the female carved a lean long stick, and singing shrilly 145
her stubborn, scornful tune, she twirled the spitted meat.
When they had eaten and revived, they sat by the hearth
and the male worm turned round and spoke to his brave spouse:
‘Dear wife, if only God would let us rest a while
to fix the heart firm in its breast and to stop trembling! 150
How good to sit in the cool evening after meals
and spend the night, beloved, in sweet and gentle talk.’
But the meat’s odor rose and stuck in God’s wild nostrils
so that he grabbed with rage the rain’s black hanging dugs:
‘Burst open, you cataracts of heaven, deluge the world! 155
I scorn to share the earth with others, it’s all mine!’
The unceasing waters fell and flooded the upper world,
the land was drowned, the mountains’ snowy peaks sank under,
and God rolled choked in laughter above the deluged earth.
The world’s all mine to flood or fire as I well please! 160
I’m not a fool to let the dust rear up its head!’
He roared until a whirlwind whipped the waves to froth.
But in a high ship then, at the world’s edge, there loomed
the great worm scudding swiftly by with swelling sails.
The oldest Murderer shook and crawled in his blue cave 165
then roared and called his first-born son and greatest heir:
‘Help me, dear faithful Death, help me, my life’s imperiled!
Two small worms rear their heads on earth and threat to eat me!’
Death took his sharpest knives, crawled down into the cave,
crept close beside the two small worms and spread his feet 170
to warm himself by the hearthstones and spy with greed
on the pair’s simple and calm gossip around the fire.
And when the male worm saw him there, his small heart froze,
but he said nothing, for fear his wife might faint with fright,
and when night fell at length and they lay down to-sleep 175
the worm crawled slowly, careful not to waken Death,
and in the darkness hugged his mate in tight embrace.’
Death’s dry bones glowed with light in the erotic dark
but he woke not nor felt the two warm bodies merging;
the male worn then took heart and in his wife’s ear whispered: 180
With one sweet kiss, dear wife we’ve conquered conquering Death!’ ”
The piper’s shrill voice broke, but still his lips flashed fire
and every hair on his head steamed with drops of sweat.
His squint eyes laughed and brimmed at the same time with tears
and his thin voice returned to his lean throat once more: 185
“Ah lads, the song’s a heavy and devouring beast;
by God, the mind itself has sown this song to play with,
my pipe begot it then in fantasy’s high nest,
but made of reed, air, brain, and cloud it passed and vanished,
and yet, dear God, it hurt my heart like a live thing, 190
as though, in fact, both worms had hatched within my heart.”
The bosom friends fell silent, their hands froze at the oars,
till Granite tossed with pride his handsome head and spoke:
“Piper, the murder in my heart turned song to hear you;
somewhere afar the mountains quarrel and stars collide, 195
brother kills brother somewhere far in fabulous tales.”
Then Captain Clam, lover of kin, sighed secretly:
“Now I recall how once I teased my grandson thus:
‘Youngster, good luck! May you live long, may you grow strong
and take the same sea-road and sow a slew of children, 200
and may God grant that we both meet at the sea’s bottom!’
Oakheaded Hardihood spoke not a word, for still
within his heart the worm prolonged its writhing war
and like a scorpion flung its tail against the heavens.
But Kentaur could hold out no longer now, and howled: 205
“You’ve snatched away the song and left us high and dry!
I’ve waited for the two, God and the worm, to come
to grips on the firm ground, and let Death take the hindmost!”
The gap-toothed piper laughed and called a fig a fig:
“I trotted hard behind their fate but lacked their strength. 210
My friend, the heart—no, nor the throat—may go much further.”
Then their sagacious leader raised his hand and spoke:
“Ahoy, my lads, heave at the oars, don’t worry now,
one day I too may suddenly call on memory’s help
to end this song that had no end but hung in air, 215
because, my lads—don’t laugh!—believe all that I say:
I, too, lay stretched in that dark cave when Lord Death came!”
He spoke, then turning to the sky with searching glance
he sought to find which of the swirling winds to take
and cleave a road—all roads are good—on which his soul might sail. 220
Dusk fell, the foaming waters to the sky’s far rim
reddened like coppery wine, and tipsy Hesperus
rose up to dance upon the gold and crimson waves.
Helen strolled slowly by Eurotas’s rose-laurels,’
raised her assassinating eyes to the swank star 225
and smelled a small rose-laurel blossom as her mind
turned back and wandered on Troy’s old blood-splattered shores;
she saw the bodies glittering in the burning fields,
admired the chests of friends and enemies alike
blood-clotted beards and hairy shoulder blades and thighs, 230
and joyed to know they killed each other to win her smile.
Now as she withered here in idleness alone
and walked the desolate bank and smelled the fitter blooms,
a lawless lamentation choked her burning throat:
“I cannot bear this life, my tight and curly basil 235
withers and dries without the stroke of manly hands.
I was not made for solitude and household cares!
Dear God, make me an apple tree that shades the road 238
and load me with sweet fruit to feed all passers-by!” 239
She raised her hands to the bright star at night’s dark gate: 240
“If only a swift pirate’s ship swooped down once more!”
Meanwhile, five oarsmen, watching the same star, reached out
to eat with longing moldy meat and black wheat bread,
then drank from copper beakers sweet yet tangy wine.
They stooped above their holy meal with deepest joy 245
and felt their flesh and soul merge tightly and plunge roots
until their hollow bones were crammed with manly marrow.
When they had eaten, they turned for water, but laughed long,
for all their sheepskins burst with wine, and none held water!
Sprawled at the prow, the piper played a warbling tune 250
like rivers flowing, till thirst passed and their brains cooled,
and then their captain wiped his mouth and cried with joy:
“What does my heart care where it’s going? Row on, my friends!
The billows race and flow, and I, in the sea’s center,
gaze on bur islands, right, while to my left the land 255
sprawls like a high-rumped whore and longs for us to rape her;
our country has vanished in our mind’s rough rocky crags!
I look ahead, and like an old ringleader of quail
rejoice to feel warm Africa’s full fragrant wind.
I’ve let fate loose to feed with freedom in my heart: 260
slowly, w
ith rowing, laughter, thoughts, and song, we’ll find
in time exactly where to head our prow, my friends.
Forward! Heave at the oars and make your minds a blank!”
Their captain spoke, the oarlocks creaked, and all their brains
filled far and wide with purposeless and shoreless sea. 265
The mountain winds came down and swelled the sails until
the ship leapt like a male beast on the bucking waves,
Night fell, stars hung aloft in the dark heavens and gleamed,
and over the waves the man of craggy mind cried out:
‘The wind’s our captain, Captain Clam, blow where it may, 270
and I shall give my body’s hull to calker sleep.”
He spoke, and the ship brimmed with his calm breath and body;
but when his eyes shut tight, Dream came like a white bird
from lofty mountain peaks and stood straight by the prow,
and when dawn on his lashes spilled, his mind turned rose, 275
and he saw Helen hovering in the upper air!
Her lily-face like dew-wet ivory gleamed in light
as though a beating rain or tears had drenched it through;
her white veils flapped and fluttered like tempestuous wings,
and both her armpits shone with clots of thickening blood. 280
“Helen!” the archer cried, and swift of hand he seized
his large ancestral bow and knelt by the ship’s prow,
glancing toward land and sea, prepared to guard her beauty.
And Helen looked upon the man’s deep wrath with joy,
forgot her pain, smiled wanly till, through gleaming tears, 285
a glittering rainbow flashed and curved about the ship.
Then the much-suffering man smiled sweetly in his dream
and dreamt himself grown suddenly young, the earth refreshed,
that friends at dawn had walked with him to a high mountain
where he bid all farewell, plunged like a groom to his bride, 290
then laughed and wrapped the dazzling rainbow round his waist.
“Helen!” he sighed once more, as though he hunted her
through reeds in a dark place, and like a nightmare moaned.
But all at once the woman’s white veils swirled and scattered
as though a strong wind rose and blew from his burnt chest. 295
Odysseus screamed and fell down, huddling by the prow;
her nude and sacred body gleamed still in his eyes
and from her armpits the blood dripped like warm rose petals.
Her shoulders twitched and shuddered still, as though they longed
to rise, though with no hands, to clasp, though with no arms, 300
and her despairing cry pierced through his heart: “Help, help me!”
The archer leapt up frothing, gripped the mainmast tight,
and while his helpless crew with anguish watched him writhe,
convulsed with dream, as his mouth twitched and his teeth gleamed,
his dazed eyes fell on his scared wolf-pack, and at once 305
he grew serene and turned with joy to his old helmsman:
“Head due south, Captain Clam, take bearings by the stars,
a phantom stands at our ship’s prow and gives the orders:
‘Blow North Wind, swell the sails, for Sparta far away
awaits you like a maiden lodged in bitter laurel!’ ” 310
He spoke, the North Wind blew, the sails puffed up replete,
and then a clear mirage flashed in their savage heads:
air, mountain, sea, and earth swayed in the blazing sun;
a castle, like a dragon’s nest, loomed high in dust,
and on the castle’s top a tall flame beat the dazzled air. 315
On the next day a deep thirst wrung their sun-parched throats,
and as the North Wind failed and their sails slacked, the friends
grasped their unliftable long oars and rowed, exhausted.
Then Orpheus told old nurses’ fables, shocking tales,
and coarse jokes hour on hour to make the parched crew laugh, 320
but galled with thirst, they growled with pain and weariness.
Then from the high dark garret of his head, the great
voyager brought the male worm down to his ship’s prow
to give his dragons courage and feed their flagging fires:
‘Take heart, my lads, heave at the oars, I shall sing on 325
from where our piper’s mouth abandoned song and myth;
I shall unwind the tale to its end for your dear sakes.
The land is vast, my friends, our heads can’t hold it all,
but vaster still the sea, for which there is no ending.
Our brave worm grew more stubborn still and sailed straight out, 330
due north, sheer north, and swore not to stop rowing ever
until his prow had drunk the sea to its far verge,
because his heavy heart cried out and mourned his wife
whom the invisible Murderer slew with wiles one evening.
He passed through straits and islands, rowed through misty seas 335
till fogs rolled down, and clouds like frigates drifted by,
and seals from his deserted bulwarks hung and screamed,
and all the sterile sea-mud stank of fat and grease.
The worm’s feet turned to ice, his joints froze to the bone,
and crystal icicles dripped down his snowy hair, 340
but he’d sworn never to stop and never forswear his vow.
Two months passed by and still he sailed, three moons slid past,
and on the fourth and waning moon at length the sea
ended, and the god-battling worm leapt out on snow:
‘O sea, my throat has drained you dry like a wine flask. 345
Now that I’ve slaked my thirst, I’m hungry to eat land!’
He swiftly strode upon the desolate, frozen wastes,
his two long oars like wings flapped on his shoulder blades,
but in his chest he clasped a warming heart of flame.
Close at his heels there howled a pack of hungry wolves 350
whose burning eyes flashed like noctural towns with lights.
Swaddled in crystal ice, the numb trees creaked and cracked,
and in their branches Night and Day, two lean birds, wailed
like babies and with green eyes watched the traveler pass.
He crawled through frozen wastes and left trees far behind, 355
the pale sun grew consumptive, as though from a long illness,
the moon spilled out on snow as from a tilted milkpail,
but the male worm drove onward toward the world’s end still.
One evening in a funneled glade he saw some lights
that gleamed from thatched huts huddled close, deep in the snow, 360
and smoke rose calmly like a man’s breath, thick and blue.
The worm’s heart melted, for man’s holy odor warmed
his widowed heart and tamed his grief-struck savage mind:
‘Here by my brothers in snow I’ll warm myself a while.’
He spoke, then lurched with joy down toward the distant mortals, 365
but as he plunged, a burning meteor burst and fell
and like a flaming ax split all the roofs in two.
The narrow valley flashed with fire and the snows laughed;
they say sardonic sneers and footsteps rang on high
as though a fiery dragon had cast his quoit from far. 370
Men rushed out from their cloven huts, the mothers wailed
and gathered what remained of their charred children’s bones;
the braves flung arrows at the sky and cursed with rage:
‘Come to grips here on snow, you murderous ghoul! We dare you!
You owe men blood! Whether you will or not, you’ll pay it!’ 375
Bu
t God on high laughed long and cast his thunderbolts.
The worm felt pity for this bitter breed of men
and soothed the frenzied mothers, dressed their wounds with skill
till hearts grew calm, and the scorched widows knelt and clasped
his frozen knees and begged him humbly not to leave them. 380
He stayed and built a hut, sent tall smoke belching out,
a wild and warlike banner, took himself a wife,
stretched on the ground, spawned children, and struck roots in snow.
One day when he was drunk, he cocked his cap askew
and fell on the black meteor with his thick sledge hammer. 385
Then the emboldened townsmen also quickly struck
God’s dark man-cleaving ax, and swiftly gathering up
the splintered fragments, smelted them in blazing kilns.
This was the black bronze, iron, which rules the world now, lads!
They wrought and hammered trivets, hammered out new plows, 390
the young men forged their spearheads, maids their wedding rings,
the old men hung shards on their chests to ward off evil,
and the male worm forged in the fire a lean, strong sword;
thus the sky’s thunderstone passed through the hands of man.
But lean years came when Death swooped down on the worm’s home 395
and grabbed his sons, swooped down again and grabbed his daughters,
then swooped once more to seize his last small son, and vanished.
But the worm skinned his son and stretched the still-warm hide
over a hallowed plane-tree trunk and made a drum.
He painted his hair sapphire-blue, his eyes ink-black, 400
dressed like a groom who goes to a fair to buy a bride,
and every midnight stood erect on a mountain top
and beat his drum at the high stars till the dawn broke:
‘You’ve matched all well on earth: wine, women, bread, and song,
but why, you Murderer, must you slay our children? Why?’ 405
He beat and yelled until the funneled valley roared.
God couldn’t sleep a wink that night, then cast with wrath
the Black Ant down to earth and bade him seize and fetch
that insolent worm who yelled on the high mountain top.
The Black Ant swooped and ate his way both right and left, 410
he crawled and groped and munched with stealth to the snow town
and came on the sad weary worm returning home
at break of day, his pale throat torn with savage shouts,
‘Good day to you, great worm. God sent me down to fetch you.’