Part 2
we hurled our shafts of passion, noblest hate, and knew their cause was blest, and knew their gods were nobler, better taught in skill, subtler with wit of thought, yet had it been God’s will that _they_ not we should fall, we know those fields had bled with roses lesser red.
_Cassandra_
_O Hymen king._
Hymen, O Hymen king, what bitter thing is this? what shaft, tearing my heart? what scar, what light, what fire searing my eye-balls and my eyes with flame? nameless, O spoken name, king, lord, speak blameless Hymen.
Why do you blind my eyes? why do you dart and pulse till all the dark is home, then find my soul and ruthless draw it back? scaling the scaleless, opening the dark? speak, nameless, power and might; when will you leave me quite? when will you break my wings or leave them utterly free to scale heaven endlessly?
A bitter, broken thing, my heart, O Hymen lord, yet neither drought nor sword baffles men quite, why must they feign to fear my virgin glance? feigned utterly or real why do they shrink? my trance frightens them, breaks the dance, empties the market place; if I but pass they fall back, frantically; must always people mock? unless they shrink and reel as in the temple at your uttered will.
O Hymen king, lord, greatest, power, might, look for my face is dark, burnt with your light, your fire, O Hymen lord; is there none left can equal me in ecstasy, desire? is there none left can bear with me the kiss of your white fire? is there not one, Phrygian or frenzied Greek, poet, song-swept, or bard, one meet to take from me this bitter power of song, one fit to speak, Hymen, your praises, lord?
May I not wed as you have wed? may it not break, beauty, from out my hands, my head, my feet? may Love not lie beside me till his heat burn me to ash? may he not comfort me, then, spent of all that fire and heat, still, ashen-white and cool as the wet laurels, white, before your feet step on the mountain-slope, before your fiery hand lift up the mantle covering flower and land, as a man lifts, O Hymen, from his bride, (cowering with woman eyes,) the veil? O Hymen lord, be kind.
_Epigrams_
1
O ruthless, perilous, imperious hate, you can not thwart the promptings of my soul, you can not weaken nay nor dominate Love that is mateless, Love the rite, the whole measure of being: would you crush with bondage? nay, you would love me not were I your slave.
2
Torture me not with this or that or this, Love is my master, you his lesser self; while you are Love, I love you generously, be Eros, not a tyrannous, bitter mate: Love has no charm when Love is swept to earth: you’d make a lop-winged god, frozen and contrite, of god up-darting, winged for passionate flight.
_Fragment Forty_
_Love ... bitter-sweet._
SAPPHO
1
Keep love and he wings with his bow, up, mocking us, keep love and he taunts us and escapes.
Keep love and he sways apart in another world, outdistancing us.
Keep love and he mocks, ah, bitter and sweet, your sweetness is more cruel than your hurt.
Honey and salt, fire burst from the rocks to meet fire spilt from Hesperus.
Fire darted aloft and met fire: in that moment love entered us.
2
Could Eros be kept? he were prisoned long since and sick with imprisonment; could Eros be kept? others would have broken and crushed out his life.
Could Eros be kept? we too sinning, by Kypris, might have prisoned him outright.
Could Eros be kept? nay, thank him and the bright goddess that he left us.
3
Ah, love is bitter and sweet, but which is more sweet, the sweetness or the bitterness? none has spoken it.
Love is bitter, but can salt taint sea-flowers, grief, happiness?
Is it bitter to give back love to your lover if he crave it?
Is it bitter to give back love to your lover if he wish it for a new favourite? who can say, or is it sweet?
Is it sweet to possess utterly? or is it bitter, bitter as ash?
4
I had thought myself frail; a petal, with light equal on leaf and under-leaf.
I had thought myself frail; a lamp, shell, ivory or crust of pearl, about to fall shattered, with flame spent.
I cried: “I must perish, I am deserted, an outcast, desperate in this darkness,” (such fire rent me with Hesperus,) then the day broke.
5
What need of a lamp when day lightens us, what need to bind love when love stands with such radiant wings over us?
What need-- yet to sing love, love must first shatter us.
_Toward the Piræus_
_Slay with your eyes, Greek, men over the face of the earth, slay with your eyes, the host, puny, passionless, weak._
_Break as the ranks of steel broke when the Persian lost: craven, we hated them then: now we would count them Gods beside these, spawn of the earth._
_Grant us your mantle, Greek; grant us but one to fright (as your eyes) with a sword, men, craven and weak, grant us but one to strike one blow for you, passionate Greek._
1
You would have broken my wings, but the very fact that you knew I had wings, set some seal on my bitter heart, my heart broke and fluttered and sang.
You would have snared me, and scattered the strands of my nest; but the very fact that you saw, sheltered me, claimed me, set me apart from the rest
Of men--of _men_, made you a god, and me, claimed me, set me apart and the song in my breast, yours, yours forever-- if I escape your evil heart.
2
I loved you: men have writ and women have said they loved, but as the Pythoness stands by the altar, intense and may not move,
till the fumes pass over; and may not falter or break, till the priest has caught the words that mar or make a deme or a ravaged town; so I, though my knees tremble, my heart break, must note the rumbling, heed only the shuddering down in the fissure beneath the rock of the temple floor;
must wait and watch and may not turn nor move, nor break from my trance to speak so slight, so sweet, so simple a word as love.
3
What had you done had you been true, I can not think, I may not know.
What could we do were I not wise, what play invent, what joy devise?
What could we do if you were great?
(Yet were you lost, who were there then, to circumvent the tricks of men?)
What can we do, for curious lies have filled your heart, and in my eyes sorrow has writ that I am wise.
4
If I had been a boy, I would have worshipped your grace, I would have flung my worship before your feet, I would have followed apart, glad, rent with an ecstasy to watch you turn your great head, set on the throat, thick, dark with its sinews, burned and wrought like the olive stalk, and the noble chin and the throat.
I would have stood, and watched and watched and burned, and when in the night, from the many hosts, your slaves, and warriors and serving men you had turned to the purple couch and the flame of the woman, tall like the cypress tree that flames sudden and swift and free as with crackle of golden resin and cones and the locks flung free like the cypress limbs, bound, caught and shaken and loosed, bound, caught and riven and bound and loosened again, as in rain of a kingly storm or wind full from a desert plain.
So, when you had risen from all the lethargy of love and its heat, you would have summoned me, me alone, and found my hands, beyond all the hands in the world, cold, cold, cold, intolerably cold and sweet.
5
It was not chastity that made me cold nor fear, only I knew that you, like myself, were sick of the puny race that crawls and quibbles and lisps of love and love and lovers and love’s deceit.
It was not chastity that made me wild, but fear that my weapon, tempered in different heat, was over-matched by yours, and your hand skilled to yield death-blows, might break
With the slightest turn--no ill will meant-- my own lesser, yet still somewhat fine-wrought, fiery-tempered, delicate, over-passionate steel.
_Moonrise_
Will you glimmer on the sea? will you fling your spear-head on the shore? what note shall we pitch? we have a song, on the bank we share our arrows; the loosed string tells our note:
O flight, bring her swiftly to our song. she is great, we measure her by the pine trees.
_At Eleusis_
_What they did, they did for Dionysos, for ecstasy’s sake:_
now take the basket, think; think of the moment you count most foul in your life; conjure it, supplicate, pray to it; your face is bleak, you retract, you dare not remember it:
stop; it is too late. the next stands by the altar step, a child’s face yet not innocent, it will prove adequate, but you, I could have spelt your peril at the gate, yet for your mind’s sake, though you could not enter, wait.
_What they did, they did for Dionysos, for ecstasy’s sake:_
Now take the basket basket-- (ah face in a dream, did I not know your heart, I would falter, for each that fares onward is my child; ah can you wonder that my hands shake, that my knees tremble, I a mortal, set in the goddess’ place?)
_Fragment Forty-one_
_ ... thou flittest to Andromeda._
SAPPHO
1
Am I blind alas, am I blind? I too have followed her path. I too have bent at her feet. I too have wakened to pluck amaranth in the straight shaft, amaranth purple in the cup, scorched at the edge to white.
Am I blind? am I the less ready for her sacrifice? am I the less eager to give what she asks, she the shameless and radiant?
Am I quite lost, I towering above you and her glance, walking with swifter pace, with clearer sight, with intensity beside which you two are as spent ash?
Nay, I give back to the goddess the gift she tendered me in a moment of great bounty. I return it. I lay it again on the white slab of her house, the beauty she cast out one moment, careless.
Nor do I cry out: “why did I stoop? why did I turn aside one moment from the rocks marking the sea-path? Aphrodite, shameless and radiant, have pity, turn, answer us.”
Ah no--though I stumble toward her altar-step, though my flesh is scorched and rent, shattered, cut apart, slashed open; though my heels press my own wet life black, dark to purple, on the smooth, rose-streaked threshold of her pavement.
2
Am I blind alas, deaf too that my ears lost all this? nay, O my lover, shameless and still radiant, I tell you this:
I was not asleep, I did not lie asleep on those hot rocks while you waited. I was not unaware when I glanced out toward the sea watching the purple ships.
I was not blind when I turned. I was not indifferent when I strayed aside or loitered as we three went or seemed to turn a moment from the path for that same amaranth.
I was not dull and dead when I fell back on our couch at night. I was not indifferent when I turned and lay quiet. I was not dead in my sleep.
3
Lady of all beauty, I give you this: say I have offered small sacrifice, say I am unworthy your touch, but say not: “she turned to some cold, calm god, silent, pitiful, in preference.”
Lady of all beauty, I give you this: say not: “she deserted my altar-step, the fire on my white hearth was too great, she fell back at my first glance.”
Lady, radiant and shameless, I have brought small wreaths, (they were a child’s gift,) I have offered myrrh-leaf, crisp lentisk, I have laid rose-petal and white rock-rose from the beach.
But I give now a greater, I give life and spirit with this. I render a grace no one has dared to speak, lest men at your altar greet him as slave, callous to your art; I dare more than the singer offering her lute, the girl her stained veils, the woman her swathes of birth, or pencil and chalk, mirror and unguent box.
I offer more than the lad singing at your steps, praise of himself, his mirror his friend’s face, more than any girl, I offer you this: (grant only strength that I withdraw not my gift,) I give you my praise and this: the love of my lover for his mistress.
_Telesila_
_In Argos--that statue of her; at her feet the scroll of her love-poetry, in her hand a helmet._
War is a fevered god who takes alike maiden and king and clod, and yet another one, (ah withering peril!) deprives alike, with equal skill, alike indifferently, hoar spearsman of his shaft, wan maiden of her zone, even he, Love who is great War’s very over-lord.
War bent and kissed the forehead, yet Love swift, planted on chin and tenderest cyclamen lift of fragrant mouth, fevered and honeyed breath, breathing o’er and o’er those tendrils of her hair, soft kisses like bright flowers.
Love took and laid the sweet, (being extravagant,) on lip and chin and cheek, but ah he failed even he, before the luminous eyes that dart no suave appeal, alas, impelling me to brave incontinent, grave Pallas’ high command.
And yet the mouth! ah Love ingratiate, how was it you, so poignant, swift and sure, could not have taken all and left me free, free to desert the Argives, let them burn, free yet to turn and let the city fall: yea, let high War take all his vengeful way, for what am I? I cannot save nor stay the city’s fall.
War is a fevered god, (yet who has writ as she the power of Love?) War bent and kissed the forehead, that bright brow, ignored the chin and the sweet mouth, for that and the low laugh were his, Eros ingratiate, who sadly missed in all the kisses count, those eyebrows and swart eyes, O valiant one who bowed falsely and vilely trapped us, traitorous lord.
And yet, (remembrance mocks,) should I have bent the maiden to a kiss? Ares the lover or enchanting Love? but had I moved I feared for that astute regard; for that bright vision, how might I have erred? I might have marred and swept another not so sweet into my exile; I might have kept a look recalling many and many a woman’s look, not this alone, astute, imperious, proud.
And yet I turn and ask again, again, again, who march to death, what was it worth, reserve and pride and hurt? what is it worth to such as I who turn to meet the invincible Spartans’ massed and serried host? what had it cost, a kiss?
_Fragment Sixty-eight_
_ ... even in the house of Hades._
SAPPHO
1
I envy you your chance of death, how I envy you this. I am more covetous of him even than of your glance, I wish more from his presence though he torture me in a grasp, terrible, intense.
Though he clasp me in an embrace that is set against my will and rack me with his measure, effortless yet full of strength, and slay me in that most horrible contest, still, how I envy you your chance.
Though he pierce me--imperious-- iron--fever--dust-- though beauty is slain when I perish, I envy you death.
What is beauty to me? has she not slain me enough, have I not cried in agony of love, birth, hate, in pride crushed?
What is left after this? what can death loose in me after your embrace? your touch, your limbs are more terrible to do me hurt.
What can death mar in me that you have not?
2
What can death send me that you have not? you gathered violets, you spoke: “your hair is not less black, nor less fragrant, nor in your eyes is less light, your hair is not less sweet with purple in the lift of lock;” why were those slight words and the violets you gathered of such worth?
How I envy you death; what could death bring, more black, more set with sparks to slay, to affright, than the memory of those first violets, the chance lift of your voice, the chance blinding frenzy as you bent?
3
So the goddess has slain me for your chance smile and my scarf unfolding as you stooped to it; so she trapped me with the upward sweep of your arm as you lifted the veil, and the swift smile and selfless.
Could I have known? nay, spare pity, though I break, crushed under the goddess’ hate, though I fall beaten at last, so high have I thrust my glance up into her presence.
Do not pity me, spare that, but how I envy you your chance of death.
_Lethe_
Nor skin nor hide nor fleece Shall cover you, Nor curtain of crimson nor fine Shelter of cedar-wood be over you, Nor the fir-tree Nor the pine.
Nor sight of whin nor gorse Nor river-yew, Nor fragrance of flowering bush, Nor wailing of reed-bird to waken you, Nor of linnet, Nor of thrush.
Nor word nor touch nor sight Of lover, you Shall long through the night but for this: The roll of the full tide to cover you Without question, Without kiss.
_Sitalkas_
Thou art come at length more beautiful than any cool god in a chamber under Lycia’s far coast, than any high god who touches us not here in the seeded grass: aye, than Argestes scattering the broken leaves.
_Hermonax_
Gods of the sea; Ino, leaving warm meads for the green, grey-green fastnesses of the great deeps; and Palemon, bright seeker of sea-shaft, hear me.
Let all whom the sea loves, come to its altar front, and I who can offer no other sacrifice to thee bring this.
Broken by great waves, the wavelets flung it here, this sea-gliding creature, this strange creature like a weed, covered with salt foam, torn from the hillocks of rock.
I, Hermonax, caster of nets, risking chance, plying the sea craft, came on it.
Thus to sea god, gift of sea wrack; I, Hermonax, offer it to thee, Ino, and to Palemon.
_Orion Dead_
(Artemis speaks.)
The cornel-trees uplift from the furrows, the roots at their bases, strike lower through the barley-sprays.
So arise and face me. I am poisoned with the rage of song.
I once pierced the flesh of the wild deer, now I am afraid to touch the blue and the gold-veined hyacinths?
I will tear the full flowers and the little heads of the grape-hyacinths, I will strip the life from the bulb until the ivory layers lie like narcissus petals on the black earth.
Arise, lest I bend an ash-tree into a taut bow, and slay--and tear all the roots from the earth.
The cornel-wood blazes and strikes through the barley-sprays but I have lost heart for this.
I break a staff, I break the tough branch. I know no light in the woods. I have lost pace with the wind.
_Charioteer_
_In that manner_ (_archaic_) _he finished the statue of his brother. It stands mid-way in the hall of laurels ... between the Siphnians’ offering and the famous tripod of Naxos._
Only the priest of the inmost house has such height, only the faun in the glade such light, strong ankles, only the shade of the bay-tree such rare dark as the darkness caught under the fillet that covers your brow, only the blade of the ash-tree such length, such beauty as thou, O my brother; and only the gods have such love as I bring you; but now, taut with love, more than any bright lover, I vowed to the innermost god of the temple, this vow.
God of beauty, I cried, as the four stood alert, awaiting the shout at the goal to be off; god of beauty, I cried to that god, if he merit the laurel, I dedicate all of my soul to you; to you all my strength and my power; if he merit the bay, I will fashion a statue of him, of my brother, out of thought, and the strength of my wrist and the fire of my brain; I will strive night and day till I mould from the clay, till I strike from the bronze, till I conjure the rock, the chisle, the tool, to embody this image; an image to startle, to capture men’s hearts, to make all other bronze, all art to come after, a mock, all beauty to follow, a shell that is empty; I’ll stake all my soul on that beauty, till God shall awake again in men’s hearts, who have said he is dead, our King and our Lover.
Then the start, ah the sight, ah but dim, veiled with tears, (so Achilles must weep who finds his friend dead,) will he win? then the ring of the steel as two met at the goal, entangled and foul, misplaced at the start, who, who blunders? not you? what omens are set? alas, gods of the track, what ill wreaks its hate, speak it clear, let me know what evil, what fate? for the ring of sharp steel told two were in peril, two, two, one is you, already involved with the fears of defeat; two grazed; which must go?
As the wind, Althaia’s beauty came; as one after a cruel march, catches sight, toward the cold dusk, of the flower that’s her name-sake, strayed apart toward the road-dust, from the stream in the wood-depth, so I in that darkness, my mouth bitter with sheer loss, took courage, my heart spoke, remembering how she spoke: “I will seek hour by hour fresh cones, resin and pine-flowers, flower of pine, laurel flower; I will pray: ‘let him come back to us, to our home, with the trophy of zeal, with the love and the proof of the favour of god; let him merit the bay.’ (I expect it,) I myself on earth pray that our father may pray; his voice nearer the gods must carry beyond my mere mortal prayer: ‘O my father beyond, look down and be proud, ask this thing that we win, ask it straight of the gods.’”
Was he glad, did he know? for the strength of his prayer and her prayer met me now in one flame, all my head, all my brow was one flame, taut and beaten and faintly aglow, as the wine-cup encrusted and beaten and fine with the pattern of leaves, (so my brow,) yet metallic and cool, as the gold of the frigid metal that circles the heat of the wine.