and the whole palace with all its souls sank in his skull,
for just as his mind had sucked up Captain Clam from Hades, 1280
thus in the court, unmoving, mute, he fought with Death
to snatch from his red hands the moribund gold-plated halls.
He marked down every door and tower, each hanging garden,
dragged swiftly to his mind the proud bare-breasted maids,
the old decrepit lords, the infants in their cradles, 1285
and his mind ripped, uprooted all, and swept them off.
He spied fat Kentaur hiding in his myrtle boughs,
and Rocky at the court’s rim with blood-splattered arms
honing on sparkling whetstones his keen-bladed swords,
and Granite who stood guard before the palace gate. 1290
Gliding up close to Rocky, the archer whispered low:
“Joy to those able hands that grab the wild bull’s horns
and find unerringly the black neck’s mortal spot!:
If I were God, I’d set you loose on human herds!”
The gallant goatherd laughed, well pleased, and his teeth gleamed: 1295
“That’s a good thought, old youngster, I’ll do all I can!
First I’ll learn butchering on dumb beasts, to whet my strength,
and when you’re God, by hook or crook, pass by, and signal!”
The crafty leader smiled in stealth and hurriedly’passed
but suddenly felt a strong hand seize his shoulder blade, 1300
and when he turned, he made out by a painted wall
the face of Phida glowing with great joy and fire.
She seized his savage hand and kissed it secretly,
but the wild castle-wrecker pushed her off, then dashed
with silent rage beyond the moon-struck girl, and vanished. 1305
Reaching his cell, he stretched at the she-lion’s feet
among the lilies, quietly, then cocked his ears
and heard night glide into the palace stealthily;
he heard lamps push her back, the watchdogs softly growl,
and as she gently slid from wall to wall on padded feet, 1310
she darkened frescoes, smothered gods, and blunted knives;
she slunk like a black pantheress, and the archer’s mind
prowled like a panther on the track of a new son.
Down by the seashore on the wings of night there moved
sharp-pointed ships, a blond tribe, women, children, dogs; 1315
the sea smelled heavily of bears, coarse cries rang out,
neighing of horses, frothing waves that beat the night
like steeds, and all ascending swiftly toward the town.
That wild carnivorous beast, the archer’s sly brain, pounced:
a maiden through the columns passed and tightly held 1320
a flaming wax so that her ten translucent fingers
glowed, and her slim neck glittered with its dimpled chin;
she laughed and ran, and for a moment her face turned rose.
A sleepless peacock strutted by in glowering dark;
two bats flew by with muffled sound; on the far beach 1325
the bittern’s booming cry resounded in the reeds.
Low under the black funeral shards, at the rocks roots, 1327
long layers of bodies rotted and left beneath the mold
the pure-white deathless laughter of the gaping skulls.
Above, the living laughed unruffled, stamped their feet 1330
and clapped their dying hands in the re-echoing pubs:
“Drink up, for Death’s a legend, and red wine, my friends, 1332
is deathless water! When we drink, our bare bones blossom!” 1333
All tightly hugged young maidens to their hairy chests
and in a kiss’s swoon forgot and mocked at Death: 1335
“Heigh-ho! Let him swoop down at midnight with his scythe,
that rusted blade, and scare the toothless old men silly,
but we shall fight with a sweet kiss, and pin him down.”
In the great palace, men and women swiftly massed
for the great orgy, and beyond the harbor’s mouth 1340
smooth waters soon began to heave and toss in stealth
as though beasts, fishes, and sharp prows approached in night.
Within the castle’s marble hearths, the flames soared high 1343
and the sparks prophesied the coming of a great guest.
The old crones fed the fire and cast their secret spells: 1345
“If friend, then welcome, but if foe, then may he choke!” 1346
And the Great Guest stood mutely by the castle gate;
his thick lips smiled with calm, his sharp eyes deeply sank,
his right hand clenched in a tight fist, his left hung down
palm open, with untroubled fingers in the cool breeze; 1350
nor did the castle’s fate torment his tranquil mind,
nor did his hungry heart seek food that holy hour;
for in deep silence, the night rang with all her stars,
the dark was sweet and smelled of musk, and his vast body
surrendered like a poplar leaf to the wind’s blowing. 1355
Long zigzag voyages, tears, poverty, and God
fluttered and played on his long lashes, slid like dreams,
until the contours of his face shone, purged and empty.
Thus did the archer’s flesh rejoice in the calm evening,
while on stairs, cellars, terraces and royal courts, 1360
on all the labyrinthine Cretan corridors,
the clogs of fate beat clattering like a good housekeeping crone.
VIII
Dear night, your star-stitched slippers need a golden rim,
they need a virgin maiden with ten slender fingers
to sit on the green ground and trim them with embroidery.
Stars rim the sky, and in the central palace court,
on the high summit of the royal palace dome, 5
a tiny night-bird lifts its scraggly bloodstained neck,
features of nightingale, harsh voice of the screech-owl:
“Eat and carouse until you burst, then sink in earth
with bellies big as drums, with necks of five-fold flesh,
that worms may swim delighted in your grimy grease! 10
Ah, your fine merging eyebrows and your curling lips,
your crisp and downy breasts, brimming with musk, my ladies!
When will your star-stitched slippers sweep them off, dear night?”
Thus did the good bird moan on the high palace dome,
but mankind’s ears are filled with earth, they cannot hear, 15
and the good bird flew far away, fearing the scorching flames.
Night fell, the slaves returned from their fatiguing tasks,
night fell with deep blue down upon the heads of men,
and the small bird received the fearful news and turned
it to grim song deep in its bowels’ magic flutes. 20
But as the archer slowly climbed the shadowed stairs
to relish the king’s house once more in the night air,
he suddenly heard low wailing, and two slaves appeared
bearing the dead form of a small court dancing girl.
Then Orpheus, smeared with paints and dressed in monkey-hides, 25
the court fool’s cap and silver bells still on his head,
fell sobbing to the ground and grasped his master’s knees:
“Put fire to earth and burn it that my head may cool!
All day this dancing girl’s bright smile was like the light
as she danced naked round the shameless archons’ tables. 30
At dusk she leant against a column and softly sighed:
‘I’m tired,’ but the brute king laughed and ordered spread
a bull’s hide on the terrace that the spiraling dance
/> of death might start until the dancer would fall dead.
Her tears ran burning down her cheeks, and full of fear 35
she started sobbing, like a small bird drowned in lime,
but the archons leant their hands on their yellow chins
and watched the dancing girl all evening slowly fade
like a small flaming candle which a harsh wind blows.
I grasped their knees and begged them for a small compassion, 40
but they laughed scornfully and from her pallid lips,
like bittersweet old wine, sipped slow death drop by drop.
Master, I kiss your feet and claim no other god:
brandish the torch, don’t pity the world, set it ablaze!”
His tears ran down till the cosmetics grooved his face, 45
but the strong man laughed bitterly and grabbed his brow:
“Hold tight your tender heart, you fool, if you’ve the strength;
don’t burn the earth, O lame-brain, for a paltry maid!”
But Kentaur stooped with pity, raised the waxen body
high in his arms, climbed silently the darkened stairs, 50
and when he reached the court, strode toward the riverbank,
the slavehands following close behind with choked laments;
last came the stolid ironsmith with dazed blue eyes.
The lone man, with the dead girl on his mind, then spoke:
“Aye, ironsmith, you light the fires in the earth’s pits, 55
but still your mind can’t grasp what’s happened on wide seas.
Now here’s the secret news that Captain Clam just brought:
as far as the sea’s rim, thick-strewn on all the waves,
there loom your own tribe’s ships with sun and moon on sails;
this is the night we’ve longed for, midwife of fierce flames, 60
now is the time to pass the slaves your iron arms!”
Stroking his russet beard, the ironsmith heard with care,
and his blue eyes brimmed full of fires and pointed prows
and a fierce flaming girl who swiftly led the way.
The cunning man divined the girl and spoke with stealth, 65
his brain an iron herb that burst all bolted doors: 66
“When with our new god’s iron strength the castle falls
and crumbles to the earth, burnt embers ground to ash
—give me your hand—I swear you’ll take for your great share
the triple-flaming body of the king’s first daughter.” 70
He spoke, and red-beard growled and like a pincers squeezed
the archer’s hand until his sturdy bone-joints creaked.
Meanwhile the funeral train approached the potter’s field;
a tempest must have burst at night, for the ground gaped,
and tree-leaves drenched with tears hung downward toward the ground. 75
Under a humble almond tree with full bloom trembling,
shedding its petals speechlessly on the night air,
they gently stretched the fragile corpse of the young girl.
As friends entwined her castanets between her fingers
and crowned her pallid head with small bronze falcon-bells, 80
the castle-wrecker knelt beside the martyred feet
and kissed with reverence the pale toes destroyed by dance.
Seeing the piper digging like a dog close by,
howling with tears, he grabbed his nape and threw him flat
beside the dead girl’s feet, her breasts, her lips, and cried: 85
“There, fool, fill up your eyes, your tongue, your nostrils, too!
Dig in your mind a body’s length and plant this seed:
such, and the world beside, are what I hold within me!”
He spoke, and from the women’s throats cries cut like knives,
a battle-song rose from the slavehands’ savage chests, 90
and the brave girl, who’d fallen dancing on cruel earth,
glowed in her coffin like a warrior struck in battle.
Then swiftly smoothing the grave’s soil with his hard heels,
as though in dance, Odysseus raised his battlecry:
“Some women fight on this vile earth with a sweet kiss 95
and slowly spread man’s boundaries in the secret night,
others fight openly with children, husband, home,
and hold their tottering hearths together like firm pillars.
Each has her grace and worth, and both are gallant fighters,
but you, O small, small dancer with your supple feet, 100
with no son at your breast, no husband in your arms,
you served our dreadful god and died in his hard service.
May your ten martial toes be blessed forever and ever.
Your slender ankles shone on this black earth and cut
an open road for God, the unmerciful stern avenger! 105
O quivering flame that flickered in the desolate air,
dear sister, we won’t let the ravening earth devour you;
you’ll perch today on palace roofs like a tall flame
and sweetly sing, a small, small bird with burning plume;
you’ll come to herald spring like a swift russet swallow.” 110
He stooped, then planted in the ground an almond pit
so that one day the harbinger of spring might rise,
the almond tree, and in midwinter, armed with flowers,
drive out that ancient frost-haired nightmare from the ground
that liberty might braid her hair with scented almond blossoms. 115
As by the flowering tree they laid the dancing girl,
in the bedecked and spacious terraces above
the slaves fetched slaughtered votive beasts and flowered wreaths
to give their monarch’s wedding a high noble grace.
In their gold chambers, archons armed themselves with paints, 120
the ladies curved their curly hair to hook the men,
and a sweet young court maiden who had just been wed
painted the last mole on the rim of her right eyebrow.
Within the royal courtyard facing the green hill,
the laden tables of the mystic wedding steamed, 125
and strong winds blew until the torches’ flaming hair
swelled up and dropped thick resin on the flickering earth;
a buxom goddess, her full dugs empearled with dew,
squatted with open thighs on tables heaped with food;
she, too, was overladen with flesh, like man’s own soul. 130
All the surrounding dry thorn-fence had bloomed that day,
passionate glowworms twinkled till their downy bellies,
brimming with blue-green flame, allured in the warm darkness.
In the great heat and the full moon, on desolate shores,
a young girl stripped by the sea’s edge, and soft waves sighed, 135
and hairy salt-flaked demons pressed to gape and stare.
A young man, singing on the road to his betrothed,
suddenly stopped with anguish as in the full moon
he glimpsed the lonely almond tree, the wind’s betrothed.
Far off, in distant forests, under the same moon, 140
wild beasts slunk down to quench their thirst in drowsy pools,
and monarch lion paused with stealth to hear their breathing.
As in his clear mind’s crooked lanes he saw the tracks
of roe deer, wildcat, leopard, lynx, and plodding bear,
and the elephant’s wide footprints sunk in rotted leaves, 145
his savage belly growled and at night’s well-stocked table
he picked his game like a gourmand with tasteful care.
So in the palace halls the lion-minded man
stretched out his neck and watched while his strong body steamed
and slowly melted like a candle in his mind’s flame. 150
&nb
sp; But all at once he crouched and hid in a dark nook
for the great archons sallied through the middle doors,
led by that shepherd of great flocks, grim-visaged Death,
whose eyes were filled with loam, whose bones were painted red,
who held a small night-owl within his open hands; 155
he entered, bowed to right and left, but no one saw him.
Then came the captains of the seas, and on their heads
they wore tall azure plumes that swayed in air like masts;
their nostrils and damp armpits swarmed with small seed pearls,
the tiny eggs of wormy death, though still unhatched. 160
Then came the captains of the land with crimson plumes,
their old wounds, newly painted, grinned like a whore’s lips.
They turned and bowed politely, but their drumlike bellies
grew suddenly green as though the spring grass covered them.
All kept their painted eyes fixed on the brazen doors, 165
and then the king appeared, a golden, cunning ape
with a long peacock train borne by four naked pages.
Death gestured with his hands and bade the king thrice welcome.
Behind came bath attendants, dream interpreters,
perfumers, lewd court jesters, eunuchs, buxom boys, 170
and at the train’s long end the eyes of Orpheus gleamed.
Although the lion growled, still the fleet roe deer came,
their eyes filled with fresh waters and their heads with grass.
Only the lingering piper in the darkness smelled
the lion’s odor, and his rabbit eyes twitched everywhere 175
but could not find the savage tracks, and scurried on.
Sitting on his high throne, the king smiled on his lords
and ordered the locked women’s doors to be thrown open.
Like haughty frigates with sails billowing in strong winds,
bare-breasted, newly washed the court dames swaggered in; 180
their rigging stretched and creaked, their sails were puffed with pride,
and as the flickering torchlight fell on their bare breasts
they shone like white capped-waves in the dawn’s rosy light.
They dipped and swerved and scudded in the sea-drenched air
with merchandise of rich perfumes, and their holds brimmed 185
with kisses, cooling laughter, birds, and large-eyed nights
till Death, with pity, opened wide his harboring arms.
As the archer watched and stroked them all, bid all farewell,
his heart leapt like a lion’s tongue and licked the earth: