Complete Poems (29 page)

“Indeed,” said the proconsul, as he closed the book,

“this line is very lovely, and quite right;

Sophocles wrote it in a deeply philosophical light.

How much we’ll have to say there, how much we’ll say there,

and how vastly different we’ll appear.

All that here we hold in, like wakeful guards,

the wounds and secrets that we shut inside,

with weighty anguish each and every day,

freely, there, and clearly we shall say.”

“Add to that,” the sophist said, half-smiling,

“if they talk like that down there, whether they still care.”

In this obscene photograph, which is secretly

sold in the street (so the police won’t see),

in this smutty photograph

how could there be a face like this,

of dreams; how could you be here.

Who knows what debased, sordid life you must lead;

how horrid the surroundings must have been

when you posed so they could photograph you;

what a tawdry soul yours must be.

But given all of this, and more, to me you remain

the face that comes in dreams, a figure

fashioned for and dedicated to Greek pleasure—

that’s how you are for me still and how my poetry speaks of you.

So we’re getting closer to arriving, Hermippus.

The day after tomorrow, I daresay; so said the captain.

At least we’re sailing on our seas:

waters of Cyprus, of Syria, and of Egypt,

waters of our beloved fatherlands.

Why so silent? Ask your heart:

as we drew ever farther from Greece,

weren’t you happier, too? Why fool ourselves?—

surely that wouldn’t be fitting for a Greek.

Let’s admit the truth from here on in:

we too are Greek—what else could we be?—

but with loves and with emotions that are Asia’s,

but with loves and with emotions

that now and then are alien to Greek culture.

It’s not becoming to us, Hermippus, to us philosophers

to resemble certain of our lesser kings

(remember how we’d laugh at them

when they’d come to have a look at our Schools)

beneath whose exteriors, so ostentatiously

Hellenized and (dare I say!) Macedonian,

some Arabia peeps out every now and then,

some Media that cannot be reined in;

with what comical contrivances the poor things

labor so that nobody will notice.

Ah no, such things don’t become us.

For Greeks like us such pettiness won’t do.

Of the blood of Syria and of Egypt

that flows in our veins, let’s not be ashamed;

let us revere it, and let us boast of it.

Always Alexandria remains herself. Walk a little down

the straight road that comes to an end at the Hippodrome,

you’ll see palaces and monuments that will astound you.

For all the harm it’s suffered in its wars,

for all that it’s diminished, still a marvelous place.

And then, with the excursions, and the books,

and with the various studies, the time does pass.

In the evening we gather at the shore,

the five of us (all with our fictitious

names, of course) and some other Greeks

of those few who have remained in the city.

Now and then we’ll talk about church matters (they seem

rather Latin here), now and then about literary matters.

Two days ago we were reading Nonnus’s lines.

What images, what rhythm, what language, what harmony.

In our eagerness, we marveled at the Panopolite.

So the days pass, and our sojourn

is not unpleasant, since, naturally,

it isn’t something that’s going to last forever.

We’ve had good reports, and whether something

is going on in Smyrna now, or in April

our allies will set forth from Epirus, our plans

are working, and we’ll easily throw out Basil.

And it will be our turn from there on in.

The final year is this one. The final Greek

emperor is this one. And alas

what dismal things they’re saying all around him.

In his desperation, in his pain

the Lord Theophilus Palaeologus

says “I’d rather die than live.”

Ah, Lord Theophilus Palaeologus,

how much of the yearning of our race, how much of its exhaustion

(how much weariness from injustice and persecution)

those five tragic words of yours contained.

When I went inside the house of pleasure

I didn’t linger in the parlor where they celebrate

conventional desires, with some decorum.

The rooms I went to were the secret ones

and I got down and I lay there in their beds.

The rooms I went to were the secret ones,

the ones they think it shameful even to name.

But for me there was no shame—for if there were

what kind of poet, what kind of craftsman would I be?

Better to abstain completely. That would be more in keeping,

much more in keeping with my poetry

than going to the common parlor for my pleasure.

I never had you, nor will I have you

ever, I daresay. A couple of words, a closeness

as in the bar two days ago, and nothing else.

It is, I don’t deny, a pity. But we who belong to Art

sometimes—with intensity of mind, and of course only

for a little while—create a pleasure

that gives the impression of being almost real.

So it was in the bar two days ago—with a good deal of help,

besides, from some merciful alcohol—

I had half an hour that was utterly erotic.

And it seems to me you understood,

and you stayed somewhat longer purposely.

It was rather necessary, that. Because

for all the imagination, for all that liquor’s a magician,

I needed to see your lips as well,

needed to have your body close to me.

I wanted to have a house in the country

with a very large garden—not so much

for the flowers, the trees, and the greenery

(certainly there will be that, too; it’s so lovely)

but for me to have animals. Ah to have animals!

Seven cats at least—two completely black,

and, for contrast, two as white as snow.

A parrot, quite substantial, so I can listen to him

saying things with emphasis and conviction.

As for dogs, I do believe that three will be enough.

I should like two horses, too (ponies are nice).

And absolutely three or four of those remarkable,

those genial animals, donkeys,

to sit around lazily, to rejoice in their well-being.

Lovely was my afternoon, extremely

lovely. The oar grazes, very lightly,

the Alexandrian sea, sweetly calm; caresses it.

We need a respite like this: our toils oppress us.

Let’s look at things innocently, serenely, every now and then.

But evening’s fallen, regrettably. Look, I drank up all the wine,

not a single drop remains inside my flask.

It’s time we returned to other things, alas!

A celebrated house (the famed Sosibius and his nice

spouse; let’s put it that way) invites us to a feast.

We must go back again to all our dirty tricks—

and once more enter the dreary fray of politics.

I know them, yes, those new poems of his.

All Beirut is passionate about them.

I’ll take a careful look at them another day.

Today I cannot, since I’m rather upset.

Certainly he’s better versed in Greek than Libanius.

But even better than Meleager? I don’t believe so.

Ah, Mebes, so what of Libanius! and so what of books!

and all such trivialities! … … Mebes, yesterday I was—

quite by chance it happened—at the foot of Simeon’s pillar.

I slipped in among the Christians

who were praying silently and worshipping,

and kneeling down; but since I’m not a Christian

I didn’t have their serenity of mind—

and I was trembling all over, and suffering;

and I was horrified, upset, deeply distressed.

Ah, don’t smile; thirty-five years, just think—

winter, summer, night and day, thirty-five

years he’s been living atop a pillar, martyring himself.

Before we were born—I’m twenty-nine years old,

and you, I daresay, are younger than I—

before we were born, imagine it,

Simeon went up onto the pillar

and ever since he’s stayed there before his God.

Today I have no head for work.—

Except for this, Mebes: better if you say

that, whatever the other sophists say,

I myself acknowledge Lamo

as first among the poets of Syria.

He said that he’d hit a wall, or that he’d fallen.

But probably there was another reason

for the wounded, bandaged shoulder.

With a rather forceful motion,

so he could take down from a shelf some

photographs that he wanted to see close up,

the bandage came undone and a little blood flowed.

I bound the shoulder up again, and over the binding

I lingered somewhat; for he wasn’t in pain,

and I liked looking at the blood. Matter

of my love, is what that blood was.

When he left I found, in front of the chair,

a bloodied scrap of cloth, part of the bandage,

a scrap that looked like it should go straight into the trash;

and which I took upon my lips,

and which I kept for a long while—

the blood of love upon my lips.

Coins with Indian inscriptions.

Those of the most powerful monarchs,

of Evoukratindaza, of Strataga,

of Menandraza, of Heramaïaza.

That’s how the scholarly book conveys to us

the Indian writing on one side of the coins.

But the book shows us the other side as well,

that is, moreover, the right side,

with the figure of the king. And how quickly he stops there,

how a Hellene is moved as he reads the Greek,

Hermaeus, Eucratides, Strato, Menander.

These days I’ve been reading popular songs,

about the struggles of the klephts and about their wars,

congenial matters: all our own, and Greek.

I’ve also been reading the laments over the fall of the City

“They took the City, took her; took Salonica.”

And the Voice, while the two of them were chanting,

“On the left the king, on the right the patriarch,”

was heard and said that they must henceforth cease,

“Cease ye priests with your books and close the gospels”

they took the City, took her; took Salonica.

But the song that touched me far more than the others

was the one of Trebizond, with its unusual language

and the suffering of those Greeks so far away

who maybe always believed that we’d still be saved.

But woe, the fateful bird “from t’ City is y-commen”

with “a paper all a-writ upon its wing

nor did it settle in the vineyard nor in the little garden

but went and settled on the cypress’s root.”

The prelates were unable (or unwilling) to read it;

“See, Johnny, O, the widow’s son” takes the paper himself,

and he reads it and laments.

“Now he reads now weeps now beats upon his breast.

Alack for us, O woe for us, Romany is taken.”

I had in mind to place it on a wall of my room.

But the dampness of the drawer damaged it.

I won’t put this photograph in a frame.

I ought to have looked after it more carefully.

Those lips, that face—

ah if only for a day, only for an

hour their past would return.

I won’t put this photograph in a frame.

I’ll endure looking at it, damaged as it is.

Besides, even if it weren’t damaged,

it would be annoying to be on guard lest some

word, some tone of voice betrayed—

if they ever questioned me about it.

Do not speak of guilt, do not speak of responsibility. When the Regiment of Pleasure passes by, with music and flags; when the senses quiver and tremble, whoever stands apart is foolish and impertinent: whoever does not rush to join the good crusade, to the conquest of pleasures and of passions.

All the laws of morals—as ill-considered as they are ill-constructed—are naught and cannot stand fast even for a moment, when the Regiment of Pleasure passes by accompanied by music and by flags.

Do not let a single shadowy virtue stop you. Do not believe that a single commitment binds you. Your duty is to give in, give in always to your longings, which are the most perfect creations of perfect gods. Your duty is to fall in, a faithful soldier, with simplicity of heart, when the Regiment of Pleasure passes by accompanied by music and by flags.

Do not shut yourself inside your house and deceive yourself with theories of justice, with the superstitions about reward held by ill-made societies. Do not say, My toil is worth so much, and so much I’m due to enjoy. Since life is an inheritance and you had nothing to do to earn it, so an inheritance, too, must Pleasure necessarily be. Do not shut yourself inside your house; but keep the window open, completely open, so that you might hear the first sounds of the passing of the soldiers, when there arrives the Regiment of Pleasure accompanied by music and by flags.

Do not be deceived by the blasphemers who tell you that
this service is risky and toilsome. Service to Pleasure is a constant joy. It exhausts you, but it exhausts you with heavenly intoxications. And when at last you fall down in the street, even then your fate is to be envied. When your funeral procession passes by, the Shapes that your longings fashioned will cast tulips and white roses on your coffin, and onto their shoulders the youthful Gods of Olympus will lift you, and they will entomb you in the Cemetery of the Ideal where the mausoleums of poetry gleam white.