two monstrous eagle wings that beat above his head.
Meanwhile the castle’s lord had passed to a far room,
and when he’d loosed his belt and hung his crimson robe, 460
his black and hairy chest blazed in the lantern’s light,
his thighs were ringed with flame till the whole house caught fire.
Amid thick hair, his face, his eyebrows, his coarse beard
darkened, and in his blackened flesh his soul flashed fire.
Like a swift agile youth, he leapt, and his chaste bed, 465
long-suffering and unsoiled, joined to an olive tree,
trembled and groaned. Penelope then, new-bathed and mute,
raised her long lashes stealthily and gazed on him with fear.
Waking in early dawn, he stole like a thief downstairs,
unhooked a four-flamed oil-lamp and with caution searched 470
his house like a sly landlord counting all his goods.
He passed through his deep vaulted cells, uncovered all
his huge embellished jars and in his mind summed up
what oil, wine, grain the revelers had left untouched.
Then he knelt down and quickly broke the double locks, 475
uncovered his stone caskets buried deep in earth,
and in his raging mind summed up what golden cups,
what brooches, necklaces, what precious stones and rings,
how many golden crowns were missing or still safe.
He raised his lamp and to his secret armory passed 480
where all his pointed lances shone, his broad shields smiled,
and plumes on his bronze helmets swayed like living manes.
He passed beyond to further cells and with his glance
grasped looms and caldrons, brazen lampsteads, earthen jars,
counting and adding all, then shook his head in wrath. 485
Like a slim hunting hound he sniffed the pungent air,
his nostrils quivering at fat sheepskins and soft beds
to nose out all the shameful secrets of his house.
He passed by slowly and held his lamp aloft until
his tall and flickering shadow leapt from wall to roof, 490
and his worn slaves, still sleeping on their humble pelts,
hearing a noise, half-opened their thick-lidded eyes,
but quickly cowered, and covered themselves in silent fear.
He passed the women’s quarter, sniffed the holy blood
of all the new-slain youths till murder bloomed once more 495
within his heart like a rose garden drenched with sun.
Stark naked on a sheepskin, his old father lay
in a far corner, raised his pate, looked at his son,
and his blank eyeballs, wounded by the lantern’s light,
brimmed with quick tears and blinked like bats in a dark cave. 500
His son stooped over him and gazed without compassion
On the old rotting hulk that in youth’s flower one night
embraced his bride and sowed the sperms of his son’s birth;
now to what state reduced, for shame, filth on the earth!
He grunted, crossed the sill and stepped into his court 505
where under roofed arcades his slavehands slept and snored
and in their sleep smiled quietly and dreamt, perhaps,
that their fierce lord had drowned at sea, not to return.
But he was gliding from his wine to his oil vats,
rejoicing to caress the old friends of his youth; 510
he bent and stroked the shafts, the mangles, the worn wheels,
and talked with them as though they were old warriors, joked
about their spilled intestines, their worn broken teeth,
and they guffawed and creaked at their old master’s banter.
At last he entered his ox-stables, his warm stalls. 515
where frightened mares reared up, alarmed, with flashing eyes,
but his ox slowly moved their necks and chewed their cud,
and the man-slayer drew back so that his cutting glance
might not disturb the passive beasts’ contented calm.
Thus, landlord, did you hold your lamp aloft to count 520
your goods with care and stack them in your storied mind.
The cocks now on the dungheaps had begun to crow,
and the thick-headed sparrows in the eaves awoke,
for rose-lipped azure day laughed in the opaque sky.
The man of many sorrows rejoiced to hear his cocks 525
bring in the sun once more to his own native land,
blew out his lamp and leant against Athena’s feet.
His past whirled in his mind; old sorrows and old joys,
all seas he’d ever sailed flashed in his eyes, green shores
twined crimson in the sun, and snow-white mountain summits. 530
His mind, round like the sun, shone in the first rays,
holy and good, a ripe fruit filled with fertile seed.
His eyebrows leapt and zoned his voyages like lightning,
waves roared and beat against his temples, garden-mint
and honeysuckle blossomed in Calypso’s cave, 535
and amber scrolls like honey wound round Circe’s bed.
He felt his hands with poisoned heavy lotus brim,
alluring lethal songs rang in his ears once more,
but he heard all, rejoiced in all, set sail, and no
excessive sweetness turned his brain from his true course. 540
He had not wished to fight with gods, but when fate ordained
he’d fought a deadly battle with the sea’s great lord
and with the ungirdled goddess and her pubic whirlwind.
All dangers he had passed now crossed his silent mind,
and in that hour, on Troy’s far-distant azure shores, 545
the dawn broke sweetly: hungry vines with berries weighed
climbed through the jagged ruins and browsed on broken stones;
charred embers choked with flowers, and tall grasses rose
from the cracked skulls of princes, lizards strolled in sun
and with their flickering tails crumbled the famous walls. 550
As the man-slayer smiled and tenderly caressed
Athena’s slender ankles, her bronze feet, he joyed
to feel the goddess was his faithful comrade still.
His claw-tipped brain grew crimson as he stooped with calm
above black pits that brimmed with blood of new-slain throats 555
and filled his fists, then slowly laved the Immortal’s breasts,
her thighs and knees, as though he stroked a mortal maid,
until the wisdom goddess laughed in sunlight, smeared with blood.
His tenant farmers, meanwhile, from far hills and fields
swarmed round his outer gate and wondered in mistrust 560
how to address him, what to say, how touch his knees,
and as they waited, addle-brained, with humbled heads,
Odysseus slowly came and stood before them calmly,
and all knelt down and kissed the sly man-slayer’s hand.
An ancient shepherd leaned on his oak staff and wailed, 565
some touched their master’s knees, his chest and shoulder blades,
until emboldened by his calm all touched his body
that in the light unmoving stood with a bull’s splendor.
When they had wept and laughed their fill, they huddled close
and joined their heads to answer their lord prudently. 570
He asked his shepherds first about his flocks, how many
the leeching suitors in their orgies had gulped down;
next with his mud-brained farmhands he discussed his vineyards,
his ancient unpruned olive trees, his unsown fields,
then asked his slaves how much ripe fruit their wives produced, 575
&
nbsp; how many male and female slaves to his increase.
On two wax tablets he set down in ordered rows
his heavy losses, left, his meager profits, right,
till squandered chattel and real property rose up
unwinding from his rapid hands and climbed his brain; 580
then he stood up and portioned jobs to every hand:
“I want all of my vineyards, olive trees, my farms,
my horses, sheep, my ox, to know their landlord’s come!”
Stooping with joy, the elders kissed their master’s knees,
then, young again and light of heart, sped to their work, 585
Odysseus called to all his heralds and cried out:
“Runners, speed with your myriad mouths and lengthy strides,
swarm through my villages and towns and thunder out:
‘Your lord invites you to a great feast at the full moon;
wash and bedeck yourselves, hasten to grace his boards. 590
He’s come! Let his land welcome him with blood and wine!’”
His heralds bound their hair with leaves of the wild olive,
then seized their staffs of ilex wood, puffed up their brains,
and rumbled downward toward the fields like swift cascades.
Day like a shepherdess awoke, the world was filled 595
with wings and birdsong, clamorous noise of man and beast,
and in the ancient olive trees, the early cuckoo’s song.
As he pricked up his ears to catch the sounds of spring,
his mind like frothy loam was covered with new grass
and his much-traveled heart dissolved in mist; sounds rose 600
most sweet out of the earth and now allured him; “Come,
come grandchild, O great grandson, bring your brimming jug.”
The great man-slayer shook to smell his dread forebears,
his hairy nostrils filled with deadly camomile, 604
and leaping up, he glanced about him, chose a jug 605
whose copper belly had once borne the reveler’s wine,
and with a double-handled crater scooped blood from the pit
and filled his brimming jug to water his forefathers,
then plugged its bubbling mouth with aromatic thyme
and took the ancient crooked path to the moldering graves. 610
All of his dead leapt on his chest like crabs and Spread
their sallow bellies and pale claws till he yelled out:
“Oho, how have the dead increased! They’ll knock me down!”
But when the mountain’s fresh breeze struck him, he took heart;
the gorse was fragrant, honeybees on savory browsed, 615
swift swallows cut the light, and their white bellies, warm
and starry-downed, filled the tree-flowering air with love.
His nostrils quivered and breathed in his isle far down
to the musk-odorous shore with its thick salty seaweed.
“How good earth is, dear God,” he murmured; “nostrils, eyes, 620
hands, tongue, and ears here browse unbridled on good soil.”
But his forefathers growled until once more he took
the sacred road to water earth’s unbreathing throats.
For ages on their stony beds, swords at their sides,
with gaping jaws unlocked, they’d waited for their grandson, 625
and now the traveler quaked for fear he’d come too late
and find his own dead vanished, in the rank grass smothered.
But soon the rugged wall came into view, well built
and well matched with smooth cornerblocks like a skull’s bones.
Black souls like ravens perched on it in a long row, 630
and when they saw their son ascend with brimming jug
they opened wide their bottomless thick beaks, and some
perched on the fat fig tree that browsed on women’s flesh, 633
some by the oak that sucked up male ancestral strength. 634
The mute world-wanderer on the destined threshold stood, 635
pushed to one side a rock that blocked the gate, and entered.
The tombs were softly melting in the sun’s fierce blaze,
audacious ivy struck deep roots in the rock clefts,
—great sweetness, fragrance, happiness—and bees buzzed round
the camomile that like star clusters filled the ground. 640
Chiseled upon the lintel’s huge stone block on high
an ancient crane stretched out his slim long-voyaged wings,
lean carter of the sky who on his bony back
and the deep hollows of his neck brings back the swallows
then fans them jocundly throughout the warm spring air. 645
Suddenly on his skull, the rugged grandson felt
the secret archon of his dread tribe watching him.
“Welcome, grandfather crane, old swallow-mount, thrice welcome,”
he cried, then cast aside the thorny thyme and flung
fistfuls of brimming blood to give his forebears life. 650
The man of seven souls rose like a crane, his head
grew wings, his blood-drenched palms and his knees quaked to feel
invisible blind souls that groped to find out what
he sought, if friend or foe, and what his shoulders held,
till the jug rang as though pecked by a thousand beaks. 655
Like a bird-hunter that bestrews the ground with barley
he cast thick drops of blood on the tombstones and called
with throaty clucking sounds on all the souls to eat,
then knelt amidst the tombs, uncovered the dark pit
that brings together dead jaws with warm living breath 660
and poured out all the jug like a fresh-slaughtered throat
till blood in fountain-falls plunged gurgling down to Hades.
Pressed tight like mud-soaked and lethargic beasts, the dead
lay rotting on their backs, their white skulls packed with earth;
then the world-traveler hung above the deadly pit, 665
firm necks knit straight again and whole, bones creak and stretch?
fists clasp with savage strength at swords deep in the earth
till the tombs rang like battle bivouacs far away.
They lapped the human blood, grew strong and licked their lips, 670
then slowly lifted toward the light their muddy heads
like snakes that thaw out and uncoil in the sun’s blaze.
Their grandson’s soul grew strong as they grew strong, he groaned,
leapt up, and with his thick soles swiftly thrust aside
the gravel round the graves, charred bones of bulls, clay shards, 675
and on Death’s threshing floor spread out a dancing ring.
He flung his coat far from his back, and in the sun
his well-knit sturdy body gleamed with many wounds.
Dancing around his sunburnt loins, tattooed in blue,
the twelve signs of the zodiac glowed like living beasts: 680
the scorpion spread its claws, the lion leapt for prey,
fishes in pairs sailed undulating round his belly,
and the scales tipped in balance just above his navel.
As though earth lived, he touched it with his quivering feet
and slowly on Death’s threshing floor began to dance, 685
He called first to the men, and his grandfathers leapt
with their bronze moldy armor, grasped each other’s arms,
and from their beards shook off the still voracious worms;
he walked then to the women’s side and hailed with awe
deep in the earth his tribe’s milk-bearing ancient toots. 690
Like pomegranates, the tombs burst and cast their seed, 691
and mothers grasped their grandson’s still warm living hand,
then beat the earth like strutting partridges and stepped
in stately measure with their naked incensed feet.
Mortal Odysseus led the dance and hoarsely yelled: 695
“Hey, mothers, hey, straight-backed like candles, grassy-haired,
your rhythmic heels glint in the sun like crimson apples!
Go to it, grandpap, air has once more filled your lungs,
and I, your grandson, rush in the lead and start the song!
Never before, I swear, have I wished to praise the tombs, 700
but now, for your sakes only, I’ll adorn them richly.
O tombstones, wings, O brooding wings spread on the ground
to hatch your huge eggs and to warm your sturdy eaglets,
ah mother eagles, all of your eggs hatch in my mind!”
Thus the soul-snatcher danced and woke his great forefathers; 705
some seized him by the arm, some grasped his dancing feet,
others, like falcon-bells, hung round his swinging throat,
and thus for hours he danced with his ancestral ghosts,
swift in the lead sometimes or at the tail’s slow end,
bursting with song like swallows that return in April. 710
But soon the noon at zenith dripped heat drop by drop
till he stopped dancing, sated, bid his flock farewell
then took the goatpath hurriedly to reach the peak,
for his eye longed to take in all his isle once more.
In tingling air the mountain blurred in the heat-haze 715
and the armed insects plunged like pirates on first flowers
of fragrant golden gorse, wild thyme, and sweet whitethorn.
Amid the first betrothals, before nest-building cares
oppress, and bodies meet and passion vanishes,
the small birds flit from branch to branch in joyous ease. 720
A gray hawk in the sky wove swift wreaths silently
and sought no prey, but flexed his overbrimming strength
before the female hawk should call and drain him dry.
The man of many travels climbed, and his heart filled
with myriad wings and playful thoughts and fragrant herbs. 725
He climbed, his country’s threshing floor in splendor spread,
and when he stepped at length on the bald mountain’s peak
and saw his poor isle’s slender body far below,
he blinked his eyelids to hold back his brimming tears.
“This is the rock, the bare dry rock I’ve loved and longed for,” 730
he murmured then, and teardrops on his lashes gleamed,
His mind, a hovering hawk, spied out the world below: