Zeus (or Amen, you called him)
laid the Swan-seed, Helena;
some say (did you know this?)
that the Swan fathered Helen and Pollux,
but that Castor and Clytaemnestra
were mortals, begot of Tyndareus;
so growing within the Egg,
you were destined forever to know
this dual companionship,
man and hero, Castor,
god and hero, Pollux,
yourself in another,
the magic of Clytaemnestra;
O tiny world, O world of infinity,
two mortals strike across
to intercept the path
of two daemons; two spirits
seek to save
the lost sister or brother;
Castor received immortality
through Pollux, you sought
(do you still seek?)
Clytaemnestra in Egypt.
[6]
Helen does not answer this last question, nor directly repudiate Theseus when he suggests that she temper her emotional intensity, lest she “flame out, incandescent.” Rather, she compares Theseus with Achilles, and asks, “how have the arcs crossed? how have the paths met?”
Achilles, the man-hero,
Theseus, the god-hero,
that is clear enough;
my brother, Castor,
my brother, Pollux,
twin-star to guide ships;
Achilles with the mermaid,
Thetis at the prow,
be-calmed at Aulis;
Theseus with the Argo,
valiant in the Quest;
Achilles vanquished before Troy,
Theseus, ever-victorious;
how have the arcs crossed?
how have the paths met?
[7]
How indeed? Theseus answers her. It seems that Theseus and Achilles, like Castor and Pollux, are twin-stars, or “a twin-star to guide ships.” They meet as opposites meet, dark-light, life-death, death-life and so on. They meet finally in “Helen in Egypt” and “Helen in Hellas forever.”
Thus, thus, thus,
as day, night,
as wrong, right,
as dark, light,
as water, fire,
as earth, air,
as storm, calm,
as fruit, flower,
as life, death,
as death, life;
the rose deflowered,
the rose re-born;
Helen in Egypt,
Helen at home,
Helen in Hellas forever.
[8]
And Helen understands, though we do not know exactly what it is that she understands. To her, “it is all very simple.” She says, “it was darkness, Achilles and war, it was light with the Argo, the Quest.”
Isis, yes Cypris, the cypress,
the Tomb of Amor,
the Tomb of Love;
yes — it breaks, the fire,
it shatters the white marble;
I see it, suddenly I see it all,
the Shell, the Tomb, the Crystal,
Tyndareus, my earth-father, and Zeus
or Zeus-Amen in heaven,
and I am only a daughter;
no, no, I am not a mother,
let Cypris have Amor,
let Isis have Horus,
let Leda have Zeus,
and Hecuba, Priam,
and Hecuba, Paris,
and Jocasta, Oedipus,
and Jocasta, Antigone;
the Sphinx? it is clear enough;
the snow-crystal reflects
the seven arcs,
(how have the arcs met?)
it was darkness,
Achilles and war,
it was light
with the Argo, the Quest;
reconcile? reconcile?
day, night, wrong, right?
no need to untangle the riddle,
it is very simple.
Book Seven
[1]
So Helen is at peace, she has found the answer, she will rest. Now Thetis who (like Proteus) “can change her shape,” is Artemis, the Moon-goddess, “her sphere is remote, white, near, is Leuké … let me stay here.”
Thetis is the Moon-goddess
and can change her shape,
she is Selene, is Artemis;
she is the Moon, her sphere
is remote, white, near,
is Leuké, is marble and snow,
is here; this is Leuké,
a-drift, a shell but held
to its central pole
or its orbit;
this is the white island,
this is the hollow shell,
this is the ship a-drift,
this is the ship at rest,
let me stay here;
is it Death to know
this immaculate purity,
security?
[2]
So there must be no rivalry with either the earth or the heaven mother. Helen says, “I am only a daughter.” She will not compete with Demeter for union with her Absolute or with Leda for this same Zeus. There is another Absolute, that of “the crystal, the center, the ice-star.” It is the Absolute of negation, if you will, or of completion, “this immaculate purity,” and hence in a sense, of Death. Helen had said, “my heart had been frozen, melted.” — So she compares herself to Persephone and recalls Theseus’ question, “did you too seek Persephone’s drear icy way to Death?” Helen’s answer is yes, “I found or was found by Dis.”
I am only a daughter,
no, I am not Demeter,
seated before an altar,
your braizer, there,
I am Koré, Persephone; you said,
did you too seek Persephone’s
drear icy way to Death?
I found or was found by Dis;
no rivalry with Demeter for Zeus,
or with Leda; I was taken
but never forsaken by another,
his brother, by Hades;
O, the surge of the sea,
O, power of battle,
the wrack and the curse;
I was taken, not by Menelaus
in Sparta, not by Paris
in Troy or after,
but by Achilles;
can spring defeat winter? never;
spring may come after,
but the crystal, the center, the ice-star
dissembles, reflects the past
but waits faithful;
no, god-father,
Paris will never find me;
I reflect, I re-act, I re-live;
true, he renewed my youth,
but now, only the memory of the molten ember
of the Dark Absolute claims me
who have met Death,
who have found Dis,
who embraced Hades;
South turns North,
Hyperborean dwellings wait;
Achilles waits, she said;
he treads among the stations,
he takes his way by might,
by stealth, by cunning, by betrayal,
from star-house to house;
Achilles waits or Hercules or Osiris,
does it matter?
and do I care? only let Thetis,
the goddess hold me for a while
in this her island, her egg-shell.
[3]
Achilles is “a sword-blade drawn from fire …” Menelaus, Paris had not yet been “tempered.” Helen seems to ask, how can I compromise? My soul or my spirit was snatched from its body, or even more miraculously, with its body, by this “gerfalcon.” All she asks now is “time to remember.”
Helen — Hades —
do you know his face?
it is not dark but clear,
a sword-blade drawn from fire,
tempered, beaten till it grows cold,
cold, cold, colder
than the pole-star;
do you know his eyes?
they are not dark caves,
as the priests tell,
they are sea-gray, they are the sea,
crept from under an ice-floe,
they are not frozen, no,
but they keep the gray sheen of the sea;
do you know his hands?
(was he with you on the Argo?)
they are powerful but thin;
too fine for strength?
have you seen a gerfalcon
fall on his prey?
so my throat knew that day,
his fingers’ remorseless steel,
when I had strength only to pray
Thetis, let me go out, let me forget,
let me be lost …
could another touch you
after the Absolute?
hate? no; love? no;
nothingness? no, not nothingness
but an ever widening flight …
but I would not go yet,
I must have time to remember
Dis, Hades, Achilles.
[4]
She will encompass infinity by intense concentration on the moment. She has finished her cycle in time. But out-of-time or beyond moon-time, are the “widening star-circles.” But she will not attempt to escape “the moment” by a flight to infinity with “wild wings.” She will bring the moment and infinity together “in time, in the crystal, in my thought here.”
Time with its moon-shape here,
time with its widening star-circles,
time small as a pebble,
with bones or stones for counters,
(what did you say?)
there was always another and another and another;
if I am small enough,
held in this smallest sphere,
this moon-crystal, this shell,
if I dare renounce spring-love,
Adonis and Cytheraea, and a small room,
a taper burning in an onyx jar,
(Paris said, why must you recall
the white fire of unnumbered stars,
rather than that single taper
burning in an onyx jar),
it is for another (you are right,
god-father) and another;
but the Vision is not Protean,
it is actual, unwavering,
each station separate, each line drawn,
each pillar erect,
each porch level with the rocks,
and rock-steps leading to a throne
or down to a pool, a mirror
and a reflection …
that is the star-way,
I will not be flung out
with wild wings,
I will bring the Hyperboreans to me,
I will encompass the infinite
in time, in the crystal,
in my thought here.
[5]
Time-in-time (personal time) however, as well as star-time (the eternal) seem alike incalculable to Helen, without Achilles. But by a miracle of re-adjustment, through her contact with Theseus, “the Wheel is still.” Helen says, “the Wheel is as small as the gold shoulder-clasp, I wore as a girl.” Yet the Wheel is the great circle of the Zodiac with its “outline of hero and beast,” which Achilles found were still “the familiar stars,” as the mast of the caravel, the death-ship measured them out, “picture by picture.”
Achilles waits, aye,
stepping from sphere to sphere,
aye, the long way;
he will finish his task,
Hercules’ twelve labours,
in twelve aeons, in twelve years,
in twelve days,
aye, Hades-Hercules,
the long way;
to me, the Wheel is still,
(hold me here),
the Wheel is as small
as the gold shoulder-clasp,
I wore as a girl;
the Wheel is a jewel,
set in silver; to me
the Wheel is a seal …
the Wheel is still.
[6]
So “picture by picture,” Helen would read the star-script, as Achilles had done. Paris will come back, he “will reflect the past” and Helen as she was “before the ultimate Mystery.” But Helen in her mind, or “in my crystal” as she calls it, “would see further.” She would relate the pictures in time to the pictures in eternity, as she “strove in the precinct, to decipher the Amen-script.”
But yes, you are right,
Paris will come back
but as the rose-light,
one segment, separate
from the prismatic seven
of the white crystal;
yes, he will come back,
the crystal will reflect the past
and that present-in-the-past,
our meeting on Leuké;
she is not lost,
Rhodes’ Helena, Dendritis;
Paris found Helen
as she was before
the ultimate Mystery,
the blazing focus
of the sun-blade, the ember,
Achilles in Egypt;
but I would see further,
I would renew the Quest,
I would bind myself with the Girdle,
the circlet, the starry Zone;
as I strove in the precinct,
to decipher the Amen-script,
so I would read here
in my crystal, the Writing,
I would measure the star-space,
even as Achilles
measured the stars
with the sway of a ship’s mast,
even as Achilles counted,
picture by picture,
the outline of hero and beast.
[7]
She would see and be. Though herself free from time-restrictions and the Wheel, she would endure or share the “labours” of Achilles, whatever they might be. At the same time, she “would wander through the temples of the stars.” This is possible only through reflection and meditation. “What was Helena’s task?” She can not altogether say, only that through the power and tenderness of Theseus, “it was finished.”
I would wander through the temples
of the stars, his familiars;
I would seek, I would find,
I would endure with him,
the twelve labours,
conquer Boar, Stag, Lion;
what was Helena’s task?
do we know?
only that it was finished
when she stumbled out of the snow,
across the threshold,
and found you here.
[8]
And now there is one prayer, a prayer addressed to the king-hero Theseus (“O god-father”), rather than as in the beginning, to that more distant abstraction, “Amen, All-father.” The prayer will be answered, Helen knows. It is a simple prayer for Achilles, “may he find the way.”
There is one prayer,
may he find the way;
O god-father, draw nearer,
help me to speed the ship,
he must sail far, far;
help me, you Master of Argo,
to re-assemble the host,
so that none of the heroes be lost,
teach me to remember,
(there is one prayer,
may he find the way),
teach me not to remember.
EIDOLON
Book One
[1]
Why eidolon? At the end of the first book, Thetis appears, or the image or eidolon of Thetis calls Helen out of Egypt. Now after the reconciliation with time, Greek time, (through the council and guidance of Theseus), Helen is called back to Egypt. It is Achilles who calls her — or it is the image or eidolon of Achilles who is “commanded to say, Theseus commands me.”
Achilles: Commanded to seek other
Boar, Stag, Lion,
another Sea-monster,
another Bull, other Oxen,
other Apples, another Amazon
with
her star-zone,
commanded by Formalhaut,
the Initiator, royal, sacred
High Priest of love-rites,
more ancient than Troy citadel;
commanded to seek you here,
for you never left Egypt;
commanded to say, in Egypt,
we are in Eleusis,
Helen is Persephone,
Achilles is Dis,
(the Greek Isis-Osiris);
commanded to pray,
as before the high-altar,
your couch here;
commanded to display
a brand, flame, torch;
commanded to say,
Theseus commands me.
[2]
Achilles reminds Helen of how Thetis, in the first instance, had summoned her with “Achilles waits.” He waits, not as Lord of Legions, “King of Myrmidons,” but as one dedicated to a new Command, that of the “royal sacred High Priest of love-rites.”
You ask how you came here;
Theseus’ servants bore your couch,
silently, set down the lion-claws
Helen in Egypt: Poetry (New Directions Paperbook) Page 10