The Heart of a Stranger

by André Naffis-Sahely

  There is no better statement of this exiled Greek poet’s life and ideas than his “De exilio suo” — “On His Own Exile” — an intensely self-conscious lyric, apparently written while Marullus was serving as a mercenary, which contains some hard truths about life away from one’s homeland:

  True, all dignity of birth and family is cast off

  As soon as you step on foreign land an exile.

  Nobility and virtuous lineage, a house which gleams

  With ancient honours — these are no help now.

  Although Marullus acknowledges the loss of his world, he is obsessed with the warlike spirit he believes is necessary in order to reconquer it, a sentiment which shows its pagan roots in the line: “Liberty cannot be preserved except by our native Mars.” Centuries ahead of his time — his belief in the need for violent rebellion would be proved right by the Greek War of Independence three centuries later — Marullus was nevertheless born astride two ages, although one could safely say that his death was squarely medieval. Attempting to cross the River Cecina atop his horse, Marullus drowned at the age of forty-seven, with a copy of Lucretius’s De rerum natura stuffed in his pocket. Although praised by Pierre de Ronsard (1524–85), Marullus’s poems may well have been lost to us had it not been for the efforts of the Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce (1866–1952), who translated his poems into Italian in 1938, a fortunate turn given that Marullus’s books hadn’t been reprinted since the sixteenth century.

  THE DESERT FATHERS

  Abba Longinus

  Longinus, a friend and disciple of Lucius and later a famous abbot of the monastery of Enaton, led the monks in opposition to the Council of Chalcedon. Enaton was a leading monastery in Egypt; the Monophysite patriarchs took up residence there in the sixth century; it was sacked by the Persians in 611.

  One day Abba Longinus questioned Abba Lucius about three thoughts, saying first, “I want to go into exile.” The old man said to him, “If you cannot control your tongue, you will not be an exile anywhere. Therefore control your tongue here, and you will be an exile.” Next he said to him, “I wish to fast.” The old man replied, “Isaiah said, ‘If you bend your neck like a rope or a bulrush that is not the fast I will accept; but rather, control your evil thoughts.’” (Isaiah 58.) He said to him the third time, “I wish to flee from men.” The old man replied, “If you have not first of all lived rightly with men, you will not be able to live rightly in solitude.”

  Translated from Greek by Benedicta Ward

  ABD AL-RAHMAN I

  The Palm Tree

  A palm tree stands in the middle of Rusafa, born in the West,

  Far from the land of palms.

  I said to it: “How like me you are, far away and in exile,

  In long separation from family and friends.

  You have sprung from soil in which you are a stranger;

  And I, like you, am far from home.

  May dawn’s clouds water you, streaming from the heavens

  In a grateful downpour.”

  Translated from Arabic by D.F. Ruggles

  DU FU

  from Dreaming of Li Bai

  I’ve swallowed sobs of the lost dead,

  but this live separation is chronic grief.

  From the malarial south of the river

  no news comes of the exiled traveller,

  but you visit my dream, old friend,

  knowing I ache for you.

  Are you a ghost?

  No way to tell with the long road between us.

  Your spirit comes through green maple woods,

  slips home past darkening border fortresses.

  You are caught in the law’s net,

  so how can your spirit have wings?

  The sinking moon pours onto the rafters

  and your face glows in my mind.

  The water is deep, the waves are wide.

  Don’t let the dragons snatch you!

  Translated from Chinese by Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping

  BAI JUYI

  Song of the Lute

  In the tenth year of the Yuanhe Period (815) I was demoted to deputy governor and exiled to Jiujiang. In autumn the next year, I was seeing a friend off at the Penpu ferry when I heard through the night someone playing the lute in a boat. The tune, crisp and metallic, carried the flavour of the music of the capital. I asked her who she was, and she told me she was a prostitute from the capital, Changan, and had learnt to play the lute from Master Mu and Master Cao. Now she was old and her beauty had declined and therefore she had married a merchant. So I ordered wine and asked her to play several tunes. We fell silent for a while. Then she told me about the pleasure of her youth, though now she is low and withered, drifting about on rivers and lakes. I had been assigned to posts outside the capital for two years and had enjoyed myself in peace. But, touched by her words, that evening I began to realize what I truly felt about being exiled. So I wrote this long poem for her with a total of 612 characters, entitled “Song of the Lute”.

  Seeing off a guest at night by the Xunyang River,

  I felt autumn shivering on maple leaves and reed flowers.

  I dismounted from my horse and my guest stepped on the boat;

  we raised our cups for a drink without the music of pipes or strings.

  We got drunk but not happy, mourning his departure.

  When he embarked, the moon was half drowned in the river.

  Suddenly we heard a lute sing across the water

  and the host forgot to return home, and the guest stopped his boat.

  Following the sound, we softly enquired who the musician was,

  the lute fell silent and the answer came after a pause.

  We steered our boat close and invited her to join us,

  with wine refilled and lamp relit, our banquet opened again.

  It took a thousand “please”s and ten thousand invitations before she appeared,

  though with her lute she still hid half her face.

  She plucked a few times to tune her strings.

  Even before the melody formed one felt her emotions.

  Each string sounded muted and each note meditative,

  as if the music were narrating the sorrows of her life.

  With eyebrows lowered she let her hands freely strum on and on,

  pouring pent-up feelings out of her heart.

  Softly strumming, plucking, sweeping and twanging the strings,

  she played “Rainbow Garment” then “Green Waist”.

  The thick strings splattered like a rain shower,

  the thin strings whispered privately like lovers.

  Splattering and whispering back and forth,

  big pearls and small pearls dropping into a jade plate.

  Smooth the notes were, skylarks chirping under flowers.

  Uneven the sound flowed like a spring under ice,

  the spring water cold and strained, the strings congealing silence,

  freezing to silence, till the sounds couldn’t pass, and momentarily rest.

  Now some other hidden sorrow and dark regret arose

  and at this moment silence was better than sound.

  Suddenly a silver vase exploded and the water splashed out,

  iron horses galloped through and swords and spears clashed.

  When the tune stopped, she struck the heart of the instrument,

  all four strings together, like a piece of silk tearing.

  Silence then in the east boat and the west.

  All I could see in the river’s heart was the autumn moon, so pale.

  Silently she placed the pick between the strings,

  straightened her garment and stood up with a serious face.

  She told us, “I was a girl from the capital,

  lived close to the Tombs of the Toad.

  I finished studying lute at the age of thirteen,

  and was first string in the Bureau of Women Musicians.

  When my tunes stopped, the most talented players we
re humbled,

  other girls were constantly jealous when they saw me made up,

  the rich young city men competed to throw me brocade headscarves,

  and I was given countless red silks after playing a tune.

  My listeners broke hairpins and combs when they followed my rhythm.

  I stained my blood-coloured silk skirt with wine

  and laughed all year and laughed the next,

  and autumn moon and spring wind passed unnoticed.

  My brother was drafted and my Madam died.

  An evening passed, and when morning came my beauty was gone.

  My door became desolate and horses seldom came,

  and as I was getting old I married a merchant.

  My merchant cared more about profit than being with me.

  A month ago he went to Fuliang to buy tea.

  I am here to watch this empty boat at the mouth of the river.

  The bright moon circles around the boat and the water is very cold.

  Deep into the night I suddenly dreamt about my young days

  and wept in dream as tears streaked through my rouge.”

  I was already sighing, listening to her lute,

  but her story made me even sadder.

  I said, “We both are exiled to the edge of this world

  and our hearts meet though we’ve never met before.

  Since I left the capital last year,

  I was exiled to Xunyang and became sick.

  Xunyang is too small to have any music;

  all year round I heard no strings or pipes.

  My home is close to the Pen River, low and damp,

  yellow reeds and bitter bamboo surround the house.

  What do you think I hear there day and night?

  Cuckoos chirping blood and the sad howls of apes.

  Spring river, blossoming morning and autumn moon night —

  I often have my wine and drink by myself.

  It is not that there are no folk songs or village flutes,

  but their yawps and moans are just too noisy for my ear.

  Tonight I heard your lute speak

  and my ear pricked up, listening to fairy music.

  Please don’t decline, sit down to play another tune,

  and I’ll write a ‘Song of the Lute’ for you.”

  Touched by my words, she stood there for a long time,

  then sat down and tuned up her strings and speeded up the rhythm.

  Sad and touching, it was so different from her last song

  and everyone started to weep.

  If you ask, “Who shed most tears in this group?”

  The Marshal of Jiangzhou’s black gown was all wet.

  Translated from Chinese by Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping

  CHRISTOPHER OF MYTILENE

  On the ex-emperor Michael Kalaphates, when he was arrested and blinded for having banished the Empress Zoe from imperial rule

  So the thrice-hapless city of Byzas was to behold

  the dreadful battle between the ship-caulker and the townsmen,

  and the sun was to behold another disaster,

  brought about by the exile of the fair empress

  Zoe, the noble-born, whom, when she was still young,

  the purple received, and the breast of an empress nursed;

  Romanos thereafter obtained her as his wedded wife,

  a high-bred man, they called him Argyropolos;

  and it was he who loosened her maiden girdle.

  Her exile bore the city many woes,

  orphanhood for children, widowhood for women,

  blood and wounds, strife and murder,

  painful deaths, much sorrow and moaning,

  all because of the infantile mind of her adopted child.

  By a bad fate this man reigned over the great city.

  Intent on evil, he quickly forgot the covenants,

  and in his rashness he devised a wicked plan.

  But in the middle of the city he lost his dear sight

  by violating the truthful oaths with his offence.

  He brought his crown to shame, he trampled upon truces,

  this baneful emperor, by expelling the empress from the palace.

  But foolishness and the unlawful violation of oaths

  have terribly blinded him and taken away his sceptre.

  Now this wicked creature sighs heavily, and cries out grief-stricken,

  calling ruined “this empire that I ruled”.

  He lies now on the ground, the wretched one, who once held power,

  an example of utter misery for future generations,

  craving the light he lost with his foolish aspirations.

  Translated from Greek by Floris Bernard and Christopher Livanos

  IBN HAMDIS

  Oh sea, you conceal my paradise

  Oh sea, you conceal my paradise

  on your other shore…

  I recall Sicily — in my soul

  pain resurrects her image,

  land of youth’s mad joys,

  now desert, once alive like

  the flower of noble minds.

  Driven from paradise,

  how can I bear witness to it?

  If my tears were not so bitter

  I could believe that they

  were rivers of that holy place.

  Translated from Arabic by Justin Vitiello

  MOSES IBN EZRA

  I am weary of roaming about the world

  I am weary of roaming about the world,

  Measuring its expanse, and I’m not yet done.

  I walk with the beasts of the forest

  And I hover like a bird of prey over the peaks of the mountains.

  My feet run about like lightning to the far ends of the earth,

  And I move from sea to sea.

  Journey follows journey, but I find

  No resting place, no calm repose.

  How far must my feet, at Fate’s behest,

  Bear me o’er exile’s path, and find no rest?

  Oh, if indeed, the Lord would me restore

  To beautiful Granada-land, my paths

  Would be the paths of pleasantness once more

  For in that land my life was very sweet —

  A kindly Fate lay homage to my feet,

  And deep I quaffed at Friendship’s fount;

  Though hope be long deferred, though heart be faint,

  On God I wait,

  Unto whose mercy there is no restraint —

  And whose decree

  Can break the shackles and unbar the gate,

  And set the prisoner of exile free.

  Translated from Hebrew by Salo Wittmayer Baron

  ANNA KOMNENE

  from The Alexiad

  Here I must interrupt the thread of the story a while to relate how the emperor suppressed the Paulicians. He could not bear the thought of entering Constantinople without having first subdued these rebels, but, as though presiding over a second victory after a first, he caused the mass of the Manichæans to complete the cycle of his achievements. For it was not even right to allow those descendants of the Paulicians to be a blemish, as it were, on the brilliant trophy of his western victories. He did not wish to effect this by warfare, as in the clash of battle many lives on either side would be sacrificed; further, he knew from of old that these men were very spirited and breathed defiance against their enemies. For this reason he was eager only to punish the ringleaders, and to incorporate the rest in the body of his army. Hence he proceeded against them adroitly. He knew those men’s love of danger and irrepressible courage in battle and therefore feared that, if they became desperate, they would commit some terrible outrage; and for the moment they were living quietly in their own country and so far had abstained from raids and other forms of devastation; therefore on his way back to Byzantium he asked them by letter to come and meet him and made them many promises. But the Manichæans had heard of his victory over the Franks and naturally suspected that tho
se letters were misleading them by fair promises; nevertheless, though reluctant, they set out to meet him. Alexius halted close to Mosynopolis, pretending that he was waiting for other reasons, but in reality he was only awaiting their arrival. When they came he pretended that he wished to review them and write down each individual’s name. So he presided with a grim face and commanded the chiefs of the Manichæans not to ride past promiscuously but in parties of ten, promising a general review shortly, and then, when their names had been inscribed, to enter the gates in that order. The men whose duty it was to take them captive were all ready, and, after taking away their horses and weapons, locked up the chiefs in the prisons assigned them. Those who came after were in complete ignorance of these doings and therefore entered the town little knowing the fate awaiting them. In this manner, then, he captured them, and their property he confiscated and distributed among the brave soldiers who had shared in the battles and dangers that had befallen him. The official who undertook this distribution went to Philippopolis and drove even the women from their homes and incarcerated them in the citadel. Within a short time the emperor took pity on the imprisoned Manichæans, and those who desired Christian baptism were not refused even this boon. So, having over-reached them by every kind of device, he discovered the authors of this terrible madness, and these he banished and imprisoned on islands. The rest he released, and he gave them permission to go whithersoever they wished. And they, preferring their mother country to any other, hastened back to it to put their affairs into what order they could.