Complete Poems (32 page)

When, at Epiphany, they prepared to do the same things once again

that they’d already done at Christmastide,

when they brought their rabble out once more,

planning yet again to use the child

to stir the people up (O alas

for John, the heir to good Lord Andronicus,

who should have been in the care of her and her son),

when, at Epiphany, they planned to do the same things once again:

again the vulgar insults of the mob

and the vile innuendoes about her;

she couldn’t stand the agony a second time

and in the shabby chamber where she was imprisoned

the Lady Cantacuzene gave up the ghost.

I’ve drawn the end of Lady Cantacuzene, who died so pitifully,

from the History of Nicephorus Gregoras.

In the historical work of the emperor

John Cantacuzenus it’s treated rather

differently; but not at all less sorrowfully.

Stranger, by the Ganges here I lie, a man

who lived a life of lamentation, toil, and pain;

a Samian, I ended in this thrice-barbaric land.

This grave close by the riverbank contains

many woes. Undiluted lust for gold

drove me into this accursed trade.

Shipwrecked on the Indian coast, I was sold

as a slave. Well into old age

I wore myself out, worked until I breathed no more—

deprived of Greek voices, and far from the shore

of Samos. What I suffer now is not, therefore,

fearful; and I voyage down to Hades without grief.

There among compatriots shall I be.

And forever after I shall speak in Greek.

The lines above are taken from the poems,

referring to a time before the Persian Wars,

that Cleonymus the son of Timandrus wrote

in Seleucia, a poet who was patronized

by King Antiochus Epiphanes.

He took a clever pleasure in the jarring phrase:

“Without ever hearing or speaking Greek.”

Talk about it, this remorse, to make it easier—

it’s genuine to be sure, but dangerously one-sided.

Don’t cling to the past and torment yourself so much.

Don’t give so much importance to yourself.

The wrong you did was smaller than you

imagine; much smaller.

The goodness that has brought you this remorse now

was secreted inside you even then.

Look how some circumstance that suddenly

comes back to your memory explains

the reason for an action that had hardly seemed

commendable to you, but now can be excused.

Don’t count too absolutely on your memory;

you’ve forgotten much—different odds and ends—

that would have been excuse enough.

And don’t presume you knew the man you wronged

so very well. He surely had joys you didn’t know of;

perhaps those aren’t even scratches—what you

imagine (out of ignorance of his life)

are the dreadful wounds that you had given him.

Don’t count on your feeble memory.

Temper your remorse, which is always

so one-sidedly against you, it’s casuistry.

Ah goodly patriarch, ah patriarch most righteous,

don’t gull yourself with hopes that it can’t happen—

the demolition of the holy icons—

because there’s been no sign yet of the emperor Conon.

Ah ill-fated patriarch, don’t gull yourself with hopes:

that damnable Leo, look, has come into your chamber

and now he’s going to tell you what his name is.

Blind old woman, were you a secret pagan?

or were you Christian? The words you spoke,

which turned out to be true—that when he made his entrance

into Vienne with all those acclamations, the glorious

Caesar, Julian, was already determined

to serve the sanctuaries of the (false) gods—

the words you spoke, which turned out to be true,

blind old woman: did you speak them in sorrow

as I want to presume or was it, wretched woman, in joy?

The money was divvied up for us by Stavros.

The best lad in our group,

clever, strong, and beautiful beyond imagining.

The ablest; even though, apart from me

(I was twenty years old), he was the youngest.

I daresay he wasn’t quite twenty-three.

Three hundred pounds was the amount that we stole.

He kept, as his fair share, half of it.

But now, at eleven at night, we were planning

how to help him get away tomorrow morning,

before the police found out about the crime.

It wasn’t minor: aggravated burglary.

We were inside a cellar.

A basement that was very safe.

Once a plan for his escape had been arranged,

the other three left us, me and Stavros,

with the understanding that they’d come back at five.

There was a tattered mattress on the ground.

Worn out we both collapsed. And what with the emotional

upset, and the weariness,

and the anxiety about his running away

the next day—I barely realized, didn’t fully realize

that it was, perhaps, the last time I’d lie near him.

In the papers of a poet this was found.

It does have a date, but it’s difficult to read.

The
one
is barely visible; then
nine,
then

one;
the fourth number looks like
nine.

It’s very interesting and moving,

the Alexandria of the sixth century, or early in the seventh

before the coming of the mighty Arab nation.

She still speaks Greek, officially;

perhaps without much verve, yet, as is only fitting,

she speaks our language still.

Throughout the Greek world it’s destined to fade away;

but here it’s still holding up as best it can.

It’s not unnatural if we have looked upon

this particular era so feelingly,

we who now have once more borne

the sound of Greek speech back to her soil.

I owe a debt of thanks, I agree,

to my compatriot, one of the family

(my alleged father’s sister: says she)—

that old bawd Kerkó, for telling me

to come here to the brand-new city of Tigranocerta,

so wealthy, blessed in so many ways.

The theater’s a way to make my reputation;

I’m well thought of as an actor. It isn’t

exactly Alexandria here, it isn’t Athens.

I was so-so as the Haemon of Sophocles

and so-so as Euripides’ Hippolytus.

The spectators said their city had never seen

a more appealing actor—or young man.

A wealthy citizen, fabulously lavish,

took particular note of me.

Kerkó, an old hand, will see to all of that

(taking half for her brokering, the bitch).

Ah, a very special place, Tigranocerta!—

so long as it lasts, that is; since naturally

the Romans will destroy it in the end.

King Tigranes is living in a dream.

But what’s that to me? At the very most

I’ll stay a month or two—then off I go.

At that point I don’t give a fig if the Romans destroy

Tigranocerta and Kerkó.

He was far too tasteful and far too clever,

a young man of very good society, too,

to play the fool, to act as if he thought

that his abandonment was some great tragedy.

After all when his friend had said to him, “We two

will have love forever”—both the one who said it,

and the one who heard it, knew it for a cliché.

One night after the picture-show, and the ten

minutes they stayed at the bar, a longing

kindled in their eyes and in their blood

and they went off together, and someone said “forever.”

Anyway, their “forever” lasted three years.

Far too often it lasts for less.

He was far too elegant, and far too clever,

to take the matter tragically;

and far too beautiful—both face and body—

for his carnal vanity to be touched at all.

Certainly you ought to love sincerity

and serve it.

Still, don’t overdo it, knowing how you’ll very likely

reach a point where sincerity won’t do.

It’s nice; and my, what a splendid feeling.

You’ll express yourself honorably and sincerely

on many matters, and you’ll be of help.

Rightly they will praise you: what a sincere fellow!

But put some water in your wine: don’t presume

since (as you know) “Nothing about the Lacedaemonians.”

Now that Zenobia is queen of many great lands,

now that all of Anatolia marvels at her,

and even the Romans fear her by now,

why shouldn’t her grandeur be complete?

Why should she be reckoned an Asiatic woman?

They’ll create her genealogy straightaway.

How obviously she’s descended from the Lagids.

How obviously from Macedonia + +.

The money that they make      certainly isn’t honest.

But they’re clever lads,      these four, and they have found

a way to make it work      and stay clear of the police.

Apart from being cunning,      they are extremely strong.

Because one pair is joined      by the bond of pleasure.

The other two are joined      by the bond of pleasure.

Dressed extremely well      as is fitting for

such good-looking lads;      the theaters and the bars,

and their automobile,      sometimes a little trip—

there’s nothing that they lack.

The money that they make      certainly isn’t honest:

now and then they fear      that someone will get hurt,

that they might go to jail.      But look, you see how Love

has a power that      can take their filthy money

and make it into something      gleaming, innocent.

Money—none of them      wants it for himself,

wants it selfishly.      None of them counts it out

greedily, boorishly;      they never even notice

if this one’s carrying less,      or that one’s got a lot.

They share their money out      so that they can be

elegantly dressed,      and spend it lavishly,

so they can make their life      tasteful, as is fitting

for such good-looking lads      so they can help their friends

and then—this is their system—      forget just what they gave.

At the conference of Naupactus Agelaus

said what was only right. Fight no more wars

Greek against Greek. The looming struggle

is drawing nearer to us. Either Carthage

or Rome will be the victor, and afterward

will turn in our direction. O King

Philip, pray consider all the Greeks your own.

If you yearn for wars, prepare yourself

to face whoever’s victor over Italy.

It’s no longer the time for us to fight each other.

O King Philip, be the savior of Greece.

Words of wisdom. But they weren’t heeded.

In the terrible, accursed days

of Cynoscephalae, of Magnesia, of Pydna,

many among the Greeks would recollect

those words of wisdom, which they didn’t heed.

A bondsman and a slave, a stranger to pleasure,

bent at the same task for forty years

over his bench, he lines up the new

coins that the people of Nicaea issue.

He’ll hold up one, another he’ll measure;

and attentively, his eyes fogged by old age,

he examines them to make sure the inscription is true.

If he makes another mistake, they said, he’ll be tortured,

and his hands are trembling.

“With Severus as king the world enjoys good fortune.”

The scarlets, the yellows, and the blues

of flowers are beautiful, I’ll admit.

But whenever I imagine what color is,

color that is fixed and unpolluted,

it’s not to flowers that my mind turns, but

to the scarlet of rubies and of coral,

to the yellow of topaz and of gold,

and of sapphires and turquoise the blue.

There was absolutely nothing romantic

in the way he said “Perhaps I’ll die.”

He said it as a joke. Just the way a boy

of three and twenty years will say such things.

And I—at twenty-five—I took it casually.

Nothing (luckily) of the mock-sentimental poetry

that moves the fashionable ladies (laughable)

who sigh and moan over nothing.

And nevertheless when I found myself outside the

doorway of the house

I had the notion that it wasn’t a joke.

He could indeed be dying. And with that fear in mind

I climbed the steps at a run; it was the third floor.

And without our exchanging a single word,

I kissed his forehead, his eyes, his mouth,

his chest, his hands, and every single limb;

so that I imagined—as Plato’s heavenly lines

have it—that my soul came to my lips.