Complete Poems (16 page)

“At first the courtier of King Darius, and then

a courtier of King Xerxes;

and now accompanying Xerxes and his army,

to vindicate himself at last: Demaratus.

“A great injustice had been done to him.

He
was
the son of Ariston. Shamelessly

his enemies had bribed the oracle.

Nor did they fail to deprive him of his throne;

but when at last he yielded, and decided

to resign himself to living as a private person

they had to go and insult him before the people,

they had to go and humiliate him, in public, at the festival.

“And so it is that he serves Xerxes with such great zeal.

Accompanying the enormous Persian army

he too will make his return to Sparta;

and, a king once more, how swiftly

he will drive him out, will degrade

that conniving Leotychides.

“And so his days pass by, full of concerns:

giving the Persians counsel, explaining to them

what they need to do to conquer Greece.

“Many worries, much reflection, which is why

the days of Demaratus are so dreary.

Many worries, much reflection, which is why

Demaratus doesn’t have a moment’s pleasure;

since pleasure isn’t what he’s feeling

(it’s not; he won’t acknowledge it;

how can he call it pleasure? it’s the acme of his misfortune)

when everything reveals to him quite clearly

that the Greeks will emerge victorious.”

I’m sitting and musing.
      I brought to Art

longings and feelings—
      some half-glimpsed

faces or lines;
      some uncertain mem’ries

of unfulfilled loves.
      Let me submit to it.

It knows how to shape
      the Form of Beauty;

almost imperceptibly
      filling out life,

piecing together impressions,
      piecing together the days.

He remained Ammonius Saccas’s student for two years;

but of philosophy and of Saccas he grew bored.

Afterward he went into politics.

But he gave it up. The Prefect was a fool;

and those around him solemn, pompous stiffs;

their Greek horribly uncouth, the wretches.

His curiosity was aroused,

a bit, by the Church: to be baptized,

to pass as a Christian. But he quickly

changed his mind. He’d surely get in a row

with his parents, so ostentatiously pagan:

and they’d immediately put an end—an awful thought—

to his extremely generous allowance.

Still, he had to do something. He became an habitué

of the depraved houses of Alexandria,

of every secret den of debauchery.

In this, fortune had been kind to him:

had given him a form of highest comeliness.

And he delighted in that heavenly gift.

For at least another ten years yet

his beauty would endure. After that—

perhaps to Saccas he would go once more.

And if in the meantime the old man had died,

he’d go to some other philosopher or sophist;

someone suitable can always be found.

Or in the end, it was possible he’d even return

to politics—admirably mindful

of his family traditions,

duty to one’s country, and other pomposities of that sort.

On this mixing-bowl
      of the purest silver—

which was made for the
      home of Heracleides,

where great elegance
      always is the rule—

note the stylish blooms,
      and the brooks, the thyme;

and in the middle I put
      a beautiful young man,

naked, sensuous;
      he still keeps one leg,

just one, in the water.—
      O Memory, I have begged

to find in you the best
      of guides, that I might make

the face of the youth I loved
      as it really was.

This has proved to be
      very difficult since

some fifteen years have passed
      since the day on which

he fell, a soldier, in
      the defeat at Magnesia.

You brave, who fought and fell in glory:

who had no fear of those who’d conquered everywhere.

You blameless, even if Diaeus and Critolaus blundered.

Whensoever the Greeks should want to boast,

“Such are the men our race produces,” is what they’ll say

about you. That’s how marvelous the praise for you will be.—

Written in Alexandria by an Achaean:

in the seventh year of Ptolemy, the “Chickpea.”

The young Antiochene
      said to the king,

“In my heart there beats
      a single precious hope:

the Macedonians again,
      Antiochus Epiphanes,

the Macedonians are back
      in the great fight again.

If only they would win—
      I’ll give to anyone who wants them

the horses and the lion,
      the Pan made out of coral,

and the elegant mansion,
      and the gardens in Tyre,

and everything else you’ve given me,
      Antiochus Epiphanes.”

Maybe he was moved
      a little bit, the king.

But he recalled at once
      his father and his brother,

and so made no response.
      Some eavesdropper might

go and repeat something.—
      Anyway, as expected,

at Pydna there swiftly came
      the horrible conclusion.

In an old book—about a hundred years old—

I found, neglected among the leaves,

a watercolour with no signature.

It must have been the work of a very powerful artist.

It bore the title “Representation of Love.”

But “—of the love of extreme sensualists” would have been more fitting.

For it was clear as you looked at this work

(the artist’s idea was easily grasped)

that the youth in this portrait wasn’t meant

for those who love in a somewhat wholesome way,

within the limits of what is strictly permitted—

with his chestnut-brown, intensely colored eyes;

with the superior beauty of his face,

the beauty of unusual allures;

with those flawless lips of his that bring

pleasure to the body that it cherishes;

with those flawless limbs of his, made for beds

called shameless by the commonplace morality.

He’s lost him utterly.
      And from now on he seeks

in the lips of every new
      lover that he takes

the lips of that one: his.
      Coupling with every new

lover that he takes
      he longs to be mistaken:

that it’s the same young man,
      that he’s giving himself to
him.

He’s lost him utterly,
      as if he’d never been.

The other wished—he said—
      he wished to save himself

from that stigmatized
      pleasure, so unwholesome;

from that stigmatized
      pleasure, in its shame.

There was still time, he said—
      time to save himself.

He’s lost him utterly,
      as if he’d never been.

In his imagination,
      in his hallucinations

in the lips of other youths
      he seeks the lips of that one;

He wishes that he might
      feel his love again.

“Seeing, then, that there is great indifference

among us toward the gods”—he says with that solemn affect.

Indifference. But what then did he expect?

Let him organize religion as much as he pleased,

let him write the high priest of Galatia as much as he pleased,

or to others like him, exhorting, giving directions.

His friends weren’t Christians: that much is certain.

But even so they weren’t able to

play the way that he did (brought up as a Christian)

with the system of a new religion,

ridiculous in theory and in practice.

In the end they were Greeks.
Nothing in excess,
Augustus.

After she returned from his funeral, greatly bereaved,

the sister of him who had temperately and sweetly lived—

the exceedingly scholarly Antiochus, king

of Commagene—she wanted an epitaph for him.

And the Ephesian sophist Callistratus—who sojourned

often in the principality of Commagene,

and who in the royal household had been

so pleasantly and frequently received—

wrote it, at the suggestion of Syrian courtiers,

and sent it to her aged ladyship.

“May the renown of Antiochus the benevolent king

be meetly extolled, O Commagenians.

He was the provident captain of the land.

The life he lived was just, and wise, and gallant.

The life he lived, still more, was that finest thing: Hellenic—

mankind holds no quality more precious:

among the gods alone does anything surpass it.”

A respectable citizen’s son—
      above all else, a beauteous

youth who belongs to the theatre,
      agreeable in so many ways:

I now and then compose,
      in the language of the Greeks,

exceedingly daring verses,
      which I circulate

very secretly, of course—
      gods! they mustn’t be seen

by those who prate about morals,
      those who wear gray clothes—

verses about a pleasure
      that is select, that moves

toward a barren love
      of which the world disapproves.

Foolhardy doings, full of risks.

The encomia for the ideals of the Greeks.

The white magic and the visits to the pagans’

temples. The raptures over the ancient gods.

The frequent conversations with Chrysanthius.

The theories of the (quite clever) philosopher Maximus.

And look at the result. It’s obvious that Gallus

is very anxious. Constantius is suspicious.

Ah, his advisors weren’t wary in the least.

This story’s gone too far, Mardonius says,

and it’s got to stop at once, all this furore.—

Julian is going back, a Lector once more,

to the church at Nicomedia,

where, loudly and with considerable

piety, he reads the holy Scriptures,

and at his Christian reverence the people wonder.

They were very pained
      when they parted company.

They themselves didn’t want it;
      it was just the way things were.

The need to make a living
      was forcing one of them

to go far away—
      New York or Canada.

Certainly their love
      wasn’t the same as before;

the attraction had been
      gradually diminished,

its attraction had been
      very much diminished.

But still, that they should part—
      that they didn’t want.

It was just the way things were.—
      Or perhaps it was that Fate

was something of an artist,
      separating them now

before their feeling died away,
      before Time could alter them:

Each one, for the other,
      will be as if he’d stayed

twenty-four years old,
      the exquisite lad.

He came so he could read. Lying open

are two or three books: historians and poets.

But he’d barely read for ten minutes,

when he put them aside. On the sofa

he’s half asleep. He’s completely devoted to books—

but he’s twenty-three years old, and very handsome;

and this afternoon desire has come

to his flawless flesh, and to his lips.

To his flesh, which is beauty entire,

the fever of desire has come;

without foolish shame about the form of its enjoyment.…

From his little village near the city’s outskirts,

still dusted with his journey’s dirt,

the peddler arrives. He hawks his wares—

“Incense!” “Gum!” “The finest oil!” “Scent for your hair!”—

through the streets. But the tremendous stir,

and the music, and parades, won’t let him be heard.

The mob shoves him, drags him, knocks him down.

And at the height of his confusion, when he asks “What on earth is going on?”

someone tosses him the palace’s gargantuan lie:

that victory in Greece belongs to Antony.