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.
