and flung his arms above the mob, hands steeped in slaughter’s ways.
In a far corner crouched, he’d heard the whole revolt
and the mob’s savage rage that shook the palace walls; 965
he’d seen the pitiful king stand in the azure dusk
and with his vulgar voice, his round pot-belly, howl
to his great forebears and denounce the ungrateful mob.
His soul had swayed between them like a flickering flame
until he pitied his old friend and sprang on the cart; 970
he knew well how to make lies stick, none could outtalk him:
“Put down your arms, don’t shout, listen to me, you fools!
I bring news of great danger to your lives and wealth!”
The mob drew back and raised their brands to see him well,
but he with flashing eyes lowered his pointed cap 975
and swayed the mob with blows and flattery, hot and cold:
“I’ve worn my feet out trying to reach your king in time
and with great danger pay the debt of an old friendship:
King, there’s a blond and barbarous army that swarms close!
They grasp swords made of iron, their gods are made of meat, 980
they bear their infants on their backs, they’re threshed by hunger,
they’ve learned your harvest’s good, that your barns burst with grain,
and soon, this day or next, they’ll swarm to kill and loot!”
A deadly terror choked the mob, they gasped and gaped,
and all the wealthy landlords pressed about their king 985
to seek salvation for their rich, endangered world;
but he was striving to discern amid the flames
the sudden herald’s face; his mind strove to recall
that noble bearing and that once familiar voice.
Meanwhile the mob’s blind vacillating wishes swung 990
to right and left, young men and old brawled in dispute
until the sly voice cut through all and showed the way:
“Ah, if those slow barbarians could but see you now,
gobbling each other up like wolf-cubs in this castle!
For shame! Hurry and drag your goods and grain at once 995
to your king’s bins and crouch like herds in your king’s shadow!”
But when he saw the mob perplexed, he laughed and flung
his words like armored hooks amid that sea of men:
“You oafs, first save your hides, then later we’ll provide
how to preserve your fields and vines, by hook or crook. 1000
And you, Great Shepherd King, quick, bring your treasures here
to tempt the dull barbarians with gold dazzling gifts;
the king should in great danger give up all his wealth,
and even his life! His people hang about his neck!”
Fat Menelaus at last recalled that cunning glance: 1005
“Ho-ho! Zeus must have whistled in his crafty ear,
and here he is, with all his nets and barbed harpoons!”
His heart fell into place so that he rose with wrath
and raised his golden staff above his frightened herd:
“Hear me! This whole night through my castles brazen gates 1010
shall be flung wide to safeguard all your precious goods;
at dawn when they clang shut, I’ll swoop to fight the foe!”
He spoke, and the crowd dashed like moles to heap their goods;
the cellar guards unloaded grain from all the carts
until the palace storage jars brimmed row on row. 1015
Fat, sweating Menelaus followed and held tight
his tower-tiered ancestral ring of gleaming gold,
and as the jars were closed, he pressed hard on each lid
and on the soft clay set his sacred, regal seal
that in a proud relief raised high this lyric scene: 1020
A lean bare-breasted maid stood on a mountain top
and coldly aimed her tautened bow at a crouched man
who clapped his hands on his dazed eyes for fear his wits
might suddenly burst from so much splendor, so much joy,
and two fierce lions knelt and licked her oval heels; 1025
this was the stamp with which the king sealed all his wealth.
He finished hurriedly, then hastened from his vaults
and in the courtyard sought his friend with happy heart,
but that notorious form was nowhere to be seen.
“A friendly god,” he grieved, “must have assumed his shape 1030
and vanished, but in morning’s light I’ll slay a calf,
and may the rising smoke soon find him and refresh his throat.”
where torches had not yet been lit in scented halls,
and like a stealthy thief groped columns and dim walls. 1035
In misty darkness, gold-wrought inlays gleamed like snakes,
mother-of-pearl glowed softly like fine, human flesh,
and as his fingers suddenly touched an amber’s gloss,
he started back, as though he’d touched fair Helen’s arms.
Trailing their languorous blazing tails, the peacocks screamed 1040
like strutting ladies of the court, as in dark night
Odysseus passed and trembled like a still green youth
who fumbles through his sweetheart’s house for the first time.
And as the burning doves above him sighed with love,
and fountaining waters fell within the fragrant night, 1045
and one bird warbled in the garden close, he felt
suddenly sheathed and lost in Helen’s enclosing flesh.
In truth, a slender lady loomed there by the threshold;
her motionless white hands, her face and throat were bathed
in misty moonlike glow by the doors golden mouth. 1050
The savage solitary’s temples throbbed like wings
for Helen stood awaiting him on the deathless threshold,
For a long time they held each other’s hand, nor spoke,
but tasted the fine flavor of unhoped reunion,
till like a tree’s soft rustling Helen spoke at last: 1055
“Good is the earth, life in this world is sweet, most sweet.
Dear God, I hold Odysseus’ hands in both my hands!”
“I love earth, too, for now I hold your hands in mine,”
and as he spoke his keen eyes strove in dark to see
if her black hair had grayed, her flashing eyes grown dull. 1060
“Do you recall that night you saved me, dear, when all,
mortals and gods, had cast me off before death’s door?
Blond Menelaus had drawn his sword to pierce my throat.”
On her full lips, round as a ring, the stars rained down,
but the heart’s tempter had already spread his nets: 1065
“The past has fled, all totally vanished, sunk in earth,
and in this holy hour, complete and stripped of evil,
I’m blessed to stand with my gray hairs in this famed court
and hold within my mortal palms the immortal moon.
I swear—I see and touch you for the first time, Helen!” 1070
Then both fell silent; time stood still above their heads
like a gray eagle hovering on the air’s high peak.
Perhaps a lightning moment passed, perhaps ten years,
those ten years that had flashed to take those toppling towers;
all things now turned to stone and in the heart lay still, 1075
and dull life burst with stars and turned to fabled myth.
This was not gore and conflagration, no grand castle,
no brash young blade had seized the swan-born maiden yet;
a rich field of red lilies, reed-pipe of a small
and loves
ick shepherd had softly swept their brains like clouds 1080
and set them gently on far-distant mountain tops.
But the spell vanished, time turned in its rut once more,
the peacocks closed their brilliant tails in fright, and fled,
for the king came, and slaves lit torches row on row.
As the ground flashed with light, the stars of heaven grew dull, 1085
and the king threw himself in his friend’s arms, and wailed:
“Dear friend, I thought you were a god, and my soul quaked,
but now I feel your warm flesh, smell your savage odor,
and recognize the deep scar on your knee, Odysseus.”
For hours on the bronze threshold there the two great kings 1090
talked arm in arm about their old strong joys and griefs
and would have walked on air the whole night long, nor eaten,
had not the queen, reminding them of mortal duties,
brought them to firm earth once again and its sweet needs.
“I know the soul is never slaked to hear and question 1095
and tightly hold the flesh it loved and longed to clasp,
but come, a feast awaits us on the great sun-terrace.
It’s good to sit with friends after great perils passed
and share the bread of happiness with long talks all night through.”
Thus Helen spoke, then like a partridge proudly stepped, 1100
rustling in her black linen gown stitched with long flames,
and strode through the hushed courtyard, gleaming like the night.
They walked up marble stairways where young handsome boys
in every nook held torches high to light the way,
Odysseus in the wild glare saw the wealth about him 1105
and stealthily spied the murals with rapacious greed:
shameless nude goddesses that merged with men, and swans
that lunged with reared necks lustfully on women’s thighs.
“These are no longer his,” the castle-wrecker raged,
“nor tripods, lampsteads, golden swords, nor handsome boys, 1110
nor marble stairs I tread, for he’s no longer fit
to fight for them each moment with his blazing sword.”
On altars strewn with flowers, close by erotic rooms,
he saw the gold, ungirdled form of a nude goddess
who cupped her breasts and with her right teat suckled all 1115
the immortal gods, and with her left both men and beasts.
A sweet shade fell upon him, and his eyes refreshed:
“Cleaver of men and women, hail on Helen’s threshold!”
And when they reached at length the terrace where stars flamed,
Odysseus breathed in deeply the night’s moist aroma 1120
and like a sea held in his heart the foaming sky.
All three reclined with joy around the rich repast;
a former blue-eyed princess, now their slave, poured out
the wine in golden goblets while bronze tiny gods
tinkled with cooling sound about her neck and hair. 1125
As the harsh voyager drank deep, he felt his head
armed tight with deathless rage and supple tentacles;
he heard the rushes’ gentle rustling far away,
the nightbirds sighing in dark caves, seduced with love,
and took great joy in hordes of boreworms and blind moles 1130
that dug deep mines in earth and munched the world’s foundations.
Slowly he turned his glance to brood on Helen’s form
and raised her veils and hair in silence ruthlessly
to sum her up with the eyes of a rapacious butcher
who grabs a fat ewe by the loins and weighs her well. 1135
And Helen, bent above her golden cup, rejoiced
in his dread glance, abandoned to his rude caresses.
After their feast was finished, two dance-slaves rushed out
and whirled beneath the stars of the unexhausted sky;
a slender white-haired minstrel sat cross-legged 1140
at the stair’s head and played on a long slender flute
so that the naked feet kept tune and gently pecked
the terrace joyfully like wild erotic doves.
In a sweet stupor, drugged with so much food and drink,
fat Menelaus watched with heavy-lidded eyes, 1145
but the great castle-wrecker’s heart beat far away:
“We have both much to say, and I don’t think it suits
old warriors such as we to watch such silly jigs!”
He spoke, and his old friend was shocked and deeply shaken;
the dancers teetered on their tiptoes, quaked with fear, 1150
lifted their long transparent veils to hide with shame
their slender loins, their breasts, their lovely necks and lips,
then slithered back along the walls, and suddenly vanished;
the old bard also thrust his flute beneath his arm,
slid noiselessly down the stairs and disappeared in darkness. 1155
The pitiless man then turned and pierced his comrade’s heart:
“Old friend, I can’t bear now to see your radiant eyes
grown dull and turbid, given up to easy joys;
take care, my king, old age will snag you from behind!
When we were young, this black earth shone with our resplendence— 1160
how shameful now if our souls fall to food and lust!”
But the soft-hearted lord replied in frail complaint:
“Your heart is truly made of iron or sturdy oak,
you bear arms still, and still resist all sacred law.
Old age is good and dowered by gods with sacred gifts; 1165
joy to that man who like the good fruit-bearing tree
completes life’s cycle wholly, flower, fruit, and seed.
It’s only now that I’ve begun to know the taste
of good wheat bread, refreshment of cool running springs,
and all the holy warmth in bed of lovely woman. 1170
Yes, I’ve begotten children, conquered towns and cities;
my life, like a strong arrow, mounted toward the sky,
but now the earth allures it to a sweet descent;
man is a weather vane, his life an arrow’s flight.”
The archer’s taut throat laughed with malice unrestrained 1175
and sang out to his friend, blowing now hot, now cold:
“I don’t think you’ll enjoy the gifts of age in peace!
The news I let loose in your courtyard, Menelaus,
was not a cunning ruse alone to save your skin:
hungry barbarians have in truth sniffed out your bins, 1180
they’ve heard your concubines complaining in your palace
because your loins are drained, O king, your heart has shrunk,
and now new hearts and loins shall inundate the earth.
I see, even now, your sacred, amputated head
high on a palace column blink with bloodshut eyes!” 1185
Helen’s pale shoulders broke in the cold sweat of fear
and all her swan-begotten flesh with roses flushed;
the king turned pale as wax and cold beads drenched his head:
“What a fine way to requite your dinner, friend, to caw
your prophecies like a black crow here at my feast!” 1190
“I’m not a cuckoo to proclaim the sun in snow;
you’ve guessed it, friend, I perch here on the laden feast
like a black crow and patiently wait my turn to come.”
Giddy with wine, he talked and heard his heart cry out,
disdaining now to sit on earth amid mere mortals, 1195
Helen knew how to cast love-herbs into their wine
so that the men’s harsh hearts would grow serene at once,
but she rejoiced to hear them clash in rage before
her.
The archer understood, and with raised, mocking brows
turned round and struck her ruthlessly with brazen words: 1200
“The lovely queen dawned on the terrace like a star
to tame the people’s hunger and their savage hearts,
but now man’s soul has soared above your beauty, Helen!”
But she had never observed the words of any man;
she was delighted only when their eyes lit up 1205
and when their veins swelled savagely between their brows.
Good-natured Menelaus shuddered, and then sighed:
“I never thought you’d storm my castle like a lion,
but longed to see you come with pomp’s rich retinue
that I might spread red carpets for your regal tread; 1210
I dreamt of killing gold-horned bulls, that all my land
might feast and drink and toast your health a thousand times
while we, two old men sitting by the hearth embraced,
would tell each other of old passions, joys, and crimes.
Time would pass swiftly by, days open and nights close, 1215
and we would slowly talk like sated, sleepy gods,
our souls spread out like an unrippling, endless sea.”
Then sage Odysseus touched his friend’s knee in reply:
“These thoughts you had for your old friend were good, all good;
I too would want to make my friend’s reception glow 1220
at my own castle gate with contests, wine, and steeds,
whether from love, or lordly airs, or sense of honor.
But times have changed, the earth is crushed by crudest need,
and all these joys and these embracements by the hearth
cannot delight our weary bones here, Menelaus: 1225
a new god mounts from the soil now and rules the earth!”
The slayer spoke and gazed intently in Helen’s eyes,
but she in fear clung to a column as though thieves
had dashed into the palace, twined their impious hands
about her coal-black hair and tried to drag her off. 1230
“What kind of god?” the king asked, with wry, trembling mouth.
But the sly man rolled up his mind like a closed hedgehog.
The hovels softly twinkled in the village still,
clay lamps still swayed and sputtered in the tiny yards
and all earth quivered like a star’s weak, fading rays. 1235
Once more Odysseus’ mind heard boreworms and blind moles
eating away in fields at the world’s worn foundations,
and gently, with no wrath, but ruthlessly, he answered:
“I shall not be here when your slaves once more revolt