Poets Translate Poets: A Hudson Review Anthology (22 page)

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me who did wrong, eh, if, eh, you

think it was wrong of me,

and now you know all of it, for his sake

and for your sake, both of your sakes together,

do put up with the girl.

He beat all the champions into subjection

and now Eros throws him down with all his inferiors.

day: Yes, We think that’s what’s to be done

and just that way.

Th

is imported trouble won’t be got rid of

by a losing fi ght versus the gods.

Let’s go in, and I’ll get you something for Herakles

and a note to take with it.

Got to send him something suitable, in return.

Wouldn’t be right for you to go back

without something, having come with all this.

k horo s: KUPRIS bears trophies away.

(
Str
.)

Kronos’ Son, Dis and Poseidon,

Th

ere is no one

shaker

unshaken.

Into dust go they all.

Neath Her they must

give way.

TWO gods fought for a girl,

(
Ant
.)

Battle and dust!

Might of a River with horns

crashing.

Four bulls together

Shall no man tether,

Akheloös

neither,

lashing through Oneudai.

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As bow is bent

the Th

eban Cub,

Bacchus’ own, spiked is his club,

HE is God’s Son.

Hurled to one bed,

Might of waters like a charge of bulls crashing.

Get a dowsing rod.

Kupris

decides

To whom brides

fall.

ROCK and wrack,

Horns into back,

Slug, grunt and groan,

Grip through to bone.

Crash and thud

Bows against blood

Grip and grind

Bull’s head and horn.

BUT the wide-eyed girl on the hill,

Out of it all,

frail,

Who shall have her?

To stave her and prove her,

Cowless calf lost,

Hurtled

away,

prized for a day?

[
Music in this Khoros fi fes, kettle drums, oboes, etc., with fl ute solo or clarinet
.]

day (
reenters
): Well, my dears,

while that outsider is inside

chatting with the little victims of bow and spear

before he pushes off ,

let’s

fi gure out how we are to manage this cohabitation with

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this virgin who isn’t one any longer,

’cause she’s been yoked.

Too much cargo, contraband,

but keep my mind afl oat somehow.

“Double

yoke

Under one cloak,”

and I said he was so kind and dependable.

What I get for keeping house

all

this

time.

But I can’t stay mad at him long,

I know what’s got into him,

And yet . . .

the two of us,

My husband, her man, the new girl’s man,

and she’s young.

And:

“E’en from fond eyes, olde fl owers are cast away.”

And

it’s not nice for a woman to be too crotchety,

the ones with nice minds are not peevish.

And

may be there’s a way out.

Nessus, that old ruffi

an with hair on his chest,

long ago, I was a green girl then,

and he gave me a little present

which I’ve kept stored away in a brass pot

all this time.

He was dying from loss of blood

there at the ferry over Evenus

where it’s too deep to ford.

And he had me up on his shoulders

in mid passage

and got too fresh with his hands.

I let out a shriek, and: WHIZZ ! !

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as he turned

Zeuson had an arrow into his lung up to the feathers.

Before he passed out he said:

“As you’re old Oineus’ daughter,

I’ll give you what I’ve earned by all this ferrying.

Scrape the drying blood from my wound

where the Hydra’s blood tipped that arrow,

Lernaean

Hydra,

and you’ll have a love charm so strong

that Herakles will never look at another woman

or want her more than you.”

Well, my dears, I been thinking ’bout that,

I’ve kept the stuff since his death

carefully in a cool dark place,

and I’ve swobbed this jacket with it,

just as the Centaur told me,

not like a philtre,

I don’t believe it’s too great a risk.

Deal with that young woman somehow,

unless you think I am foolish.

k ho: Don’t seem a bad idea, if

you think it will work.

day: No absolute guarantee, of course,

but you’ll never tell till you try.

k ho: Nope, no proof without data,

no proof without experiment.

day: Th

ere he is. Be gone soon,

keep quiet about this for a bit,

what they don’t know won’t hurt us.

You can get away with a good deal in the dark.

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l i k h : I have considerably overstayed my leave, Madame d’Oineus.

Tell me, please, just what I’ve to do.

day: While you’ve been in there talking to the girls,

I’ve wrapped up this present for Herakles,

a jacket I made him myself,

nobody else is to put it on fi rst,

he’s not to leave it in the sun

or near the fi re inside the holy hedge

until he stand before the gods at the altar

for killing the bulls.

I vowed that if I should ever see him

safe home, or hear he had come,

I would make him a proper chiton

to wear when he sacrifi ced in the god’s presence.

Th

e packet is sealed with my signet

which he will recognize.

Now you may go, and

remember a messenger’s fi rst job is

to do what he’s told, not more, not less,

but just what he is told.

Do that, and we’ll both be grateful.

l i k h : Properly trained in Hermes’ messenger-service, Ma’am,

say I’m not, if I slip up on this

or don’t take him the box, as is,

and your message exactly.

day: Th

en go. You know how things are going inside.

l i k h : Yes. I’ll say: everything under control.

day: And that I’m being nice to the visitor,

you’ve seen that.

l i k h : And I was most awfully surprised

and cheered by it.

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day (
reveuse
): Anything more? No.

Mustn’t say how much I want him

until I know he’s going to want me.

k horo s: SAFE the port, rocky the narrows,

(
Str
. 1)

Streams warm to a, glaze on Oeta’s hill,

Malis’ pool and Dian’s beach

Neath her golden-shaft ed arrows

Ye who live here and disdeign

All greek towns less than the Pelean,

(
fi fes, fl ute & grosse caisse
)

SOON shall hear the skirl and din

(
Ant
. 1)

Of

fl utes’ loud cackle shrill return,

Dear to Holy Muses as

Phoebus’ lyre ever was. From the valours of his wars

Comes now the God, Alkmene’s son

Bearing battle booty home.

(
clarinette, bassoon
)

TWELVE moons passing,

(
Str
. 2)

night long, and day.

Exile,

exile

Knowing never, to come? to stay?

Tears, tears, till grief

Hath wrecked her heart away,

Ere mad Mars should end him

his

working

day.

(
cello, low register
)

TO PORT, to port.

(
Ant
. 2)

Boat is still now;

Th

e many oars move not.

By island shrine ere he come to the town

Day long, day long

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If the charm of the gown prove not?

’Tis dipped, aye in the unguent

drenched through it, in every fold.

Told,

told,

in all as she had been told.

[days a i r
enters now in the tragic mask
.]

day: Something’s gone wrong, my dears, awfully,

terribly wrong, and I’m scared.

k ho: Why, Daysair Oineus, what do you mean?

day: I don’t know, I dunno, I hoped

and I don’t hope.

Something awful will come of it.

k ho: You don’t mean your present to Herakles?

day: Exactly. People oughtn’t to rush into

what they don’t understand.

k ho: Tell us what you’re afraid of.

day: Something too creepy’s just happened.

Th

at thick wad of white sheep’s wool

that I used to daub the jacket, just disappeared.

Nobody touched it. Seemed to corrode of itself.

Ate itself up, there on the fl oor-stones.

When that brute of a Centaur

was in agony from the arrow in his lung,

he told me—and I can remember it

as if it were engraved on a brass plate—

and I did just what he told me: kept it cool,

away from the fi re and sunlight, in a cupboard

until time to use it, which I did inside,

and nobody saw me take it out of the kettle

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with wool I’d pulled out of a fl eece from our own sheep

and put it inside the box that you saw.

But just now, something you wouldn’t believe,

perfectly inexplicable, I found it all fl aming

there in the sunlight. It had got warm

and just crumbled away, like sawdust

where somebody had been sawing a board,

but mixed up with bubbles

like the fat scum that slops over from the wine-press.

I’m out of my mind with worry and misery.

I’ve done something awful.

Why should that dying brute want to do me a favour?

He was dying on my account.

Wanted to hit back at his killer.

And I’ve found out what he was up to,

and it’s too late.

I’m to murder him, damn it, fate.

I know that arrow hurt even Chiron

and he was a demigod—

black blood from the death arrow,

would kill any wild animal.

If he dies, if he’s caught,

I’ll die too.

No decent woman would live aft er that horror.

k ho: Don’t give up yet.

Th

ere’s danger. But it mayn’t necessarily happen.

day: Th

ere’s no hope for those who have done wrong.

k ho: But if you didn’t mean it, they won’t

blame you as much as all that.

day: Talk that way if you’re not involved,

not if you’ve got the weight of it on you.

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k ho: Better wait to hear what your son’s got to say.

Th

ere he is to tell you, himself;

he went to look for his father.

h y l : Damn you, I wish you were dead,

or no mother, anyhow, or at any rate not mine.

day: What’s got into you, son,

why do . . .

h y l : You’ve murdered your man, my father,

and you did it today.

day: What a thing to say. Oh, oh.

h y l : Well you’ve done it, and fi nished it,

and what’s done can’t be undone.

day: How can you say this! Me! Th

e most loathsome crime known?

h y l : I saw it myself, the way he suff ered.

Th

is is no idle rumour.

day: Where did you fi nd him? You were with him?

h y l : You’ll hear it. You’ve got to hear all of it.

He sacked Eurytus’ city,

you’ve heard of that place,

and was coming home with the spoils,

at the top headland of Euboea

where the sea swashes in on both sides,

at Kenaion, facing the North.

He orientated the altars, to the gods,

our

own.

Fixed the lay-out, cutting the leaves.

And I was glad to get the fi rst sight of him

starting to kill all those bulls.

Th

en along comes Likhas the family herald

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with that present, that marvelous peplon.

And he put it on, like as you’d said,

and started on the fi rst dozen bulls,

going on to kill the whole hundred, hecatomb.

And the poor devil, at the start,

was so cheerful about it,

seemed pleased with his vestments.

Made the prayer, but