Complete Poems (31 page)

It must have been the spirits that I drank last night,

it must have been that I was drowsing, I’d been tired all day long.

The black wooden column vanished before me,

with the ancient head; and the dining-room door,

and the armchair, the red one; and the little settee.

In their place came a street in Marseille.

And freed now, unabashed, my soul

appeared there once again and moved about,

with the form of a sensitive, pleasure-bent youth—

the dissolute youth: that too must be said.

It must have been the spirits that I drank last night,

it must have been that I was drowsing, I’d been tired all day long.

My soul found some ease; the poor thing, it’s

always constrained by the weight of the years.

My soul found some ease and appeared to me

in a pleasant little street in Marseille,

with the form of the happy, dissolute youth

who never felt ashamed, not he, certainly.

Because he is of a great Italian house,

because he is, also, twenty years of age,

and because this is what they do in the great Greek world,

he came to Smyrna to learn rhetoric,

and to perfect his knowledge of their tongue.

And today he’s listening, without

paying any attention at all, to the renowned sophist

who’s speaking on Athens; who gesticulates,

and gets carried away, and tells the tale

of Miltiades, and the glorious battle of Marathon.

He’s thinking about the drinking party he’ll attend tonight;

and his imagination reveals to him a delicate face,

cherished lips that he’s impatient to kiss …

He’s thinking about how well he’s doing here.

But his money’s running out. And in a few months

he’ll be going back to Rome. And he remembers

how many debts he’s got there. And that the ordeal

of dodging payments will start all over again,

of finding means to live in a suitable style

(he is of a great Italian house).

Old man Fulvius’s will—

ah, if only he could see it. If only he knew

how much he’ll be getting from that old bugger

(two years, maybe three; he can’t last longer!).

Will he leave him half, or a third? It’s true

that he’s already paid his debts twice before.

The sophist, very deeply moved,

practically in tears, is talking about Cynegirus.

The people of Syria put up with him:

as long as someone stronger doesn’t come along.

And what “Syria”? It barely comes to half;

what with the little kingdoms, with John Hyrcanus,

with the cities that are declaring their independence.

It seems the realm once began, the historians say,

at the Aegean and went right up to India.

From the Aegean right up to India! Patience.

Let’s have a look at those puppets,

the animals he’s brought us.

Intoxicating night, in the dark, on the jetty.

And afterward in the little room of the tawdry

hotel—where we gave ourselves completely to our unwholesome passion; hour

after hour, again and again to “our own” love—

until the new day glistened on the windowpanes.

The shape of the night this evening resembles—

has revived in me—a night from a distant past.

Without any moon, extremely dark

(an advantage). Night of our encounter

on the jetty; at a great

distance from the cafés and the bars.

Inside a boat upon the enormous Nile,

with two faithful monks for his companions,

Athanasius, exiled and harassed

—virtuous, pious, upholding the true faith—

was praying. His enemies were persecuting him

and there was little hope that he’d be saved.

The wind was hard against them;

and their sorry little boat was having trouble making headway.

When he had finished his prayer,

he turned his mournful countenance

toward his companions—and was at a loss

when he saw the curious smiles on their faces.

While he was at his prayers the monks

had become aware of what was happening

in Mesopotamia; the monks

understood that in that very moment

Julian, that piece of filth, had breathed his last.

They entered the exquisite temple of Athena:

the Christian bishop Pegasius

the Christian princeling Julian.

They looked with longing and affection at the statues—

still, they spoke to one another haltingly,

with innuendos, with double-meaning words,

with phrases full of cautiousness,

since neither could be certain of the other

and they were constantly afraid they’d be exposed,

the false Christian bishop Pegasius

the false Christian princeling Julian.

Naked, both of them, as they emerged from the sea at the Samian

shore; from the pleasure of the swim

(a blazing summer’s day).

They were slow getting dressed, they were sorry to cover

the beauty of their sculpted nudity

which harmonized so well with the comeliness of their faces.

Ah the ancient Greeks were men of taste,

to represent the loveliness of youth

absolutely nude.

He wasn’t completely wrong, poor old Gemistus

(let Lord Andronicus and the patriarch suspect him if they like),

in wanting us, telling us to become pagan once again.

My faith, the holy one, is always firmly pious—

but you can see what Gemistus was saying, to a point.

On young people at that time the teaching of

Georgius Gemistus had great influence,

who was most wise and exceedingly eloquent;

and an advocate of Hellenic education.

One night when the beautiful light of the moon

poured into my room … imagination, taking

something from life: some very scanty thing—

a distant scene, a distant pleasure—

brought a vision all its own of flesh,

a vision all its own to a sensual bed …

The poet gave a reading of his poem

which was concerned with the feelings that the campaign

of Agesilaus would likely have provoked in Greece.

Quite obese and sluggish, Ptolemy

the Potbelly—drowsy, too, from overeating—

made an observation: “Learned poet,

these lines of yours are rather overdone.

And the statements about the Greeks precarious, historically speaking.”

“Glorious Ptolemy, those are merely trifles.”

“Trifles, how? You state explicitly

‘The lofty pride of the Greeks … the unadulterated

patriotism was awakened.… The unchecked rush

to heroism was plain to see among the Greeks.’
 ”

“Glorious Ptolemy, these Greeks,

they are the Greeks of Art, conventional;

bound to feel the way that I do.”

Ptolemy was scandalized and opined,

“The Alexandrians are utterly superficial.”

Then the poet: “Glorious Ptolemy,

you are the First among the Alexandrians.”

“Up to a point,” Ptolemy replied, “up to a point.

By birth I’m absolutely undiluted Macedonian.—

Ah, the great Macedonian race, learned poet,

full of derring-do and full of wisdom!”

And heavy as a stone, because he was so fat,

and drowsy from all his overeating

that most undiluted Macedonian

was barely able to keep his eyes open.

Potbelly’s scions. Chickpea, shamefully

expelled from Alexandria, goes to Cyprus. And

Interloper, coming straight from Cyprus,

seizes Alexandria. All of this arranged

by that witch, Scarlet.— The Alexandrians,

who love to chaff, bestowed on them the right

names, without a doubt. More suitable for them are

“Interloper” and “Potbelly” and “Chickpea” and “Scarlet”

than
Ptolemy,
than
Cleopatra.

Frequently Justinian’s gaze

caused terror and revulsion among his servants.

They suspected something that they dared not say:

when by chance one night they were able to confirm

that he was indeed a demon out of Hell:

he came out of his chamber quite late, and went about

headless in the great halls of the palace.

When the frenzied soldiers slaughtered

Constantine’s relations, after he had died,

and finally the dreadful violence

endangered even the little child—six years old—

of the Caesar Julius Constantius,

the Christian priests, compassionate,

found him, and brought him to asylum

in the church. There they rescued him: Julian at the age of six.

Still it’s absolutely essential for us to say that

this information comes from a Christian source.

But it’s not at all unlikely that it’s true.

Historically speaking, there’s nothing that seems

incredible: the priests of Christ

rescuing an innocent Christian child.

If it’s true—could this be what the very philosophical

Emperor was also referring to when he said

“let there be no memory of that darkness”?

Looking at the photograph of a chum of his,

at his beautiful youthful face

(lost forever more;—the photograph

was dated ’Ninety-two),

the sadness of what passes came upon him.

But he draws comfort from the fact that at least

he hadn’t let—they hadn’t let any foolish shame

get in the way of their love, or make it ugly.

To the “degenerates,” “obscene” of the imbeciles

their sensual sensibility paid no heed.

How beautifully the Calendar of Saints expresses it:

“Whilst the king spake” with the Saints

“and the Bishops withal and many other nobles,

the Saints did drowse awhile”

and surrendered their souls unto God.

The Seven Holy Children of Ephesus who

escaped into a cave to hide themselves

from the persecutions of the Pagans, and there fell asleep;

and on the morrow woke. Morrow it was for them.

But in the meantime two centuries had passed.

One of them woke on the morrow,

Iamblichus, and he went to buy bread,

and saw before him another Ephesus,

all sanctified with churches, and with crosses.

And the Seven Holy Children rejoiced,

and the Christians honored them and did them reverence;

and from Constantinople came the king,

Theodosius, the son of Arcadius,

and he too reverenced them, as was fitting, that most pious man.

The Seven Holy Children were rejoicing

in this beautiful world, this Christian one,

one sanctified with churches, and with crosses.

But lo, all this was so very different

and they had so much to learn and to say,

(and so powerful a joy can be exhausting, too)

that the Seven Holy Children soon were tired,

coming as they did from another world, from almost two centuries ago,

and in the middle of the conversation they grew drowsy—

and thereupon they closed their saintly eyes.

Domitian had become extremely savage,

the provinces were suffering dreadfully because of him.

In Ephesus, as elsewhere, despair was great.

When suddenly, one day as Apollonius was speaking

among the groves of the promenades; of a sudden he appeared

to be distracted, to be giving his talk

mechanically. At which point he stopped his talk

and cried out, “
strike the tyrant,
” in the midst

of his many rather nonplussed listeners.

In that very moment his soul had seen

Stephanus, in Rome, using his sword to strike

Domitian, who tried to defend himself with a golden goblet

and, finally, the crowds

of praetorians entering, and straightaway

murdering the vile (practically unconscious) king.

The insolent, the ungrateful John,

who owed the fact that he was Patriarch

to the kindness that was shown to him

by Lord John Cantacuzenus

(the worthy man whom our race then possessed,

wise, forbearing, patriotic, brave, adroit),

was trying, perhaps, to be clever, unconscionable

patriarch, when he said he would take care

that the injustice done long ago to John Lascaris

would never be repeated (not realizing,

foolish man, what a tremendous insult

his words were to the rule of the Paleologues).

Of course he knew, deplorable man, that from

the honorable, the faithful, the unselfish

Lord John Cantacuzenus,

Lord Andronicus’s boy was in no danger whatsoever.

He knew it, deplorable, disgraceful man, but sought

in every way to pander to the mob.