Thetis? she of the many forms

  had manifested as Choragus,

  Thetis, lure-of-the-sea;

  will she champion?

  will she reject me?

  we will hide,

  a hooded cloak was thrown over me,

  now it is dark upon Leuké;

  the same whisper had lured me from Sparta,

  we will hide among the apple-trees …

  so it was his arrow that had given me Achilles —

  it was his arrow that set me free.

  [8]

  Now Paris would remind us of his early life as shepherd and “Wolf-slayer” It was his recall to Troy, (after years of banishment and obscurity) as Prince, second only to great Hector, that had caused his death. “Death dwells in the city,” he tells us. He does not seem to blame this death on Helen.

  Learn of me (this is Paris) —

  leave obelisks and cities,

  pylons and fortresses;

  my dart was named Saviour,

  Ida’s shepherds called me

  defence and protector, Wolf-slayer;

  I unsheathed my long-spear,

  a staff rather, thonged with a hunting-knife;

  hail Saviour, farewell,

  (they knew the blight),

  Death awaits you

  was in the herdsman’s farewell,

  Death dwells in the city

  whispered the hail,

  warned the farewell.

  Book Two

  [1]

  Philoctetes was also a suitor of Helen. He was a friend of Hercules who had bequeathed him his bow and poisoned arrows. An oracle had declared that Troy would not be taken without the arrows of Hercules. Philoctetes had started for Troy but had been left behind, because of a festering wound, caused by snake-bite or one of his own arrows. It was the last year of the war when he was recalled; he was restored to strength and took part in the final siege, when he shot Paris. Truly, “Death dwells in the city.” The wounded Paris managed to crawl back to his old home on Mount Ida, and to Oenone, his “long-deserted companion.” And Oenone? Our sympathies are with her, but who can fight Fate, Destiny or Helen? Oenone has the magic power of healing but she refuses to help her old lover.

  Paris: You have not heard the story of Oenone?

  at the last, Philoctetes shot me

  with a poisoned arrow,

  bequeathed him by Hercules;

  I crawled back, they were right.

  Death dwells in the city;

  but Oenone, mistress of the art,

  would not heal me; Oenone?

  a more potent evil had stricken

  my long-deserted companion,

  a venom more potent than Hercules’

  had poisoned her;

  she would not help me,

  nor could she atone afterwards,

  for my death with her death;

  she could not forgive,

  she could not forget,

  she is not here on Leuké.

  [2]

  And now we see how Pallas Athene, the greatest champion of the Greeks, turns against them. The war is over but in the riot of plunder and destruction, one of the Greek heroes commits the unforgivable sin of attacking a Trojan princess who has sought sanctuary at the altar. This princess is the same Cassandra whom, later, Agamemnon took with him to Mycenae. Paris refers to Cassandra as Priestess; she was in fact dedicated to prophecies which, as we all know, were never believed. Truly, Victory is a “mocking echo.”

  Who will forget Helen?

  forever the swirling foam

  threatens the ship’s keel,

  for Pallas remembered

  insult before her altar,

  Ajax and the Maiden Cassandra;

  the Sea would revenge the wrong,

  the Sea would take its toll,

  remorseless, with Victory

  as a mocking echo, from shoal

  and the straits and the ground-swell;

  one Priestess counted more

  than all the host and the ships,

  floundering and tempest-driven;

  she had given the heroes rest,

  but to these she was pitiless;

  “did I miss glorious death on the Walls”

  (they cried) “to be swept

  by the waves to ignoble death?

  can no prayer save? Pallas —”

  but the sea answered with shock on shock

  of thundering breakers,

  till the goddess cried, “enough,

  now bear the remnant home”;

  will these forget Helen?

  or will Oenone, one of the many

/>   thousand-thousand lost?

  who will forget Helen?

  not Paris, feverish, with the wild eyes

  of Oenone watching his death.

  [3]

  But now we are in King Priam’s palace before the death of Paris, or rather we are with Paris who in his delirium sees Helen as he saw her for the last time.

  Who will forget Helen?

  as she fled down the corridor,

  the wounded sentry still had breath

  to hiss, “adultress”;

  who will forget the veil,

  caught on a fallen pilaster,

  the shout, then breathless silence

  after the gate fell,

  silence so imminent,

  I heard the very stuff rip

  as she tore loose and ran;

  who will forget Helen?

  why did she limp and turn

  at the stair-head and half turn back?

  was it a broken sandal?

  [4]

  Remembering Helen, he begs his wife to heal him. She will do so, on one condition, “if you forget — Helen.”