Mythistorema

Selections

                                       by George Seferis

                                   2

Still another well inside a cave.

It used to be easy for us to draw up idols and ornaments

to please those friends who still remained loyal to us.

The ropes have broken; only the grooves on the well's lip

remind us of our past happiness:

the fingers on the rum, as the poet pt it.

The fingers feel the coolness of the stone a little,

then the body's fever prevails over it

and the cave stakes its soul and loses it

every moment, full of silence, without a drop of water.

                               4

                                                                                                Argonauts

And if the soul

is to know itself

it must look

into a soul:

the stranger and enemy, we've seen him in the mirror.

The companions were good men, they never complained

about the work or the thirst or the frost,

they had the bearing of trees and waves

that accept the wind and the rain

accept the night and the sun

without changing in the midst of change.

They were good men, whole days

they sweated at the oars with lowered eyes

breathing in rhythm

and their blood reddened a submissive skin.

Sometimes they sang with lowered eyes

as we were passing the dry island with the Barbary figs

to the west, beyond the cape

of the barking dogs.

If it is to know itself, they said

it must look into a soul, they said

and the oars struck the sea's gold

in the sunset.

We passed many capes many islands the sea

leading to another sea, gulls and seals.

Sometimes unfortunate women wept

lamenting their lost children

and others raging sought Alexander the Great

and glories buried in the depths of Asia.

We moored on shores full of night-scents

with the singing of birds, waters that left on the hands

the memory of great happiness.

But the voyages did not end.

Their souls became one with the oars and the oarlocks

with the solemn face of the prow

with the rudder's wake

with the water that shattered their image.

The companions died in turn,

with lowered eyes. Their oars

mark the place where they sleep on the shore.

No one remembers them. Justice.

                                           12

                                                                                               Bottle in the Sea

Three rocks, a few burnt pines, a solitary chapel

and farther above

the same landscape repeated starts again:

three rocks in the shape of a gate-way, rusted,

a few burnt pines, black and yellow,

and a square hut buried in whitewash;

and still farther above, many times over,

the same landscape recurs level after level

to the horizon, to the twilight sky.

Here we moored the ship to splice the broken oars,

to drink water and to sleep.

The sea that embittered us is deep and unexplored

and unfolds a boundless calm.

Here among the pebbles we found a coin

and threw dice for it.

The youngest won it and disappeared.

We set out again with our broken oars.

 

                                               17.

                                                                                               Astyanax

Now that you are leaving, take the boy with you also,

the boy who saw the light under that plane-tree,

one day when trumpets resounded and weapons shone

and the sweating horses, nostrils wet,

bent to the trough to touch

the green surface of the water.

The olive trees with the wrinkles of our fathers

the rocks with the wisdom of our fathers

and our brother's blood alive on the earth

were a vital joy, a rich pattern

for the souls who knew how to pray.

Now that you are leaving, now that the day of payment

dawns, now that no one knows

whom he will kill and how he will die,

take with you the boy who saw the light

under the leaves of that plane-tree

and teach him to study the trees.  

From George Seferis, Collected Poems: 1924-1955. Trans. Edmund Keeley & Philip Sherrard.

After the final mountains we roll down to the sea

                             by Kelvin Corcoran

After the final mountains we roll down to the sea

south from Kalamata around Taygetos on the Aeriopoli road,

and this is meant to be the literal poem of that journey,

one of a series joining seven songs in transit

as if your whole life comes in on the glimmering tide.

The road turns in a certain way and you see everything,

along this coast where gods and babies are washed ashore

out of the sky into the doorways of abandoned villages;

you can pull up and buy oranges, potatoes, honey

from the last ones alive in unpopulated places.

In the meadows and olive groves myth takes root

paths in the hill lead there if you can crawl and scramble;

the snake renews itself and polyphonous birds call,

strophe by strophe in the month of fair sailing

the world takes off to a single tone breaking underground.

The road turns in a certain way -- miss it and you die;

ceremonies lift the earth people, gibbering at the edge

and the voice from the well asks -- what do you want?
The route is lined with bright and useless answers,

as if anything could keep us from the dreat descent.

Where the land ends Helen's brothers look out for us,

striding over the contours of the sea, they say;

as candid waves explode on harbour walls

a girl from Cythera rises, from the epicenter,

to leave us drenched and shining in shock. 

From Kelvin Corcoran, For the Greek Spring, 2013.

The death of the hound, from The Sword in the Stone

from The Sword in the Stone

by T. H. White

In a small bushment the grimly boar stood at bay. . . . Beaumont, with his back broken, writhed at his feet. He paid no further attention to the living hound, for it could do him no harm. He was black, flaming and bloody.

"So-ho," said the huntsman softly.

He advanced upon the murderer with his spear held out in front of him, and the hounds, encouraged by their master, stepped forward with him pace by pace.

The scene changed as suddenly as a house of cards falling down. The boar was not at bay any more, but charging Master Twyti. As it charged the alaunts closed in, seizing it fiercely by shoulder or throat or leg, so that what surged down on the huntsman was not one boar but a bundle of animals. He dared not use his spear for fear of hurting the dogs. The bundle rolled forward remorselessly, as if the hounds did not impede it at all. Twyti began to reverse his spear, to keep the charge off with its butt end, but even as he reversed it the tussle was upon him. He sprang back, tripped over a root, and the battle closed on top. The Wart pranced round the edge, waving his own spear in an agony, but there was nowhere where he dared to thrust it in. Robin dropped his spear, drew his falchion in the same movement, stepped into the huddle of snarls, and calmly picked an alaunt up by the leg. The dog did not let go, but there was space where its body had been. Into this space the falchion went slowly, once, twice, thrice. The whole superstructure stumbled, recovered itself, stumbled again, and sank down ponderously on its left side. The hunt was over.

Master William Twyti drew one leg slowly from under the boar, stood up, took hold of his knee with his right hand, moved it inquiringly in various directions, nodded to himself and stretched his back straight. Then he picked up his spear without saying anything and limped over towards Beaumont. He knelt down beside him and took his head on his lap. He stroked Beaumont's head and said, "Hark to Beaumont. Softly Beaumont, mon amy. Oyez à Beaumont the valiant. Swef, le douce Beaumont. Swef, swef." Beaumont licked his hand but could not wag his tail. The huntsman nodded to Robin who was standing behind, and held the hound’s eyes with his own. He said, "Good dog, Beaumont the valiant, sleep now old friend Beaumont, good old dog." Then Robin’s falchion let Beaumont out of this world, to run free with Orion and to roll among the stars.

The Wart did not like to watch Master Twyti for a moment or two. The strange little leathery man stood up without saying anything and whipped the hounds off the corpse of the boar as he was accustomed to do. He put his horn to his lips and blew the four long notes of the mort without a quaver. But he was blowing the notes for something else, and he startled the Wart because he seemed to be crying.

Fragments from Sappho: three versions

A New Sappho Poem

[You for] the fragrant-bosomed [Muses'] lovely gifts

[be zealous] girls, [and the] clear melodious lyre:

[but my once tender] body old age now

[has seized;] my hair's turned [white] instead of dark;

my heart's grown heavy, my knees will not support me,

that once on a time were fleet for the dance as fawns.

This state I oft bemoan; but what's to do?

Not to grow old, being human, there's no way.

Tithonus once, the tale was, rose-armed Dawn,

love-smitten, carried off to the world's end,

handsome and young then, yet in time grey age

o'er took him, husband of immortal wife.

Trans. Martin West (2005)   

Sappho to Her Pupils

Live for the gifts the fragrant-breasted Muses

send, for the clear, the singing, lyre, my children.

Old age freezes my body, once so lithe,

rinses the darkness from my hair, now white.

My heart's heavy, my knees no longer keep me

up through the dance they used to prance like fawns in.

Oh, I grumble about it, but for what?

Nothing can stop a person's growing old.

They say that Tithonus was swept away

in Dawn's passionate rose-flushed arms to live

forever, but he lost his looks, his youth,

failing husband of an immortal bride.

Trans. Lachlan Mackinnon (2005)

Sappho and the Weight of Years

Girls, be good to these spirits of music and poetry

that breast your threshold with their scented gifts.

Lift the lyre, clear and sweet, they leave with you.

As for me, this body is now so arthritic

I cannot play, hardly even hold the instrument.

Can you believe my white hair was once black?

And oh, the soul grows heavy with the body.

Complaining knee-joints creak at every move.

To think I danced as delicate as a deer!

Some gloomy poems came from these thoughts:

useless: we are all born to lose life,

And what is worse, girls, to lose youth.

The legend of the goddess of the dawn

I'm sure you know: how rosy Eos

madly in love with gorgeous young Tithonus

swept him like booty to her hiding place

but then forgot he would grow old and grey

while she in despair pursued her immortal way.

Trans. Edwin Morgan (2005) 

From the TLS, Poem of the Week.

The Knight and Death

                                              THE KNIGHT AND DEATH (1513)

                                                   by Nikos Gatsos

Just so, I see you motionless

travelling down the ages with the horse of Akritas

and the sword of Ai-Georgi

I would place beside you

with the dark shapes that stand eternally beside you

until the place where you are extinguished eternally with them

until you become a fire in the great Chance where you were born

I would place beside you

an orange from the snow-covered fields of the moon

I would unfold for you the veil of an evening

with red Antares singing the young men

with the River of Sky overflowing into August

to weep with the North Star and freeze

I would place beside you meadows

waters that never watered the lilies of Germany

and I would ornament this iron you wear

with a sprig of basil and a handful of mint

with the arms of Plapoutas and the sword of Nikitaras

And then I who saw your descendants like birds

split open on a spring day the sky of my country

saw the cypress trees of the Morea stop breathing

there on the fields of Nauplion

before the waiting embrace of the wounded sea

where the eons wrestled with the crosses of gallantry

I would place beside you

the bitter eyes of a youth

and the closed eyelids

in the mud and blood of Holland.

This dark land

will someday become green again

The iron hand of Götz will overturn the caissons

and mound them with sheaves of barley and rye

And in the dark oaks with the dead loves

there where time turned a virgin leaf to stone

on the breasts where a tear-stained rose trembled

a star will shine silent as a spring daisy

But you will remain motionless

with the horse of Akritas and the lance of Ai-Georgi you will travel

through the years

a restless hunter from the race of heroes

with those dark shapes that stand eternally beside you

until a day when you will vanish eternally with them

until you become again a fire in the great Chance where you were born

until in the caves of the river

the heavy hammers of patience resound again

not for ornaments and swords

but for pruning hooks and plows.

Trans, DW.

Were the box to be opened

Unknown to her the clothes Mrs. Kennedy wore into the bright midday glare of Dallas lie in an attic not far from 3017 N Street. In Bethesda that night those closest to her had vowed that from the moment she shed them she should never see them again. She hasn't. Yet they are still there, in one of two long brown paper cartons thrust between roof rafters. The first is marked "September 12, 1953," the date of her marriage; it contains her wedding gown. The block-printed label on the other is "Worn by Jackie, November 22, 1963." Inside, neatly arranged, are the pink wool suit, the black shift, the low-heeled shoes and, wrapped in a white towel, the stockings. Were the box to be opened by an intruder from some land so remote that the name, the date and photographs of the ensemble had not been published and republished until they had been graven upon his memory, he might conclude that these were merely stylish garments which had passed out of fashion and which, because they were associated with some pleasant occasion, had not been discarded.

         If the trespasser looked closer, however, he would be momentarily baffled.  The memento of a happy time would be cleaned before storing.  Obviously this costume has not been.  There are ugly splotches along the front and hem of the skirt.  The handbag's leather and the inside of each shoe are caked dark red.  And the stockings are quite odd.  Once the same substance streaked them in mad scribbly patterns, but time and the sheerness of the fabric have altered it. The rusty clots have flaked off; they lie in tiny brittle grains on the nap of the towel. Examining them closely, the intruder would see his error.  This clothing, he would perceive, had not been kept out of sentiment.  He would realize that it had been worn by a slender young woman who had met with some dreadful accident.  He might ponder whether she had survived.  He might even wonder who had been to blame.

William Manchester, Death of a President, 1967.

Incantations

OVERHEARD ON A SALTMARSH

Nymph, nymph, what are your beads?

Green glass, goblin. Why do you stare at them?

Give them me.

                        No.

Give them me. Give them me.

                        No.

Then I will howl all night in the reeds,

Lie in the mud and howl for them.

Goblin, why do you love them so?

They are better than stars or water,

Better than voices of winds that sing,

Better than any man’s fair daughter,

Your green glass beads on a silver ring.

Hush I stole them out of the moon.

Give me your beads, I desire them.

                        No.

I will howl in a deep lagoon

For your green glass beads, I love them so.

Give them me. Give them.

                        No. 

'Strange Meetings' Poems by Harold Monro

JENNY KISSED ME

Jenny kissed me when we met,

Jumping from the chair she sat it.

Time, you thief who loves to get

Sweets into your list, put that in.

Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,

Say that health and wealth have missed me.

Say I'm growing old, but add,

Jenny kissed me.

                                         by Leigh Hunt.

Crow's Theology

Crow's Theology
            by Ted Hughes

Crow realized God loved him-
Otherwise, he would have dropped dead.
So that was proved.
Crow reclined, marvelling, on his heart-beat. 
And he realized that God spoke Crow-
Just existing was His revelation. 
But what Loved the stones and spoke stone?
They seemed to exist too.
And what spoke that strange silence
After his clamour of caws faded? 
And what loved the shot-pellets
That dribbled from those strung-up mummifying crows?
What spoke the silence of lead? 
Crow realized there were two Gods-
One of them much bigger than the other
Loving his enemies
And having all the weapons. 
                                       

Bitter Lemons

by Lawrence Durrell

BITTER LEMONS

In an island of bitter lemons

Where the moon's cool fevers burn

From the dark globes of the fruit,

And the dry grass underfoot

Tortures memory and revises

Habits half a lifetime dead

Better leave the rest unsaid,

beauty, darkness, vehemence

Let the old sea nurses keep

Their memorials of sleep

And the Greek sea's curly head

Keep its calms like tears unshed

Keep its calms like tears unshed.

AT RHODES

Anonymous hand, record one afternoon,

In May, some time before the fig-leaf:

Boats lying idle in the sky, a town

Thrown as on a screen of watered silk,

Lying on its side, reddish and soluble,

A sheet of glass leading down into the sea . . .

Down here an idle boy catches a cicada:

Imprisons it, laughing, in his sister's cloa

In whose warm folds the silly creature sings.

Shape of boats, body of a young girl, cicada,

Conspire and join each other here,

In twelve sad lines against the dark.

SHIPS. ISLANDS. TREES

These ships, these islands, these simple trees

Are our rewrds in substance, being poor.

This earth a dictionary is

To the root and growth of seeing,

And to the servant heart a door.

Some on the green surface of the land

With all their canvas up in leav and flower,

And some empty of influence

But from the water-winds,

Free as love's green attractions are.

Smoke bitter and blue from farms.

And points of feeble light in houses

Come after them in the scale

Of the material and the beautiful;

Are not less complex but less delicate

And less important than these living

Instruments of space,

Whose quiet communication is

With older trees in ships on the grey waves:

And order and a music

Like a writing on the skies

Too private for the reason or the pen;

Too simple even for the heart's surprise.

From The Poetry of Lawrence Durrell, 1962.

Three by Akhmatova

by Anna Akhmatova

The three things he loved most in life

Were white peacocks, music at mass,

And tattered maps of America.

He didn't like kids who cried and he

Didn't like raspberry jam with tea

Or womanish hysteria.

. . . And I was, like it or not, his wife.

                                      1910-1911

Broad and yellow is the evening light,

The coolness of April is dear.

You, of course, are several years late,

Even so, I'm happy you're here.

Sit close at hand and look at me,

With those eyes, so cheerful and mild:

This blue notebook is full, you see,

Full of poems I wrote as a child.

Forgive me, forgive me, for having grieved

For ignoring the sunlight, too.

And especially for having believed

That so many others were you.

                                   1915

I hear the oriole's voice, clear and distressed,

I greet the waning of the summer but

One wheat ear against another pressed

The sickles with reptilian hisses cut.

The short hems of the women in the field

Fly in the wind like flags on a holiday.

Now I yearn for the joyful bells that pealed,

His dusty lashes -- And he didn't look away.

I don't expect caresses or words to spare

In expectation of that dark descent,

But do come look at the paradises where

Together we were blissful and innocent.

                                    1917



From Anna Akhmatova, Poems, 1974. Trans., Lyn Coffin.

Dancing by the Black Sea

by Patrick Leigh Fermor

At the end of the dance, Dimitri joined us by the fire and swelled the accompaniment with his own voice and another gourd. The next dance, on which Costa now embarked solo, though akin to its forerunner, was even odder. There was the same delay and deliberation, the same hanging head with its cap on the side, a cigarette in the middle of the dancer's mouth. He gazed at the ground with his eyes almost closed, rotating on the spot with his hands crossed in the small of his back; soon they rose above his head like a vulture's wings opening, then soared in alternate sweeps before his lowered face with an occasional carefully placed crack of thumb and forefinger and the slow and complex steps evolved. The downward gaze, the absorption, the precise placing of the feet, the sudden twirl of the body, the sinking on alternate knees, the sweep of an outstretched leg in three quarters of a circle, with the arms all at once outflung in two radii as the dancer rose again in another slow circle, gather pace till he spun for a few seconds at high speed and then slowed down in defiance of all the laws of momentum -- these steps and passes and above alll the downward scrutiny were as though the dancer were proving, on the fish scales and the goats' droppings underfoot, some lost theorem about tangents and circles, or retracing the conclusions of Pythagoras about the square on the hypotenuse. Sometimes during these subsidences, he slapped the ground with one hand and shot into the air again. A leap, after a few grave and nearly static paces, would carry him effortlessly through the air to land motionless with knees bent and ankles crossed. he would rise from this crouched posture, his trunk flung forward like a pair of scissors closing, the smoke from his cigarette spiralling round him. These abrupt acrobatics and calculated flashes of strength were redoubled in effect by the measured smoothness and abstraction fo the steps that bracketed them. This controlled acceleration and braking wove them all into a single and solemn choreographic line. Perhaps the most striking aspect of it was the tragic and doomed aura that surrounded the dance, the flaunting so quickly muffled, and the introvert and cerebral aloofness of the dancer, so cut off by indifference from the others in the cave that he might have been alone in another room, applying ritual devices to conundrums reluctant of yielding their answers, or exorcizing a private and incommunicable pain. The loneliness was absolute. The singing had stopped and nothing but the jangle of the wire strings accompanied him.  

From Patrick Leigh Fermor, The Broken Road, 2013 (241-242).