White-haired Odysseus walked and bid the world farewell,
but did not hasten, for he loved earth still and spread 15
his hands, his eyes, his ears and slowly said goodbye.
His leopard cub with her striped back loomed in his mind
so that he wondered where, in what deep grass she lay,
stretched on her back or playing with her spotted cubs,
and the archer sighed to think he’d faded from the heart 20
of his old friend who had dissolved like windless mist.
He walked in rampant suns and stood in vapid moons,
his shadows swung about him like a windmill’s wings,
and in his heart he carried all his precious friends,
memory’s wings, mute shades, dogs of the lower world. 25
Like a snow avalanche that falls from a high peak
and gathers new snow as it sweeps the mountain’s slope,
then crashes, groaning, a snow-mountain of dread size,
the lofty man’s mind rolled and swept all things before it.
His throat gulped down the dead, and his teeth filled with grit 30
as though he’d tasted Death’s grim pomegranate filled
with ash, and he rejoiced because deep in his heart
and inner tombs he still held his dear friends intact.
“Don’t worry, lads, no soul shall die while I still live;
when waters swell and houses sink and the earth drowns, 35
climb on my shoulders, comrades, cling about my neck,
and, swimming all together, well reach the other shore.
What shore, alas? That cobwebbed coast, that anchoring shoal,
our secret native land that brims with fragrance, Death!”
He spoke thus with his friends and walked with their dim shades: 40
one was all bone and held a flute, one had splay feet,
two were like supple lances, two like savage wolves;
and some, tall sirens shod in golden sandals, sped
on tiptoe and pursued their leader like lean hounds.
In Hades the rose-cheeked turn pale, the white turn black, 45
but living hearts have magic herbs and resurrect
all those they love, and thus the freed mind walked as all
his gold-belled wedding caravan of memory tagged
behind him with no molted wing, with not one shriveled leaf.
Time passed and brought the rains, it passed again and brought 50
the sun into the lone man’s hands like very hot
wheat bread, till one bright dawn he closed his eyes, and wept.
Ah, what was this good thing that suddenly drenched his mind?
His curly hair revived like sated tentacles
and his blood cooled and danced down to his very toes 55
as his mind rose erect and beat its azure wings.
Then the great-chested man spread his hands toward the East:
“A thousand times well met, O cool belovèd brine!”
He stooped and dipped his hands deep in a flowing brook,
then like a bridegroom washed himself till his face shone 60
that he might not go to his loved one soiled, uncombed.
He spied the land from a high rock, felt the salt air,
and then his old crew crowded close, his swift ship creaked,
the billows drowned his heart, the world bobbed up and down,
and his mind clove the sea-waves like a breasting gull. 65
Then the world-wanderer strode ahead on bloody feet,
forgot their weariness in joy, grew cool and pushed
far down while old shades danced about him as he rushed
to lead his crew who now smelled brine and leapt from earth.
Hungry, he thought of fish stews they had gulped in coves 70
as some poured wine and others fed the fire and all
the evening air was drenched with rhododendron bloom:
they hungered and ate well, then cast themselves in sleep
like fish, and floated all night long with tails erect.
And when their eyelids opened in the seaside air 75
their ship hung on their lashes like the morning dew;
it too had slept and dreamt its hull had swelled, its prow
had turned into a porpoise, its long oars to fins,
the crew to baby dolphins riding its arched back
as all sped out to sea and raced the swifting gulls, 80
and when it woke, it saw the crew lined on the beach.
Then Rocky swam and climbed aboard and stood erect
like a green branch, a slender-bodied god of bronze
whom mothers in the dark with supplication stroked
that he might come in dream and fill their wombs with sons. 85
Granite thrashed through the waters like a lean swordfish,
and he, too, was a god of Love and rampant youth;
but Orpheus seemed like an ill-shaped, pale weathercock,
like the last seed of an old father who could bequeath
his son no bones or meat but only froth and air. 90
As Kentaur spread his limbs supine upon the waves
and blew and churned the whitening waters into foam,
he seemed like a sea-demon who with ponderous weight
swooped down and mounted the shore-sirens and the waves.
High on a rock alone, the dreadful lone man stretched 95
like a huge octopus whose tentacles were all
his friends that now played, lashed, and spread on waves, on sand,
as he through many souls and bodies sucked at life.
Their ship watched them for a long time and softly smiled
and swayed with blandishment and wished them a good day. 100
The holy voyage once more foamed in the archer’s mind,
and as he watched the emerald wash in the ship’s wake,
his vanished voyages once more gleamed on the waves.
“O heart, resounding lyre, now rise and strike new tunes;
your singing strings are made of sturdy tiger gut, 105
your twisting pegs are tight, you’ve reveled and caroused
completely in life’s sun-feasts of the mind and flesh.
All the desires danced about you like trained apes,
seductive songs rose from the wine, creation hung
a red carnation on its ear for your dear sake, 110
and now, O heart, within the desert’s blazing kiln
a salt breeze blows and the sea leaps, that blue-eyed witch!”
He spoke, then climbed on a high rock to spy the land
and his eyes brimmed with water as waves leapt and laughed;
the curving seashores everywhere smiled happily 115
and fleets of jet-black fishing-boats tossed on the waves.
The white-haired athlete smiled, took up the road once more,
and as he dashed down toward the sea, his mother’s breast,
he met a yellow-skinned and slant-eyed maiden there
who on her shoulder carried a long sea-ravaged oar. 120
“Maiden, where are you taking that great winnowing van?”
As though she felt coarse tickling hands, the maiden laughed:
“Oho, it seems you’ve never swum or seen the sea
nor seen or touched an oar by which all ships are rowed!”
The cunning man stretched out his hand and stroked the blade: 125
“Your health, O my long sea-hand and the mind’s sharp sword,
I bow and worship man’s swift wing of liberty!”
He spoke, then pressed his mouth against the salt-bleached wood,
and the maid, startled, broke and ran down the long beach in fright
Odysseus swiftly walked along the flowered fields 130
and with wide eyes and secret loathing gazed on all
the last remaining muddy seeds of mankind’s race.
; They hopped and screeched like apes with eyes of slanting flame,
and a thin cutting smile gleamed on their hairless lips.
“They’re from another dough, another baker’s oven! 135
Ah, had I many years to squander, I would sit at ease
and play and weep beside a yellow woman’s breast
and thus learn all the deep hid secrets of this race;
it seems that man’s soul grazes here on a rich pasture.”
He spoke, then entered a domed flowered lane of trees 140
through whose twined boughs a warm spring shower softly fell
as flowers quivered in the mingling sun and rain.
Women with white clogs and embroidered kerchiefs ran
with chattering laughter down the path of happiness
to worship their fat smiling god amid the blooms. 145
He sat cross-legged enclosed by branches bridal-decked,
with double rolling bellies, triple flowing chins,
with half-closed sluggish eyes that winked and gazed on all
his worshipers who came from the world’s distant lands
to find, perhaps, cure for their pains, hope for despair; 150
but he burst in loud laughter as his bellies shook
and his hands played with rosaries made of human skulls.
Before him the world-wanderer stood in silent awe;
the stone was a translucent green, as clear as water,
sunrays passed through the body, lit the pulsing heart, 155
and through the deep neck laughter could be seen ascending.
The emerald marvel laughed at the world-roaming tramp,
and as pale lights and shadows flicked, and thick coarse drops
like those of sweat and tears fell from his lofty brows
and slowly dripped within his black and long-lashed eyes, 160
he laughed, for he knew well these were but drops of rain.
“This god is free,” Odysseus thought with sudden joy.
“We’re well met, Lone Man, here on laughter’s highest peak!”
The archer gazed, then plunged into the god’s deep heart,
a swimmer in green waters on a moonlit night, 165
and his harsh body cleansed and shone, his mind felt free,
floating on waves of nonexistence, a huge fish,
a wave composed of fragile dream and azure air.
For a long time he swam in the vast emerald’s sheen
and felt great joy, disburdened, melting like a lump 170
of salt in the dark endless brine of turquoise sea,
and when he’d had enough, he took the road once more.
As he walked on, the air turned cool and stung with salt,
the billows broke in cackling and applauding sounds
until the sea’s great bridegroom broke in a quick run. 175
Soon he saw fishers mending their torn nets on sand:
“Good fishing, lads!” Odysseus yelled in a loud voice,
but a great wind swept up and dashed it down the coast.
The billows rattled on the pebbles, plashed and played
like a leashed dog who sniffs his master’s scent, and barks, 180
until the sea’s great archon hailed his dearest friend:
“Well met before my house, O faithful ancient dog,
O sea, who bark your welcome in remembrance still!”
He dashed down to the shore, caressed the frothing mane,
recalled that other faithful dog, dark eons past, 185
who in his sullied courtyard wagged its hairless tail
and in defiance of the suitors dashed to greet him.
“Argus!” he cried out in his mind, and the dog leapt
from his far grave, besmirched with mud, and wagged his tail.
Shadows of memories multiplied and thronged the beach 190
in curling petals round the lone man who in joy
played with the waves, cast a flat stone in ducks and drakes
that hopped the waters swiftly seven times, then sank.
He played and shouted with the waves for a long time;
not a soul saw him rolling on that foreign strand 195
till filled with seaweed and salt flakes he stretched on shells
as seagrass lapped and twined about his whitened head
that like a hairy rock, uncombed, gleamed on the shore.
He shut his eyes and on the shingle stretched full length
and his mind spread like long sea-fennel down the beach; 200
if ghosts or gulls had seen him, they’d have gulped him whole
and waves would have crashed down and crammed him full of salt.
“What can man’s troubles be, that vanish like the foam?
Have these feet tread earth’s thousand roads, bloodstained and sore,
have these eyes wept, have these ears heard a sad lament? 205
I’ve never wept, I’ve not felt pain, I’ve sailed the seas
like the curved nautilus, erect, and laughed like foam!
O sea, O untamed heart, joy of despairing man,
all, all are yours, my meat, my bones—lick them like mermaids,
turn them to slippery stones, to amber sleek and smooth, 210
turn my white skull to ivory through which fish may glide
and females lay their eggs and the males squirt their milt.”
He kept his eyes shut tight, and then the mute sea-hours
folded their wings like placid and well-sated gulls;
perhaps he slept by the sea’s foam for many hours, 215
perhaps his sleepless thoughts like arrowy shuttles sped
from East to West and wove the embroideries he desired,
perhaps he stood by the blue shore but a brief moment;
then hurriedly the border-guard strode toward the noisy port.
The city like a gorgon raised its prow on earth, 220
heavily painted, tower-breasted, with wide eyes
of lust that on the sea gazed like a harbor whore.
Night fell, and many-colored lanterns flared in rows
along the quay, the dappled wind with sweetness hissed
and smelled of flowers, spices, and the sweat of men. 225
Roads branched off everywhere like rivers, and clogs clacked
and zithers sighed as laughter seethed through lattices,
till the archer stood and listened to the sigh of love:
“Ah, dear God, pity me—how can I sleep alone
again on such a night, a night with a long tail, 230
the strong cock-pheasant’s long and lustrous tail?”
The lone man listened, startled, to the maid’s desire;
had he a thousand bodies, he’d have set them loose,
masked with the face of him each maid longed for in dream,
to jump into the beds of those that slept alone. 235
A sweet compassion filled him for the lonely maid
and he slid past her yard to knock upon her door
that she might not weep all alone in bed that night,
but there he saw men’s sandals heaped high on the sill;
young men and old, rich men and poor passed through that door 240
in their bare feet as though to wade through a wide river,
and now they sailed on the maid’s body in deep bliss.
The lone man laughed, then took his road once more in peace.
What joy! Odysseus whistled like a whirling wind;
if only he had time, dear God, to enjoy the town 245
before the wind blew, and bazaars, men, laughter, vanished!
Good was this multicolored structure of the air
in which the archer took delight like a box kite
that soared through dark with a lit lantern at its head.
His mind kept plundering as he passed road after road 250
till, tired at length, he reached the harbor’s noisy shore.
In
the hot night the smell of tar and the sea’s brine
merged with the stifling stench of workers’ armpits drenched
in sweat, as harbor girls, the sailors’ consolation,
strolled on the wharf with naked and decoying breasts, 255
with flesh-seducing musk, with crisped and curly locks,
with henna-painted nails and azure languid eyes;
they swayed and primped, stood at the crossroads and made signs.
Startled, the lone man gleaned this new crop in his mind:
“These are not men,” he thought with arrogant disdain; 260
“they gnaw like mice through rubbish, braid their hair in queues,
until I retch as though I’ve touched their slimy bellies.”
But as these cruel disdainful words rose in his mind
he saw a bent old man sit cross-legged on the wharf
then gaze far out at sea upon the frothing waves 265
and sing to the wild winds a bitter lullaby.
He could not catch the garbled words, nor had he need,
for the lone man knew well that all man’s bitter pain
rose up and scattered from this throat in helplessness.
“What can this wonder be? Who took clay, wing, and air 270
and dared create that bright goldfinch, man’s fevered heart?
We are all one, we shout by every shore, we weep;
our deepest outcries are bread, women, God, and Death,
and this, my brother, burns in the same kiln with me!”
Odysseus longed to fall into those yellow arms 275
and call that strange man brother, with deep tears and laughter,
but felt ashamed to act the child in his old age.
Slowly he left his yellow ancient brother there,
walked down the shore, breathed deep the odor of the ships
that skimmed in and skimmed out like silent hunting bats 280
with sails of pelts and mats of straw, while on their prows
bronze dragons crouched and chewed young captains newly drowned.
“Your good health, brothers,” the archer murmured as he hailed
these souls that on their prows hung Death for talisman.
Toward gaudy ships that moored with precious merchandise, 285
haggard old spinstresses with battered sandals went
to greet the wandering groom who never will come back.
Year after year these wretched hags asked every crew:
“O sailors, have you seen my love on foreign shores?
He wears a golden ring, a cap I knit, he took 290
my lock for good-luck charm, and my dear maidenhead.”
The sailors tell them tales, mock them behind their backs,
The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel Page 107