was it Paris? was it Apollo?
was it a game played over and over,
with numbers or counters?
who set the scene?
who lured the players from home
or imprisoned them in the Walls,
to inspire us with endless,
intricate questioning?
why did they fight at all?
was Helen daemon or goddess?
how did they scale the Walls?
was the iron-horse an ancient symbol
or a new battering-ram?
was Helen another symbol,
a star, a ship or a temple?
how will the story end?
was Paris more skillful than Teucer?
Achilles than Hector?
[6]
Indeed it was “Apollo’s snare.” None other.
Was it Apollo’s snare
so that poets forever,
should be caught in the maze of the Walls
of a Troy that never fell?
was it a round of Delphic priestesses,
beating on Holy Ground,
a rhythm before the altar,
or the crash of sword upon sword
of the Pyrrhic dancers?
how could the lyre-string fail?
I am called back to the Walls
to find the answer,
to wander as in a maze
(Theseus’ Labyrinth),
to explore each turn of the street,
for a way to the ships and the wharves,
to return and sort over and over,
my bracelets, sandals and scarves —
but who would stoop to pilfer,
who would steal
these intimate, personal things?
the servants were richer than Helen,
counting the links in a chain,
the pearls on a string,
that the merchants should not cheat
a suspect stranger from Greece,
is she a slave or a queen?
[7]
So Helen remembers her part in the greatest drama of Greece and of all time. She seems almost to speak by rote, she has grown into her part. But she breaks off, as it were, from the recorded drama to remind us of the unrecorded … her first meeting with Achilles, “on the ledge of a desolate beach.”
Another shout from the wharves;
I fight my way through the crowd,
but the gates are barred;
are the ramparts free?
I am an enemy in a beleaguered city;
I find my way to the Tower,
to the Tower-stairs,
do I run? do I fly?
what pity for Helen?
Hecuba’s lordly son
has been slain by Achilles;
could I join the confusion below,
I would leap from the Walls,
but a sentry snatches my sleeve,
dragging me back — what curse
can equal his curse?
how answer his scorn?
“for this is Hector dead,
was Hector born to be conquered
by harlots and thieves,
stealing a prince’s honour?
let Paris retrieve
the fate of Priam’s city;
he is next to the king
in the Trojan hierarchy,
but we will have no decadent lover
for king, none sick of a fever,
a Grecian harlot brings
to weaken the fibre,
to melt the sinews of war
in a lascivious seven-year dallying”;
was it seven years, was it a day?
I can not remember …
I only remember the shells,
whiter than bone,
on the ledge of a desolate beach.
[8]
There is only a song now and rhetorical questions that have been already answered.
Did the harp-string fail,
or did eternal Justice
tip the scale?
was a fluttering veil
a message, a sign
that the waiting was over?
seven years? they said it was ten;
I stood at the stair-head,
the famous spiral-stair,
and heard their shouting
but I did not care,
for Achilles was dead;
how did they force the gate?
how did they fire the Towers?
that was nothing to me
who had waited the endless years,
was it seven years?
was it a day?
an arrow sped from the door
and Paris swerved, but I was gone
before Paris fell;
did the harp-string fail?
was Aphrodite’s power
nothing after all?
Book Three
[1]
Again the veil, the dream, bringing the symbolism of the “fluttering veil” of which Helen has just spoken into line with “the horizon.” Achilles’ early question, “Helena, which was the dream, which was the veil of Cytheraea?” is answered, and Helen herself has answered it, “they were one.” They are “the ships assembled at Aulis,” and — a mermaid …
Achilles said, which was the veil,
which was the dream?
they were one — on the horizon,
a sail sensed, not seen;
a bow, a familiar prow,
a hand on the rudder,
ropes, rope-ladders, the smell of tar,
I think he remembered them all,
(when he stooped to gather the sticks),
scattered tackle and gear,
a wheel, a mast, a dipping sail;
he struck the flint
and the blaze outlined
the skeleton shapes
of the broken sticks
and caught the inflammable weed
in a sudden flare
and a sputter of salt;
what scent? what wind? what hope
on the ledge of a desolate beach?
what did he remember last, what first?
I think he remembered everything
in an instantaneous flash,
as he straightened after he flung
the last faggots down,
and looked at the stars,
swaying as before the mast,
and looked at Helena,
what spirit, what daemon, what ghost?
a host of spirits crowded around the fire
but I did not see them;
he could have named them all,
had he paused to remember,
but he only saw the ships
assembled at Aulis,
he only remembered his own ship
that would lead them all,
he only saw an image, a wooden image,
a mermaid, Thetis upon the prow.
[2]
Achilles had been alone, for the women that Theseus had named, and the same names as Paris repeats them, are to Helen as she again recalls them, “no problem any more.” For Achilles, there is one love and perhaps for Helen, “his own ship that would lead them all.”
How could any woman hope
to achieve Victory
over the Sea? name them,
Briseis, Chryseis, Polyxena; name again
Deidamia, the king’s daughter,
he married in Scyros;
did any of them matter?
did they count at all,
or were they mere members of a chorus
in a drama that had but one other player?
in any case, the struggle was over,
as I stood at the stair-head
there was no problem any more,
I did not care who won, who lost,
Achilles was dead;
Zeus had rapt you away, Paris said,
there by the spiral-stair,
yes, Zeus had rapt me away,
but had it happened before
the ar
row sped from the door
and I was gone before Paris fell?
[3]
So we see with the eyes of Helen, “the swords flash.” We hear the “thunder across the plain.” We feel and know the dedication of the “child of Thetis” to the Sea. We are hardly surprised that this “greatest hero in Greece,” dismissing as it were, the traditional sacrifice of Iphigenia, should promise “another white throat to a goddess.”
I say there is only one image,
one picture, though the swords flash;
I say there is one treasure,
one desire, as the wheels turn
and the hooves of the stallions
thunder across the plain,
and the plain is dust,
and the battle-field is a heap
of rusty staves and broken chariot-frames
and the rims of the dented shields
and desolation, destruction — for what?
a dream? a towered town?
proud youths for slaves,
a princess or two for lust?
I say there is one image,
and slaves and princesses
and the town itself are nothing
beside a picture, an image, an idol
or eidolon, not much more than a doll,
old, old — for ship-rigging and beam
can be changed, a mast renewed,
a rudder re-set but never the hull;
this is the same, this is my first ship,
this is my own, my belovèd
who will lead the host;
we will sail, we will sail
with or without Iphigenia’s death,
for I have promised another
white throat to a goddess,
but not to our lady of Aulis.
[4]
Helen herself seems almost ready for this sacrifice — at least, for the immolation of herself before this greatest love of Achilles, his dedication to “his own skip” and the figurehead, “an idol or eidolon … a mermaid, Thetis upon the prow.”
Did her eyes slant in the old way?
was she Greek or Egyptian?
had some Phoenician sailor wrought her?
was she oak-wood or cedar?
had she been cut from an awkward block
of ship-wood at the ship-builders,
and afterwards riveted there,
or had the prow itself been shaped
to her mermaid body,
curved to her mermaid hair?
was there a dash of paint
in the beginning, in the garment-fold,
did the blue afterwards wear away?
did they re-touch her arms, her shoulders?
did anyone touch her ever?
had she other zealot and lover,
or did he alone worship her?
did she wear a girdle of sea-weed
or a painted crown? how often
did her high breasts meet the spray,
how often dive down?
[5]
So Achilles disguised, deserts “the Trojan plain,” and “a far shadow upon the beach … he went to the prow of his love, his beloved.”
Achilles skulks in his tent,
they said, but it was not true,
Achilles avoids the battle;
we will trick him
and lure him out,
Patroclus shall bear his shield
and lead his men;
so they armed Patroclus
and Patroclus was slain;
where is Achilles?
they sought for him everywhere,
but never thought the unarmed
hostler who tended his steeds,
was Achilles’ self,
wrapped in a woolen cloak
with the hood drawn over his head;
he skulks in his tent, they said,
but he was a far shadow upon the beach;
“a spy, an emissary of Troy?”
but he answered the sentinel’s threat
with the simple pass-word
of Achilles’ Myrmidons,
Helena; so he went to the prow
of his love, his beloved,
feeling her flanks,
tearing loose weed from her stern,
brushing sand from her beams,
not speaking, but praying:
I will re-join the Greeks
and the battle before the gate,
if you promise a swift return,
if you promise new sails for the fleet
and a wind to bear us home,
I am sick of the Trojan plain,
I would rise, I would fall again
in a tempest, a hurricane.
[6]
And at that most crucial moment, Achilles directs the Battle that will prove the turning-point of the war and bring final Victory to the Greeks. But the “power of the tempest” has been misconstrued, and the “simple pass-word of Achilles’ Myrmidons, Helena” has been forgotten.
He was the tempest-self
as he roused the host,
and they said, see Achilles’ anger,
his unspeakable grief,
for his friend is dead;
he is thundering over the plain,
where is Hector?
when the heroes meet,
the very world must crash
in the clash of their arms;
so they circled the city-wall
three times, till Hector fell;
was this vengeance?
was this answer to prayer?
so the legend starts,
and Patroclus-Achilles are names
to be conjured together;
but the warriors never saw
a shadow upon the beach,
nor knew the power of the tempest
was roused by another.
[7]
Was Helen stronger than Achilles even “as the arrows fell”? That could not be, but he recognised in her some power other than her legendary beauty.
He could name Helena,
but the other he could not name;
she was a lure, a light,
an intimate flame, a secret kept
even from his slaves, the elect,
the innermost hierarchy;
only Helena could be named
and she was a public scandal
in any case, a cause of shame
to Agamemnon and Menelaus;
it was not that she was beautiful,
true, she stood on the Walls,
taut and indifferent
as the arrows fell;
it was not that she was beautiful,
there were others,
in spite of the legend,
as gracious, as tall;
it was not that she was beautiful,
but he stared and stared
across the charred wood
and the smouldering flame,
till his eyes cleared
and the smoke drifted away.
[8]
“So she cheated at last.” It is not granted human or superhuman intelligence and ingenuity to escape the “lure of the sea.”
Did her eyes slant in the old way?
was she Greek or Egyptian?
it was not his own ship
but a foreign keel
that had brought him here;
the Old Man who ferried him out,
called it a caravel;
a caravel — what is that?
Phoenician? so she cheated at last,
she, Empress and lure of the sea,
Queen of the Myrmidons,
Regent of heaven and the star-zone;
she had promised him immortality
but she had forgotten to dip the heel
of the infant Achilles
into the bitter water,
Styx, was it?
O careless, unspeakable mother,
O Thetis …
so she failed at last,
and worse than failure,
&n
bsp; the mockery, after-death,
to stumble across a stretch
of shell and the scattered weed,
to encounter another
whose eyes slant in the old way;
is she Greek or Egyptian?
Book Four
[1]
Helen says, “I am awake, I see things clearly; it is dawn.” If the Helen of our first sequence was translated to a transcendental plane, the Amen-temple in Egypt, and the Helen of our second sequence contacted a guide or guardian, near to her in time, Theseus, the hero-king and “Master of Argo,” our third Helen having realized “all myth, the one reality,” is concerned with the human content of the drama. “I am awake, I see things clearly.” Clearly, she realizes the “death” of Achilles and his “ecstasy of desolation, a desire to return to the old thunder and roar of the sea.”
So it was nothing, nothing at all,
the loss, the gain; it was nothing,
the victory, the shouting
Helen in Egypt: Poetry (New Directions Paperbook) Page 12