he passed the rowboats that with oars crossed on their chests
slept like poor workers calmly by the white shore’s foam.
He crunched sand underfoot and skirted the curved coast,
leapt on the jagged boulders, put the cape behind him, 1290
and like a tranquil seabird skimmed between the rocks.
His fevered eyes grew cool amid dawn’s freshening breeze,
his burning feet grew cool, with splattering water drenched,
and the Evening Star shone in his beard, a drop of dew.
Long, long he gazed far out at sea in a sweet languor; 1295
this was not he who’d fought with gods, embraced sea-sprites,
laid out the grooms like slaughtered beasts and choked his courts;
his mind was now a virgin boy, his hands white roses,
and his old longing shone like mother-of-pearl deep down,
far down in the sea’s depths as he, above it stooped, 1300
smiled and with slow caresses combed his star-washed hair.
Calmly his crude soul, star and water now, dissolved;
his memory, like a female gull in a dark cave,
slept in his breast, and his serene mind rose and sank,
a silent male gull floating on the foaming azure waves. 1305
II
The next night by the fireside, when the great bronze
gates of the castle closed, and slaves and cattle slept,
Odysseus told the long tale of his sufferings slowly.
He sat upon his lion-throne and gently eased
his sea-embattled body softly on fine cushions. 5
The queen sat on a low throne, and with tearstained eyes
shook like a bobbin or thin thread ready to snap;
waves were already beating on her battened heart.
She stooped and with skilled fingers spun with azure yarns
of purest wool to weave Athena’s brilliant mantle, 10
and planned to stitch a black ship on the rolling waves
and round its hem the toils and troubles of her famed husband.
Laertes on a sheepskin in a far corner crouched,
his chin thrust in his knees, his thin arms crossed about him—
an infant waiting for his mother’s womb to open, 15
or corpse returned to earth, the greatest womb of all.
Telemachus stood upright by the hearth and watched
with wary eyes in the flames’ light his father’s mouth
that rumbled and prepared to speak with subtle craft.
His words were sonorous bees that buzzed with stings and honey, 20
contending in the beehive for the first flight out;
and the young man spied on the swarming mouth with wrath.
The household snake-god came and coiled himself in rings
in a far corner of the fireplace and flicked
his two-pronged tongue to listen to his master’s cares. 25
Odysseus placed his hand over his mouth in thought;
seas swelled within his mind, far seashores tinged with rose,
clamorous weeping, laughter, joys, and burning towers;
his harsh throat choked and overbrimmed, he could not speak.
The azure trap door of his sea-swept memory burst: 30
whom should he first remember and whom cast in darkness?
Dim shades of loved friends rushed into his heart’s deep pit:
“Give us your blood to drink that we may live an hour!”
But he chose ruthlessly among the shades, gazed long
at the fierce flames, then dredged his wandering voyages 35
from his resounding memory’s well, and told his fabulous tales.
“At the far ends of the world, on noble feasting boards
the lyre rises, greets the lords, and sings to the wind.
Ten years we stormed the castle, ten wide rivers rolled
our steaming blood down toward the sea, and slowly vanished, 40
for the gods on high secured those lawless battlements.
One morning when I woke, and my brain brimmed with thought,
I seized an ax and felled white poplars, built with skill
a lifelike and gigantic mare with swollen belly
and as a votive gift to Zeus leant it against the walls, 45
but its huge pregnant womb was filled with gallant troops;
thus did my sly mind set the trap, and in the night
the untaken walls and the Immortals crashed in. ruin.
Besmirched by the thick smoke, wounded in forty places,
the fearful gods at dawn rushed from the ruthless Barnes, 50
plunged deep into the heavens and cursed the insolent earth;
yet when their jaws had once more knit, they laughed, unshamed,
drank of oblivion’s deathless wine, and soon forgot.
But the chief god, wrapped up with savage wrath in clouds,
would not permit his mind to drink and thus forget; 55
stooping above the gold-lipped rim of heaven, he sighed:
‘The scales of fate tilt upside-down, earth’s at our heels!
I see the archer’s wily head stuffed full of brains
and brashness, leaning even on our Olympian walls!’
He spoke, then summoned Death to come before him swiftly, 60
and he, black crow who browsed replete on Trojan corpses,
flew up to heaven and perched upon the god’s right hand.
Then murderous Zeus rejoiced to hold his strapping son:
‘Good bird, my faithful thought, swoop down and fix your claws
deep in the brazen skull of unabashed Odysseus; 65
become flame, woman, sea, grind his brash brains to powder!’
He spoke, then in my skull thrust Death like a sharp sword.”
The martyr’s eyes flashed fire, and deep in their dark pools
the great death-battle raged, on land, sea, air, and fire,
of one despairing man with all the omnipotent gods. 70
The cunning voyager fell silent and cast to see
how skillfully to dress the truth with subterfuge,
but felt ashamed before his wife and son, lost courage,
and thrusting tempting wiles aside, shook his proud head
and sailed unhindered on his sea-swept memory. 75
“Three were the worse most deadly forms which Death assumed
to strip me of my weapons and uncoil my brains.
In cool Calypso’s cave he came with laughing wiles
and twined himself about my knees like a plump wench
till in my mortal arms I took the immortal maid 80
and hugged her like a sweet dream on the sandy shores.
The blond-tressed goddess bathed my muddy feet each night
in a gold basin filled with cold and crystal water.
that her gold-woven bridal sheets might not be soiled,
and I would laugh with joy to see man’s muddy feet 85
entwined in bed with such unwithering deathless calves.
For the first time I rejoiced in flesh as though it were spirit,
heaven and earth merged on the beaches, deep within me
I laughed to feel my muddy entrails sprouting wings.
Heaven and its foundations swerved to serve us both, 90
stars vanished in the sea but others blazed with smiles,
and we, two glowworms merged as one, gleamed on the sands.
Like a night sun, misleading Zeus’s star first leapt
on the sky’s rim and joyed to watch with admiration
the blond-haired goddess on the desolate beaches quake 95
within a mortal’s earthen arms and bear him fruit.
Blood-lapping Ares strode behind him, fully armed,
rolling between the mountain peaks, bursting on rocks,
twisting and turning like a crab caught in the fire,
and we on slippery pebbles lay and laughed
with joy. 100
Then last of all at daybreak, with her white seabirds,
passing with dance and laughter through the rosy mist,
great gracious Aphrodite would caress on earth
our bodies by the shores at rest, now merged in one.
Like the swift beating of an eagle’s wings, our days 105
and nights of love vanished in empty skies above us,
and as I held the Immortal tightly in my arms
I suddenly felt at dusk one day, with speechless dread,
that God had spread his tentacles and choked my heart.
The world then seemed a legend, life a passing dream, 110
the soul of man a spiraling smoke that rose in air;
in my clear head gods suddenly were born, blazed up,
as suddenly were lost, and others rose instead
like clouds and fell in raindrops on my sun-scorched mind.
Only my dreams seemed to be living still—they crawled 115
like many-colored snakes and mutely licked my lids;
seas then unfolded in my brain, rooted in pearls;
within thick waters gold fish gazed upon me sadly,
and from blue depths the sweetest, sweetest voices rose.
My body stretched in length, my arches curved in height, 120
my head cut through high waves like a curved figurehead
where the road-pointing North Star hung like dangling dew.
My body like a pirate’s galley sped nightlong
and all my hold was filled with the earth’s fragrant smells.
But my dream swiftly emptied, snakes grew numb with cold, 125
and my free heart, that could unshape or shape the world,
turned sterile, dead in a divine tranquillity.
Man’s passions in my heart were purged and drained away,
my native land was drowned, and shone in Lethe’s depths,
till like a play of light and cloud that swayed in wind 130
my father, wife, and son met, parted, and were lost;
Death rose in a god’s shape and wrecked my mortal heart,
Unlaughing, painless, mute, I skimmed over the rocks,
for my transparent body cast no shade on earth
and seabirds swiftly darted through my legs, unfearing, 135
as though a god walked on the shores invisibly.
One morning on the barren stones I chanced to trip
on a long piece of wreckage cast up by the waves,
and raised it slowly and strove to think what it might be:
bone of a monstrous fish, leg of a mammoth bird, 140
or staff of some sea demon, branch of a huge sea tree?
Light slowly filled my mind till in my feeble hands
I saw I held a much-beloved and long-stemmed oar,
and as I stroked it tenderly, my dull eyes cleared:
I saw at the oar’s end the sunburnt hand that held it, 145
I saw the foaming keel and sails of a tall mast,
old comrades came with peeling limbs and crowded round me,
the sea flung in a burst upon me and shook my grains,
and I recalled from where I had come and where I longed to go,
Ah, I too was a mortal soul, my heart was dancing, 150
I had a country, a wife, a child, and a swift ship,
but my poor soul was wrecked and lost in a great goddess.
I quaked in fear of being made a deathless god
without man’s springing heart, without man’s joys or griefs,
then turned and plunged my wasted face in the cool waves, 155
cast water on my withered lashes to revive them,
smelled the salt seaweed on the shore as my brows burst,
and my head brimmed with light and water, fire and earth,
till my blood flowed, my royal veins began to thaw.
Seizing a cleaving ax, I plunged deep in the woods, 160
cut down huge trees and split them, matched them, chose a cypress,
fit planks together, carved long oars, raised up the mast,
—all in a rage of joy—you’d think I hewed and carved
backbone and hands and feet, head, belly, breast and thighs,
as though I built again my god-smashed, ravened body. 165
And when my shape had spread at length from stem to prow
and I had stretched Calypso’s blue cloak for a mainsail,
O new-carved ship, you sang then like my warbling heart.
What joy to unfurl sail suddenly in the buffeting winds
and, scudding swiftly, shout farewell to your beloved: 170
‘Much do I love and want you, dear, but let me first
mount on my plunging ship, pay out my billowing sails,
as with one hand I hold the tiller for open seas
and with the other wipe departure’s tears away.’
New-washed and fragrant by her holy water’s well, 175
the goddess combed her long immortal hair and sang:
‘For the first time I felt my marble thighs aglow
when once they leant against your warm and mortal thighs.
My stone mind softened, my heart beat, and my knees quaked,
my veins brimmed full of milk, I laughed and turned to woman 180
and held the whole world on my bosom like a baby.’
Her song could cleave a rock in two; it cracked my heart:
‘Be still, my heart, I know, but the mind aims elsewhere’.
Then as I sped like arrows on the foam-peaked waves
and her song dwindled sadly in the twilight’s mist, 185
my ship, grown heavy, slowly sank to its low rim,
for loved shades crushed it, weighed with country, son, and wife,
till I set free my heart to follow as it wished
and it broke down in tears and turned” human again!”
Odysseus spoke no more and gazed into the fire, 190
but in his heart he voyaged still without a word:
islands sprang up in his far mind, moons glowed and swayed,
the rigging in his memory creaked, and his dark head
thundered above the waves like a wild mountain’s peak.
The spindle fell from his wife’s golden-fingered hands, 195
her knees shook secretly, and in her pulsing throat
she choked back bitter sobs and bit her trembling lip;
and his son, shuddering, spied on the hard knees and thighs,
the hands that could choke virtue, that on savage shores
brashly could seize yet cast aside the dread Immortals. 200
Squeezing his tender palms into a fist, he thought:
“This man breaks through all bounds, confounds men with the gods,
smashes the sacred laws that hold the toppling world!”
Laertes, crouched in sleep in a far corner, dreamt
how as a youth not yet turned twenty, he’d built a ship 205
with three long tiers of oars and sailed to steal a wife,
but at the harbor’s narrow strait a crab sat crouched,
bending a fresh green reed to form a curving bow,
and blocked the bridegroom’s passage and the vessel’s sailing.
Then the world-traveler rose and in the fire cast 210
an olive log, and poked the glowing embers slowly.
He watched abstractedly the nude flames as they danced
whistling and licking round the logs, stabbing the walls,
and heard choked lamentations, shouts, and burning towns,
welcoming cries, coarse laughs, and distant threnodies. 215
With ruthless justice, nonetheless, he winnowed wheat
from the crude chaff, then turned serenely toward his throne,
leapt on his vessel’s prow and voyaged on once more:
“Hunger thrashed at my guts, my throat was parched with thirst,
for days I licked dew only, on my oars distilled,
220
and raised my eyes toward heaven—not even one small cloud
passed by to bring a cup of air and puff my sails.
My mind swayed in delirium while a honeyed swoon
wrapped softly round my breathless body like a spell,
and as I hung my heavy head, prepared to fall, 225
I saw on the sea’s rim, like a dawn’s glowing cloud,
the sun-washed, rock-strewn body of my longed-for land.
Her capes were foaming, her towns gleamed on mountain slopes,
my sheep flashed white on greenest grass, the cattle lowed,
I heard a shepherd’s flute, a cascade’s tumbling song, 230
and twittering landbirds came and perched high on my masts.
My son, you stood on shore with shaded eyes, and watched,
your tongue grown sore with questioning sailors year on year;
then on my palace roof a woman stood and glowed.
My harbor, ho!’ I yelled, then leapt, close-reefed my sails 235
and skimmed down toward my country mutely, plunged in dream.
But lo, harsh laughter smote the spume, the wild waves beat
my wretched prow with mockery, the divine shore swayed,
a brilliant gauze on the horizon’s mist, and vanished.
With gaping eyes I saw my land dissolve from sight; 240
the seams of my skull creaked and cracked with seething rage
for everywhere I saw the lawless gods that mocked me.
I seized the tiller and swore to make them choke with wrath
nor ever surrender my ship or soul to their caprice.
Sleep seized me in light snatches, and half-dazed once more 245
I shook my head to chase away that deadly nightbird,
until, behold, as I stared on the sea’s face mutely,
I saw snow-clad Olympus blaze in brilliant light
and its divine gigantic nest shine gold on top.
I felt my vapid body soar like a light cloud 250
high up the lambent god-trod peak, and both my oars
flapped quickly from my sides like wings that cut the waves.
I reached at last and stood upon that deathless threshold,
and as the shadow of my peaked cap fell upon it,
the gates at once sprang open like two human arms 255
and showed the whirlpool sea-god, calm and tranquil now.
He seized and pressed me to his bosom and cried out:
‘My son, we’ve played like dolphins on the frothing waves;
spiteful and stubborn each in turn, we fought like men,
and like two gallant warriors tumbled on the sands. 260
Now let the contest end, let endless friendship start;