till the pale king turned to consult his friend in fear:
“Help me, dear friend! What shall I do, for my heart quakes?”
But the lone man rejoiced to touch the iron barbs 875
of magic charms that jangled in the sun-blond braids.
He then recalled the old male Worm, and his mind reeled.
The abject king asked him again, and gasped for breath:
“Help me, dear friend! What shall I do, for my heart quakes?”
The archer turned, gazed on him well, then flung his shaft: 880
“Your loins are shrunk and dry! Now that new blood pours down,
open your veins and graft them! Let fate’s will be done!”
The king puffed up his chest, and his heart heaved with pride:
“My strength is like a lioness who has given birth!
Welcome, blond beasts, come step into my yawning mouth! 885
Take fields, plow hard, but I shall gather the gold grain!
Take slopes and plant the vineyards, but the wine is mine!
Take women to your beds, take men, may your wombs bulge,
but I, your Great Chief, shall corral your children yearly!
If you’re agreed, we’ll slay a he-goat and swear oaths.” 890
A strapping red-haired woman raised her hands on high:
“God shouts and asks for earth, he likes your flocks and fields.
Forward! Let’s slay black he-goats and exchange great oaths!”
Odysseus smiled and winked to an old barbarian chief:
“I know what god rolls down on wheels with grappling irons 895
and from the high snow-covered peaks sweeps through these fields!”
The old chief turned till blue and black eyes merged in stealth
and for a long time their crossed glances sparked with fire.
The lion had pounced upon his prey, devoured it whole,
and soon, with his rude tongue had wiped his bloodstained chops; 900
the lovesick sweating bear had finished his slow dance
and in the moonlight licked his bandy paws like honey;
so did the archer caress the old barbarian chief
who licked his lips as though they dripped with blood and honey
when he first heard the foolish king give up his fields. 905
The bearers of good news set forth, grinning with glee,
and the sharp-eyebrowed evening with her new moon smiled.
Then the two kings, sunk deep in thought, stepped silently
beyond the brazen threshold guarded by two aging lions,
Tall, gracious Helen welcomed them in the great chamber, 910
and when Odysseus raised his eyes, his heart rejoiced
because the dress she wore spoke of their secret fight:
a lengthy sea-blue mantle stitched with shells and stars,
pale pearly nautili that sailed ground the hem,
two rows of oars that plied the waves about her waist, 915
and when she moved, the house was drowned in shining sea.
A conch resounded sweetly in the boatman’s breast,
but he choked down his joy, and through the skylight watched
how night like a black panther prowled the royal groves.
That night the famed seductress ordered the rich feast 920
of their great secret flight spread in the men’s quarters.
They sat on thrones and ate of the fine food in silence,
and as the undiluted wine snaked through their grains
the hypocrite raised high his brimming golden cup:
“I drink this vineyard’s blood to your good health, dear friend! 925
My words are salt and water, yet friendship stands like rock;
our lips pour out a stream of uncontrollable words—
the mindless wine spills some and some our wretched need,
and some the mad wind that sweeps by and knocks us giddy,
but the heart’s words are deep, dear friend, they need sea-divers. 930
I speak now from the heart in separation’s hour:
whenever I recall your eyes, the world grows sweet!”
Tears suddenly blurred the king’s dark eyes as he replied:
“Brother, a piercing voice of sorrow tears my heart:
‘Open your eyes and gaze your fill for the last time, 935
O soul, for you shall never again look on Odysseus!’ ”
The double-minded man’s voice choked, his throat drew tight:
“Dear friend, I hear the same sad voice tear through my heart,
but the tough mind won’t stoop to tears and soft caresses—
I freely mold my fate as though it were my will; 940
I bless, dear friend, the destiny that joined us both
to see strange peoples, shores, and towns, that on a night
like this we may sit drinking in your palace here
and gaze with marveling dread on our dissembling Helen.
But we have said enough, and our eyes overflow.” 945
The king, however, was not consoled, and sadly thought:
‘The heart is not enough, it’s an unbrimming sieve
poured full of joy both night and day, yet never full.”
The subtle man then turned and smiled on arch-eyed Helen:
“I drink your health, O deathless daughter of the Swan! 950
You merge both god and beast, and on your eyebrows weigh
earth’s savage passions and the sky’s high holy grace.
May you be blessed because you lit in slothful souls
a raging war that opened minds and widened seas
till in our crude heads victory rose and sat enthroned— 955
a small bird of sweet song and blood-bedabbled wings.
May you be blessed on green earth and the glaucous waves;
you burst in the unflowering grass like a great rose,
like a great thought, all curly, flaming, many-leaved,
O rose of earth, loved of all eyes, the black air’s joy!
The soil blooms for your sake, poor brides grow beautiful, 960
for every groom in darkness kisses his own Helen.
We weep and cry till in our minds the swan’s child smiles
and on the peak of darkness shines like mother’s bosom
till the distracted mind laughs like a suckling babe, 965
The flower of Lethe, Lady, blooms between your breasts.”
Helen laughed silverly to hear her praises sung:
“The great all-knowing goddesses on their cool beds
taught you nightlong your many blandishments, your spells,
and how to unlock the double bolted woman’s heart, 970
till now, in truth, you hold us like a full-blown rose,
and when you talk, I’m deeply glad to be alive!
A woman’s beauties are her gifts and dear adornments,
but only when a great man’s hands enjoy them and caress them.”
The king then raised his tearstained face and softly touched 975
his comrade’s knees and smiled upon him tenderly:
“My heart bids me give you a precious, parting gift
to hold deep in your heart and to recall your friend,
for if I fade from your bright mind, I shall soon perish!”
He spoke, then left to open his huge treasure chests. 980
With cunning craft the archer watched him fade in dark
and vanish in the labyrinthine palace vaults,
then turned in time to catch the smile on Helen’s lips
and in a sudden shock his heart ached for his friend:
“Doesn’t your marble heart feel for him, Lady, now?” 985
But the uncompassionate seed of god and beast replied:
“My marble heart feels no compassion, for that’s gone;
life can create with him nor fruit nor flower now.”
He sighed with heavy heart, for in the woman
’s eyes
he saw man lying supine, decked out with funeral gifts, 990
and shuddered, for he felt he too might one day lie
like a dead man in both her starry, nightborn eyes,
for woman’s breast is a sweet refuge, a safe harbor.
He shook his still ungiddy head from her sweet glance:
“My own heart throbs to fall in his good arms with love; 995
I hold his body in my hands, and my heart breaks
as though I grasped sand slipping slowly down to earth.”
Meanwhile the king bent low and soon ransacked his chests
till his deep palms with gold and silver treasure brimmed
and with ecstatic greed and joy caressed the wealth 1000
his crude forebears had heaped with so much blood and war.
He chose at length his most illustrious prize and raised
it high in the lamp’s spluttering flame to glut his eyes.
Within his hands there flashed the small yet golden form
of that trustworthy god who screens and safeguards friendship: 1005
in, his right hand he held the lightning bolt of vengeance,
and in his left a flaming ruby, man’s own heart.
Trembling, the king caressed the god and begged with fervor:
“Keep well, almighty dreadful God, in my friend’s heart,
keep there my memory green, let not my shadow fade; 1010
I have none better on earth to whom my soul may cleave.”
Still praying to the god, he placed him for remembrance,
and his last hope, in his friend’s double-dealing palms:
“Dear friend, there’s no more lustrous gift in all my chests.
That night when God embraced my lovely mother-in-law, 1015
he flapped his wings like a great swan, and fled forever.
The god-kissed bride tore at her hair and begged a sign
for solace that a god had taken her first flower,
and as she wailed, she felt this gold shape lie in her lap.
On my blessed wedding night, the Swan’s celestial mate 1020
placed it upon my hearth that the dread god might guard me.
Now I rejoice to place it in your palm, Odysseus.”
Then the arch-cunning merchant, learned in all merchandise
of heaven and earth, weighed in his palm the gift with skill:
“Brother, I love the goldsmith’s hands that fashioned this; 1025
it must be worth a huge shipload of wine and grain.
May God who holds the keys to man’s heart witness this,
and may I never again know joy nor my own land,
but may my entrails heave and sway like the sea’s waves
if my mind ever lets you fall in Lethe’s well. 1030
I call on you, pure patron of great friendship, hear me!”
Thus did the perjurer speak, and the god squirmed in dark
until a voice buzzed in the heart-seducer’s ears:
“Ah, cunning, sly, perfidious fox, have you no shame?
If I should rise to tell all that I know of you, 1035
mocker of gods, the stones of earth would rise to stone you!”
The treacherous man scowled angrily and shouted back:
“Sit on your eggs, you deathless scarecrow; don’t get smart!
If I should rise and to the quaking mob disclose
all that I know of you, O fool, you’re a lost wretch!” 1040
A quivering voice pled secretly in whispers then:
“Swallow your tongue, dear friend, hold our old secret fast;
don’t let the fools get wind of us, keep all your wits!”
The arrogant man laughed loudly, and in calloused hands
tossed high the terror-stricken god like burning coals. 1045
The king was startled to hear the loud indecent laughs,
but the sly man embraced his friend with feigned concern
and for the second time swore friendship’s deathless oath:
“I’ll not forget you, friend, even though my dust turn dust;
all my life long you’ll live, too, in my memory 1050
until my body stoops and spills its brains in mud
and you and I descend like moles or shades to Hades.”
But the king groaned, for such need seemed but bitter balm:
“Alas, my mind rejects the thought, my heart can’t bear
to touch and talk with its old friend and then to turn 1055
and find him suddenly vanished in the empty air.”
The demigod then pitied his ill-fated friend:
“Brother, all life’s a dream; don’t let your heart grow bitter.
Troy rose once in our brains like a resplendent toy
fashioned of mud and women, slaughters and fat shores 1060
that we gulped down like a deep cup of maddening wine
till our minds reeled and set their sails for open seas.
Don’t let the mocking spirit of wine deceive you,” friend;
it’s not true that we once set out with our swift ships,
that for ten years we fought to take that famous town 1065
or that one night its dust was strewn in air like smoke;
all these were monstrous phantoms, playthings of the brain.
The mind of giddy man sways but in slight commotion
and fashions shores and castles, gods, sweet bodies, ships,
and on the highest peak of all its wealth enthrones its Helen. 1070
These creatures shine like mist a moment in our minds
then fade from sight abruptly when a small breath blows.”
Thus did the double-dealing man attempt with Craft
to calm his friend who soon would lose his light, his Helen.
The exhausted king was startled, as though his life had drained, 1075
but memory swiftly reared and flared high in his head:
“Though all life were but dream and empty shadow, yet
I held embraced the holy truth, dear friend, that day
when all the castle burned and from the savage flames
I crushed full-fragrant cooling Helen within my arms.” 1080
how he had raised her in his arms, a fainting fawn,
and plunged in sea up to his loins, parting the waves.
The armies were all dazzled, and at once the ten
long years flared like blue thunder in their heads, and vanished. 1085
If only Zeus had crashed like lightning in that hour,
the high peak of his life, and scorched him into cinders!
He closed his eyes and secretly deplored his fate,
but slow, unwilling, step by step, his drowsy mind
slid down and fell, a lump of muddy earth, to torpid sleep. 1090
And when the two remained alone in the men’s quarters, 1091
the brains of the maid-snatcher gleamed like mountain peaks.
“Helen, for ten long years, they say, we fought in vain
to save your god-born body from inglorious shame
the while you sat, untouched, high in a cooling cloud 1095
and sent, they say, only your shade to both armed camps.”
Helen sat silent in the night, rejoiced to hear
how swift her legend spun on fantasy’s fast spindle,
for it had been no shade that stretched on soft divans,
no shade that cried out with delight in tight embrace; 1100
but she said nothing, for she loved to hear how men
bandied her name about with words dispersed by winds;
her eyes burned with black flames and speared the archer’s eyes
and her fine features played like the seductive sea.
But the bird-catcher frowned and came to stand beside her: 1105
“Today when my brain sees you through a mist of wine
you seem the variable
morning star of shifting face;
yet, by my body and the soul which it enfolds,
I want to sunder truth from dream today, fair Helen.”
The eyes of the seductress gleamed like showering lights: 1110
“How can the shallow brain of mortals, O sage man,
separate vapid truth from dream, or mist from mist?
Both life and death are rich, intoxicating wines.
Was it then I who laughed and wept on Trojan shores,
or but my empty shade, and I in my husband’s bed 1115
dreaming of seizures, handsome youths, and gallant deeds?
Even now, as we sit here beside our peaceful hearth,
the mind grows blurred, the dream blows and the palace creaks
like a full-masted sloop and sails in the wind’s arms.”1119
Then both fell silent, a sweet dizziness drenched the air, “ 1120
Helen’s faint breathing smelled like cool refreshing sea,
a water’s whispering susurration lisped far off,
and sails sprang suddenly from their breasts, from cups of wine,
and from the cobwebbed armor and dull mother-of-pearl
that decked the erotic swans’ wide wings from wall to wall. 1125
The palace rose in dance, the corner towers swayed,
the cypress trees, tall in the courts, like rigging swished,
and suddenly peacocks screamed like seagulls in the night.
Odysseus rose, and his head throbbed with miracle;
he wanted to shout, “Set sail!” but he restrained his cry 1130
for fear the wonder might fly out like frightened birds.
In hovering silence then they heard the king laugh low,
for he was dreaming in sweet sleep how as a youth
he’d played at hide-and-seek with Helen secretly.
But they moved on nor turned their heads to look at him 1135
and took the long unending voyage of departure.
Again her firm-shaped lips, round as a ring, sang out:
“I’m not a goddess, and I hate the empty skies;
I love the earth, my heart is filled with loam and roses.
This house constrains me now, my spirit spreads to clasp 1140
fierce conflagrations, open seas, and wild men’s knees.
But if I leave with you at dawn for your black ship,
I won’t rush to the cliff’s embrace like a green girl.
Paris passed once through the great gaping sea, and vanished!
I, even as you, refuse to let my soul -decay.” 1145
The mind of the quick-tempered man spun like a whirlwind
and flung her swiftly round its apex like a rose leaf.