“Brothers, be still! All of us, beasts and stones and trees,
shall be wedged tightly with firm layers in God’s body. 1310
We’re all in the same army, comrades; the human troops
march on ahead, and you, birds, beasts, and trees, bring up the rear.
It’s only right that your warm flesh should feed the mind.
A dreadful war’s begun! To arms, my gallant troops!”
Thus did he speak with earth profoundly, drafted workers, 1315
planed rough trees with his mind, clove rocks into stone blocks,
until his vision spread its peacock tail, tall in the sun.
When the heart calmed and the mind filled, proud solitude
gave of its ripest, dearest fruit, fierce liberty.
The inner holocaust then turned to light which soared 1320
to man’s precipitous desolate brows and like a flag
waved there, struck by the sixteen haughty winds of freedom.
The black storm swelled with rage until in the thick darkness
light soared with gallant bravery and proclaimed fierce war.
Dreams yearned for bodies, virgin maidens longed for sons, 1325
and in all heads the unkissed and shrunk ideas wept;
the soul at last had reached its ultimate task, the Act.
Like a sharp ax in the dense forests of the heart,
the Act struck right and left, cut down a ruthless road
and breached the narrow brain to break the ancient siege. 1330
The archer gazed profoundly at the world and felt
it was not now eye’s sweet mirage, no bridegroom’s cloak
which God once donned to make love to the female soul,
nor gaudy middle-wall to hide us from grim Death,
adorned with sun-shot spangles by compassionate hands, 1335
most sweet, most luring spangles to efface the grave—
life is a fierce assault in which the lustrous powers
struggle to tear the darkness in a grim ascent
in search of deathlessness and freedom on this earth.
Two great contrary windstorms, male and female blasts, 1340
once clashed within the arenas of the earth and mind,
and in one delicately balanced moment this world was born;
let’s ride that male wind too, and vanish down the blast!
It is not man’s most fruitful nor most difficult duty
to find out in the abstract high reaches of his mind 1345
with what pulse God walks gasping on this earth with pain;
he, too, should now come down to earth and walk with God,
for only thus may mortal man become immortal.
On the mind’s death-scorched rock, narrow, ephemeral,
struck by all times and spaces, thrashed by all the gods, 1350
the daring Act hews down the woods, builds sturdy ships
and strives to cross the abyss like a dark sea, to save
its precious cargo, its much-wounded, bleeding God.
On this abyss the Act and God, lone shipmates, talk
with fear, pale, hungry, broken, gazing on far seas, 1355
age now on hopeless age, and with great longing strive
to raise the nonexistent shores from endless waves.
Deep in his heart the archer heard a savage voice
that summoned him to take up arms and to fight on:
“Rise, O great Archer of the Mind, hitch up your loins, 1360
pummel the earth like dough, stoop down to earth and blow
the murky brain away, that trees and beast may rise
and that the dark inhuman powers may change to God.
When in your wars and victories you subdue wild chaos
into firm laws, you do not only free a god, 1365
but make a god, who like a glowworm crawls on earth.
Why have you played and fought for ages in your mind
till all seemed tricks of the imagination, ghosts,
wings of the intoxicated head, parrots of speech
that with harsh jabbering shrieks darted through men’s brains?— 1370
the you might free yourself from the game’s joy, Odysseus,
that you might fall to your great task, stoop down and dig,
a worker in the untilled vast vineyards of your Lord!
We want no idlers here on earth, no roaming tramps,
but diggers of the earth who free the soil like souls!” 1375
The spoke the voice, and the archer hailed it with great joy:
‘Welcome a thousand times, child-bearing Lady Act!
The time has come to stretch blue-eyed Idea down
on earth like a chaste bride and fill her full of seed!
Stones, waters, trees, you’re welcome all to our great wedding!” 1380
The bridegroom spoke, then slung an orchid down his ear,
bound osier strands about his waist, cocked his tall cap,
and, singing wedding couplets of erotic passion,
leapt down from rock to rock and took the road’s return:
“Open all doors and windows now, break all the locks, 1385
O bride, receive the bridegroom, shepherd of all flocks!”
“Mother, the groom has come now, riding his red roan,
give him your blessing, Mother, he’s snatched your girl from home!”
“Today the sky and the day glow with love, my Love,
today in blazing light are wed the eagle and the dove!” 1390
The spirit of love now flamed from his ten fingertips, 1391
he held time in his hands like a red bitten apple
and brought it to his bride for an engagement ring. 1393
Brides gathered larch-tree leaves to dye their wedding gowns,
the trembling newborn light slid slowly through the fields, 1395
and the bare-bosomed sea smelled fragrantly like all
white breasts in all the world at dawn that suckled sons.
The earth and sky were new, Death was an open rose,
the mind was a huge sunkissed rock within whose clefts
only wild pigeons and stone-swallows built their nests. 1400
The archer shrilled like a tall crane, chirped like a swallow,
and like a puffed-up russet pigeon spread his wings;
all’s well, the heart is sated, the green world is vast
and dashes now toward men from tall man-hating summits.
What joy to lunge down from the peaks while at your heels 1405
the world trots like a faithful dog and wags his tail,
to come back like a savage hunter who wrecked the woods,
though not to say, “I heard the partridge sing in the glens,
I heard her, yet I could not see a single wing!”—
but in your fists to hold the palpable partridge warm and slain! 1410
XV
A slender maid at evening lay by the lake’s rim;
her throat choked in the stifling air and her blood swelled
like curly red carnations at a new bride’s door.
Half shutting her black-painted eyes, fated for kisses,
she flung her fancy’s shuttle and began to weave 5
deep in her heart a baby’s rich-wrought swaddling clothes.
Deep in her happy heart she stitched seas, fish, and ships;
deep in her fertile heart she stitched earth’s flowering trees;
deep in her faithless heart she stitched her husband hanged;
deep in her leching heart she stitched her true love coming. 10
As Granite passed and spied her on the lake shore’s rim,
gall rose and dimmed his eyes, he uttered a loud cry,
for he recalled her husband, his once precious friend
whom they had found at dawn, alas, hanged from a tree,
and his blood seethed until he came to grim decision: 15
“They’ve killed my dearest friend and
I cry out for vengeance:
Let seven maids be slain at dawn on his dark grave,
and first to lead the dance shall be his black-eyed wife!”
At the lake’s margin Kentaur was building a lean-to
but when the sun’s blaze struck him and he longed for shade 20
where his great buffalo’s bulk might feel refreshed and cooled,
he heard gaunt Granite’s order and he roared with wrath:
“It’s a great crime to spill such innocent blood on earth!
If by all means you must have vengeance for his death,
sow seven sons to bring your friend back sevenfold!” 25
But the rough mountain lad turned round and laughed with scorn:
“Shame on your monstrous body, shame on your tough teats,
for all their manly blood has spoiled and squirts out milk!
Who asked you to speak up? Who asked for your advice?”
Great glutton growled and did not speak to vent his rage 30
but all night long his blood boiled as there swarmed about him
hornets of men and maids who stung his guileless heart.
Not far off, heavy-hearted Granite with his youths
caroused and picked out seven maids to slay at dawn,
then ate wild boar till their mustaches dripped with fat. 35
At daybreak sleepless glutton roamed about the woods
till in a clearing he met Granite and cried out:
“Brother, it’s shameful we should quarrel, it pains my heart,
for then the unbridled mob will howl with evil joy
to see their chiefs at loggerheads, with butting horns. 40
And then I’ve also thought, and my knees shook with fear,
that seven days and nights have passed this day, and soon
—don’t get your gall up, lad—one better than us will come,
and then how shall we dare to meet his fearful glance?”
But Granite raged to have his master used for scarecrow: 45
“You ass, do you think I fear the shadow his cap casts?
I think myself a man, I nourish a strong soul,
I listen only to the dictates of my heart and do
whatever I like; that skittish whore has killed my friend!
I’ll have his blood back sevenfold! Who dares to stop me?” 50
But every speech has its own bitter counterspeech:
“Measure your words well, Granite! All the shame is yours!
It’s better to swallow hard than say a shameful word.”
But haughty Granite stroked his slender black mustache:
“Sipping may suit the sot, but boasting suits me fine! 55
I’ve never opened my mouth unless I had just cause.
Don’t call me Granite if I don’t do what I say!”
The monster’s fat neck swelled, but he gulped down his wrath:
“I know that you are nobly born, shoot of a great tribe,
and I crude ballast in your ship, a coarse splayfoot, 60
but my soul’s also free, I do whatever it tells me.
Not many of us survived the wilds, and while I live
I won’t have souls die just to please your stubborn spite!”
The mountain archon laughed with scorn and pricked his friend:
“Let’s fight each other in the sight of all the troops 65
and let the seven women await their destiny:
if you should win, they’re yours; if I, they’re mine to slay!”
Glutton’s good heart sighed deeply, choked by what was right:
“Brother, then let your will be done; such is our curse.
Let’s give our word, however, not to fight to death, 70
there’s much work to be done on earth, much dread ahead;
it’s only just we seek our deaths at greater heights.”
Gaunt Granite shook with laughter, but he reached his hand:
“Very well, then, our lion-strife will stop at death;
I, too, prefer to keep my soul, that wild bloodhound, 75
safe in my savage chest for a more glorious hunt.”
They spoke, and parted with great wrath, their bodies steamed,
and then at evening, when day’s kiln was flickering low,
they smeared their limbs with slippery wild boar’s fat and cleared
a wide arena in the woods for fighting space. 80
The seven maids, the bridal loot, set up their wails,
while in their midst the widow stitched her swaddling clothes.
The troops, too, parted in two seething hostile camps;
some prompted Kentaur how to spread his legs out wide
then how to seize that slender form and dash it down 85
and thus strike terror in all souls that tread on justice;
and others pressed round Granite’s fire and sang rousing songs.
Enflamed and smeared with blood on the sky’s rim, the moon
loomed speechless in the night, a slaughtered soldier’s head,
and on all waxen faces cast its bloodstained beams. 90
The drums beat, the huge bodies in the arena gleamed,
but first they roused each other’s wrath with gibes and jeers:
“Come on, potbellied sot, I’ll tear your guts apart
then dig in with a harbor dredge to drain you dry!”
But like a turkey, glutton swelled and gave no quarter 95
for black rage seized him and he spoke with bursting sides:
“Go on, you scrawny cock, you windbag of hot air,
think of that time you almost pissed your fool head off,
for if I hadn’t swooped in time, by God, today
you’d be bare bones and through your ribs the carrion flies 100
would buzz in swarms and the black crabs go scurrying!”
By now gaunt Granite’s blood was seething, words were vain
and choked him, so he lunged and seized fat glutton’s sides,
but he dug both huge feet like columns firm in earth:
“Strike all you want, foam at the mouth, but you won’t budge me!” 105
They fought, and the earth shook; they lunged, and the woods rang;
there where broad-buttocks stamped his feet, the arena sank,
there where the hill-chief stamped, cisterns of black blood gaped,
their eyes turned bestial and their black-bruised bodies swelled.
Suddenly, like a vulture, Granite swooped and seized 110
glutton’s fat nape till its veins swelled, his face turned green.
Both foes and friends pressed close with fear and held their breath:
an eagle and a bison thrashed on bloodstained earth,
and as the eagle dug its claws in the beast’s nape,
it spread its wings about the dazed and bloodshot eyes 115
and struck between the horns to suck the bison’s brains.
The women shrieked with grief because from Kentaur’s throat
they heard his heart’s commotion break in rattling gasps.
But with a choked cry suddenly Granite’s body sagged,
and broad-backed Kentaur seized his comrade by the waist 120
and groped to find where that proud body might be maimed,
till his whole soul from his ten fingers poured with fear,
and when he felt poor Granite’s left arm hanging limp,
soft-hearted glutton burst into a loud lament:
“Forgive me, friend, my crude hands yet don’t know their strength.” 125
Then filled with joy unhoped for, the seven women screamed
and rushed to kiss their savior’s limp and bloodstained hands,
but he turned, grabbed their hair and knocked their heads together:
“You whores, you’re all worth less than Granite’s little nail!
If I’d known what I’d do, I’d rather have slain you all!” 130
Thus did he growl, then turned to dress his c
omrade’s wound,
but Granite bit his lip and thrust splayfoot aside,
and the good-natured man cried out, to soothe his friend:
“Aye, don’t take it to heart, it’s clear as clear can be
this wasn’t a serious fight but only a fool joke, 135
for how can this potbelly of mine be matched against you?”
He plunged in the lake water then at night to cleanse
his bison-body from its thick sweat and clotting blood,
and smutched the crystal lake about him for nine spans.
Swaggering out then, light of heart, his bellies swayed, 140
his new-washed flesh in layers laughed with clotted grease,
and when he saw his wounded friend stretched on the grass
attended by his troop who smeared him with soft salves,
he slyly smiled and swaggered like a cock inside:
“Aye, though his arm should heal, the shame will sting him still, 145
for wounds don’t heal within the mind, but swell and rot,
and though you throttle memory, curse her, she still shouts.”
With these conceited thoughts fat glutton plodded on
to stretch his weary shanks now on his new-built bed.
A gentle and cool breeze blew by and dried his limbs, 150
far off a maiden sang with longing as she knelt
and milked her pregnant cow and filled her milkpail full;
her virgin breasts hung heavily now and swelled with pain,
she also longed to be a mother, to swell with milk,
until a strong and greedy son should milk her too. 155
Fat glutton’s mind flew off down Africa’s wide fields,
plowed up the river’s current, down to sandy shores,
and like a fat fish-eating gull swept out to sea,
skimmed wave on wave and perched upon a Cretan rock.
“Look at those shores and seas, by God, those men and maids, 160
look at what food and wine I’ve gulped, and I’m still starved!
Oho, you’ve overdone it, heart, you’re overbrimming,
and one day soon, there’s no escaping it, you’ll burst!”
Thus splayfoot muttered to himself, then suddenly leapt,
for somehow the quaint notion struck him in a flash 165
to wear his gold canary-feathered nuptial cloak.
All life seemed good, the wrestling in the ring seemed good,
and God, how good the spitted lamb shanks smelled that day!
“I might as well snatch me a maid to cool my eyes.
My jaws are sturdy millstones still and grind to pulp; 170
push on, great glutton, let’s go feed our windmill’s guts!”
The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel Page 76