Complete Poems (11 page)

Deep in fear and in suspicion,

with flustered minds and terrified eyes,

we wear ourselves out figuring how

we might avoid the certain

danger that threatens us so terribly.

And yet we’re mistaken, that’s not it ahead:

the news was wrong

(or we didn’t hear it; or didn’t get it right).

But a disaster that we never imagined

suddenly, shatteringly breaks upon us,

and unprepared—no time left now—we are swept away.

When suddenly, at midnight, there comes the sound

of an invisible procession passing by

with exquisite music playing, with voices raised—

your good fortune, which now gives way; all your efforts’

ill-starred outcome; the plans you made for life,

which turned out wrong: don’t mourn them uselessly.

Like one who’s long prepared, like someone brave,

bid farewell to her, to Alexandria, who is leaving.

Above all do not fool yourself, don’t say

that it was a dream, that your ears deceived you;

don’t stoop to futile hopes like these.

Like one who’s long prepared, like someone brave,

as befits a man who’s been blessed with a city like this,

go without faltering toward the window

and listen with deep emotion, but not

with the entreaties and the whining of a coward,

to the sounds—a final entertainment—

to the exquisite instruments of that initiate crew,

and bid farewell to her, to Alexandria, whom you are losing.

If you are among the truly elect,

watch how you achieve your predominance.

However much you’re glorified, however much

your accomplishments in Italy and Thessaly

are blazoned far and wide by governments,

however many honorary decrees

are bestowed on you in Rome by your admirers,

neither your elation nor your triumph will endure,

nor will you feel superior—superior how?—

when, in Alexandria, Theodotus brings you,

upon a charger that’s been stained with blood,

poor wretched Pompey’s head.

And do not take it for granted that in your life,

restricted, regimented, and mundane,

such spectacular and terrifying things don’t exist.

Maybe at this very moment, into some neighbor’s

nicely tidied house there comes—

invisible, immaterial—Theodotus,

bringing one such terrifying head.

On one monotone day one more

monotone, indistinct day follows. The same

things will happen, then again recur—

identical moments find us, then go their way.

One month passes bringing one month more.

What comes next is easy enough to know:

the boredom from the day before.

And tomorrow’s got to where it seems like no tomorrow.

As you set out on the way to Ithaca

hope that the road is a long one,

filled with adventures, filled with discoveries.

The Laestrygonians and the Cyclopes,

Poseidon in his anger: do not fear them,

you won’t find such things on your way

so long as your thoughts remain lofty, and a choice

emotion touches your spirit and your body.

The Laestrygonians and the Cyclopes,

savage Poseidon; you won’t encounter them

unless you stow them away inside your soul,

unless your soul sets them up before you.

Hope that the road is a long one.

Many may the summer mornings be

when—with what pleasure, with what joy—

you first put in to harbors new to your eyes;

may you stop at Phoenician trading posts

and there acquire the finest wares:

mother-of-pearl and coral, amber and ebony,

and heady perfumes of every kind:

as many heady perfumes as you can.

Many Egyptian cities may you visit

that you may learn, and go on learning, from their sages.

Always in your mind keep Ithaca.

To arrive there is your destiny.

But do not hurry your trip in any way.

Better that it last for many years;

that you drop anchor at the island an old man,

rich with all you’ve gotten on the way,

not expecting Ithaca to make you rich.

Ithaca gave you the beautiful journey;

without her you wouldn’t have set upon the road.

But now she has nothing left to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca didn’t deceive you.

As wise as you will have become, with so much experience,

you will understand, by then, these Ithacas; what they mean.

And even if you cannot make your life the way you want it,

this much, at least, try to do

as much as you can: don’t cheapen it

with too much intercourse with society,

with too much movement and conversation.

Don’t cheapen it by taking it about,

making the rounds with it, exposing it

to the everyday inanity

of relations and connections,

so it becomes like a stranger, burdensome.

Our efforts, those of the ill-fortuned;

our efforts are the efforts of the Trojans.

We will make a bit of progress; we will start

to pick ourselves up a bit; and we’ll begin

to be intrepid, and to have some hope.

But something always comes up, and stops us cold.

In the trench in front of us Achilles

emerges, and affrights us with his shouting.—

Our efforts are the efforts of the Trojans.

We imagine that with resolve and daring

we will reverse the animosity of fortune,

and so we take our stand outside, to fight.

But whenever the crucial moment comes,

our boldness and our daring disappear;

our spirit is shattered, comes unstrung;

and we scramble all around the walls

seeking in our flight to save ourselves.

And yet our fall is certain. Up above,

on the walls, already the lament has begun.

They mourn the memory, the sensibility, of our days.

Bitterly Priam and Hecuba mourn for us.

Not like a king, but like an actor, he exchanged his showy robe of state for a dark cloak, and in secret stole away.

—P
LUTARCH
,
Life of Demetrius

When the Macedonians deserted him,

and made it clear that it was Pyrrhus they preferred

King Demetrius (who had a noble

soul) did not—so they said—

behave at all like a king. He went

and cast off his golden clothes,

and flung off his shoes

of richest purple. In simple clothes

he dressed himself quickly and left:

doing just as an actor does

who, when the performance is over,

changes his attire and departs.

I’m the Lagid, a king. The possessor absolute

(with my power and my riches) of pleasure.

There’s no Macedonian, no Eastern foreigner

who’s my equal, who even comes close. What

a joke, that Seleucid with his vulgar luxe.

But if there’s something more you seek, then simply look:

the City is our teacher, the acme of what is Greek,

of every discipline, of every art the peak.

Damon the artisan (none as fine

as he in the Peloponnese) is

fashioning the Retinue of Dionysus

in Parian marble. The god in his divine

glory leads, with vigor in his stride.

Intemperance behind. Beside

Intemperance, Intoxication pours the Satyrs wine

from an amphora that they’ve garlanded with vines.

Near them delicate Sweetwine, his eyes

half-closed, mesmerizes.

And further down there come the singers,

Song and Melody, and Festival

who never allows the hallowed processional

torch that he holds to go out. Then, most modest, Ritual.—

That’s what Damon is making. Along with all

of that, from time to time he gets to pondering

the fee he’ll be receiving from the king

of Syracuse, three talents, quite a lot.

When that’s added to the money that he’s got,

he’ll be well-to-do, will lead a life of leisure,

can get involved in politics—what pleasure!—

he too in the Council, he too in the Agora.

He’s lost his former dash, his pluck.

His wearied body, very nearly sick,

will henceforth be his chief concern. The days

that he has left, he’ll spend without a care. Or so says

Philip, at least. Tonight he’ll play at dice.

He has an urge to enjoy himself. Do place

lots of roses on the table. And what if

Antiochus at Magnesia came to grief?

They say his glorious army lies mostly ruined.

Perhaps they’ve overstated: it can’t all be true.

Let’s hope not. For though they were the enemy, they were kin to us.

Still, one “let’s hope not” is enough. Perhaps too much.

Philip, of course, won’t postpone the celebration.

However much his life has become one great exhaustion

a boon remains: he hasn’t lost a single memory.

He remembers how they mourned in Syria, the agony

they felt, when Macedonia their motherland was smashed to bits.—

Let the feast begin. Slaves: the music, the lights!

The Seleucid Demetrius was displeased

to learn that a Ptolemy had arrived

in Italy in such a sorry state.

With only three or four slaves;

dressed like a pauper, and on foot. This is why

their name would soon be bandied as a joke,

an object of fun in Rome. That they have, at bottom,

become the servants of the Romans, in a way,

the Seleucid knows; and that those people give

and take away their thrones

arbitrarily, however they like, he knows.

But nonetheless at least in their appearance

they should maintain a certain magnificence;

shouldn’t forget that they are still kings,

that they are still (alas!) called kings.

This is why Demetrius the Seleucid was annoyed,

and straightaway he offered Ptolemy

robes all of purple, a gleaming diadem,

exceedingly costly jewels, and numerous

servants and a retinue, his most expensive mounts,

that he should appear in Rome as was befitting,

like an Alexandrian Greek monarch.

But the Lagid, who had come a mendicant,

knew his business and refused it all;

he didn’t need these luxuries at all.

Dressed in worn old clothes, he humbly entered Rome,

and found lodgings with a minor craftsman.

And then he presented himself to the Senate

as an ill-fortuned and impoverished man,

that with greater success he might beg.

He, who on the four-drachma piece

seems to have a smile on his face,

on his beautiful, refined face,

he is Orophernes, son of Ariarathes.

A child, they chased him out of Cappadocia,

from the great ancestral palace,

and sent him away to grow up

in Ionia, to be forgotten among foreigners.

Ah, the exquisite nights of Ionia

when fearlessly, and completely as a Greek,

he came to know pleasure utterly.

In his heart, an Asiatic still:

but in his manners and in his speech a Greek,

bedecked with turquoise, yet Greek-attired,

his body scented with perfume of jasmine;

and of Ionia’s beautiful young men

the most beautiful was he, the most ideal.

Later on, when the Syrians came

to Cappadocia, and had made him king,

he threw himself completely into his reign,

that he might enjoy some novel pleasure each new day,

that he might horde the gold and silver, avaricious,

that over all of this he might exult, and gloat

to see the heaped-up riches glittering.

As for cares of state, administration—

he didn’t know what was going on around him.

The Cappadocians quickly threw him out.

And so to Syria he fled, to the palace of

Demetrius, to entertain himself and loll about.

Still, one day some unaccustomed thoughts

broke in on his total idleness:

he remembered that through his mother, Antiochis,

and through that ancient lady, Stratonice,

he too descended from the Syrian crown,

he too was very nearly a Seleucid.

For a while he emerged from his lechery and drink,

and ineptly, in a kind of daze,

cast around for something he might plot,

something he might do, something to plan,

and failed miserably and came to nothing.