From the Iphigeneia in Aulis of Euripides (by H.D.)

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From the Iphigeneia in Aulis of Euripides
by Hilda Doolittle
[from The Poets' Translation Series, No. 3 (issued by The Egoist, London, 1916)]

I


Chorus of the Women of Chalkis

1



I crossed sand-hills.

I stand among the sea-drift before Aulis.

I crossed Euripos' strait—

Foam hissed after my boat.


I left Chalkis,

My city and the rock-ledges.

Arethusa twists among the boulders,

Increases—cuts into the surf.


I come to see the battle-line

And the ships rowed here

By these spirits—

The Greeks are but half-man.


Golden Menelaus

And Agamemnon of proud birth

Direct the thousand ships.

They have cut pine-trees

For their oars.

They have gathered the ships for one purpose:

Helen shall return.


There are clumps of marsh-reed

And spear-grass about the strait.

Paris the herdsman passsed through them

When he took Helen—Aphrodite's gift.


For he had judged the goddess

More beautiful than Hera.

Pallas was no longer radiant

As the three stood

Among the fresh-shallows of the strait.

2



I crept through the woods

Between the altars:

Artemis haunts the place.

Shame, scarlet, fresh-opened—a flower,

Strikes across my face.

And sudden—light upon shields,

Low huts—the armed Greeks,

Circles of horses.


I have longed for this.

I have seen Ajax.

I have known Protesilaos

And that other Ajax—Salamis' light

They counted ivory-discs.

They moved them—they laughed.

They were seated together

On the sand-ridges.


I have seen Palamed,

Child of Poseidon's child:

Diomed, radiant discobolus:

Divine Merion, a war-god,

Startling to men:

Island Odysseus from the sea-rocks:


And Nireos, most beautiful

Of beautiful Greeks.

3



A flash—

Achilles passed across the beach.

(He is the sea-woman's child

Chiron instructed.)


Achilles had strapped the wind

About his ankles,

He brushed rocks

The waves had flung.

He ran in armour.

He led the four-yoked chariot

He had challenged to the foot-race.

Emelos steered

And touched each horse with pointed goad.


I saw the horses:

Each beautiful head was clamped with gold.


Silver streaked the centre horses.

They were fastened to the pole.

The outriders swayed to the road-stead.

Colour spread up from ankle and steel-hoof.

Bronze flashed.


And Achilles, set with brass,

Bent forward,

Level with the chariot-rail.

4



If a god should stand here

He could not speak

At the sight of ships

Circled with ships.


This beauty is too much

For any woman.

It is burnt across my eyes.

The line is an ivory-horn.

The Myrmidons in fifty quivering ships

Are stationed on the right.


These are Achilles' ships.

On the prow of each

A goddess sheds gold:

Sea-spirits are cut in tiers of gold.

5



Next, equal-oared ships

Were steered from the port of Argos

By one of the Mekistians.

Sthenelos was with him.


Then the son of Theseus

Led out sixty ships,

Prow to prow from Attica.

A great spirit keeps them—

Pallas, graved above each ship.

6



Wings bear her

And horses, iron of hoof:

The phantom and chariot

Appear to men slashed with waves.


Fifty Bœotian ships,

Heavy with bright arms,

Floated next:

The earth-god stood at the prow

With golden-headed serpent.


Leitos, born of earth,

Guided this group of ships.


Ships had gathered

From ports of Phokis:

The Lokrians sent as many.

Ajax left beautiful Thronion

To lead both fleets.

7



From Mykenae's unhewn rock,

Men, led out by Agamemnon,

Served beyond the breakwater

In one hundred ships.

His brother went with him—

Lover to lover.


Insult was thrown upon both.

Helen, possessed,

Followed a stranger

From the Greek courtyard.

They would avenge this.


Nestor brought ships from Pylos.

They are stamped

With Alpheus' bull-hoof.

8



There were twelve Ænian sails:

Gouneos led the twelve ships.

He is the tribe-king.

Near him were Elis' petty-chiefs—

The common people call Epians—

And Eurytos, their great chief.


Meges brought white-wood oars

From island Taphos.

He left Echinades—

Sailors find no entrance

Across the narrow rocks.


Ajax of Salamis

Finished the great arc:

He joined both branches

To the far border

With twelve ships,

Strung of flexible planks.

9



I have heard all this.

I have looked too

Upon this people of ships.

You could never count the Greek sails

Nor the flat keels of the foreign boats.


I have heard—

I myself have seen the floating ships

And nothing will ever be the same—

The shouts,

The harrowing voices within the house.

I stand apart with an army:

My mind is graven with ships.

II



Paris came to Ida.

He grew to slim height

Among the silver-hoofed beasts.

Strange notes made his flute

A Phrygian pipe.

He caught all Olympus

In his bent reeds.

While his great beasts

Cropped the grass,

The goddesses held the contest

Which sent him among the Greeks.


He came before Helen's house.

He stood on the ivory steps.

He looked upon Helen and brought

Desire to the eyes

That looked back—

The Greeks have snatched up their spears.

They have pointed the helms of their ships

Toward the bulwarks of Troy.

III


1



The crowd of the Greek force

With stacked arms and with troop-ships

Will come to Simois—

The strait, furrowed deep with silver.


They will enter Troy.

The sun-god built the porticoes.

Kassandra shakes out her hair—

Its gold clasped

With half-opened laurel-shoots—

When the god strikes her

With his breath.


They will stand on Pergamos.

They will crowd about the walls.


They will lift their shields,

Riveted with brass,

As they enter Simois

In their painted ships.


Two brothers of Helen are spirits

And dwell apart in the air,

Yet the shieldsmen will take her,

And men, alert with spear-shaft,

Will carry her to the Greek coast.

2



And Pergamos,

City of the Phrygians,

Ancient Troy

Will be given up to its fate.

They will mark the stone-battlements

And the circle of them

With a bright stain.

They will cast out the dead—

A sight for Priam's queen to lament

And her frightened daughters.


And Helen, child of Zeus,

Will cry aloud for the mate

She has left in that Phrygian town.


May no child of mine,

Nor any child of my child

Ever fashion such a tale

As the Phrygians shall murmur,

As they stoop at their distaffs,

Whispering with Lydians,

Splendid with weight of gold—


"Helen has brought this.

They will tarnish our bright hair.

They will take us as captives

For Helen—born of Zeus

When he sought Leda with bird-wing

And touched her with bird-throat—

If men speak truth.


"But still we lament our state,

The desert of our wide courts,

Even if there is no truth

In the legends cut on ivory

Nor in the poets

Nor the songs."

IV


1



Burnished-head

By burnished-head,

Pierides sought the bride:

They touched the flute-stops

And the lyre-strings for the dance,


They made the syrinx-notes

Shrill through the reed-stalk.

They cut gold sandal-prints

Across Pelion

Toward the gods' feast.


They called Pelios

From steep centaur-paths,

And Thetis

Among forest trees:

They chanted at the feast

Where Phrygian Ganymede,

Loved of Zeus,

Caught the measure of wine

In the circle of the golden cups.


While fifty sea-spirits

Moved and paused

To mark the beat

Of chanted words

Where light flashed

Below them on the sand.

2



A centaur-herd,

Wild-horses, crowned with grass,

Swept among the feasting gods

With fir-shoots

Toward the wine-jars.


And Chiron,

Inspired by the rites of song,

Cried with a loud voice:


"From Thessaly,

The great light

Whom Thetis will beget,"

(He spoke his name)

"Will come with the Myrmidons

Spearsmen and hosts with shields,

Golden and metal-wrought,

To scatter fire

Over Priam's beautiful land."


Therefore the spirits blessed

The fair-fathered,

The Nereid,

And chanted at Pelios' feast.

3



(To Iphigeneia.)

Your hair is scattered light:

The Greeks will bind it with petals.


And like a little beast,

Dappled and without horns,

That scampered on the hill-rocks,

They will leave you

With stained throat—

Though you never cropped hill-grass

To the reed-cry

And the shepherd's note.


Some Greek hero is cheated

And your mother's court

Of its bride.


And we ask this—where truth is,

Of what use is valour and is worth?

For evil has conquered the race,

There is no power but in base men,

Nor any man whom the gods do not hate.

V



IPH.


It is not for me, the day,

Nor this light of sun.

Ah, mother, mother,

The same terror is cast on us both.


Alas for that Phrygian cleft,

Beaten by snow,

The mountain-hill, Ida,

Where Priam left the young prince,

Brought far from his mother

To perish on the rocks:

Paris who is called

Idaeos, Idaeos

In the Phrygian court.


Would that he had never thrived,

Would that he had not kept the flocks

O that he had not dwelt

At that white place of the water-gods:

In meadows,

Thick with yellow flower-sprays

And flowers, tint of rose,

And the hyacinth we break for gods.


For Pallas came there,

And Kypris, crafty-heart,

And Hera and Hermes, legate of god

(Beautiful Kypris,

Pallas with spear-hilt,

Hera, queen, wed with Zeus.)

It was a hated judgment, O slender-girls.

The contest of beautiful-face by beautiful-face

Has brought this:

I am sent to death

To bring honour to the Greeks.


CH.

For Ilium, for Ilium

Artemis exacts sacrifice.


IPH.


O wretched, wretched,—

I know you, Helen, sharp to do hurt.

I am slaughtered for your deceit.


O I am miserable:

You cherished me, my mother,

But even you desert me.

I am sent to an empty place.


O that Aulis had not harboured

These beaked ships,

Nor sheltered their brazen prows

As they floated toward Troy:

O that Zeus had not turned them

Nor wafted their splendour

Through the straits:

For Zeus strikes different winds

To each ship,

So that some men laugh

With the light flap of the sails,

Some bend with anger

At their work:


Some haul up the sheets,

Some knot the great ropes,

Some dash through the spray

To quick death.


And each man is marked for toil,

Much labour is his fate,

Nor is there any new hurt

That may be added to the race.

VI



IPH.


Now sing, O slight girls,

Without change of note,

My death-paeon and Artemis' chant.


Stand silent, you Greeks.

The fire kindles.

They step to do sacrifice

With reed-basket of salt-cakes:

I come—I free Hellas.

My father, as priest awaits me

At the right altar-step.


Hail me now.

I destroy Phrygia and all Troy.

Clasp on the flower-circlet.

Wind it through the locks just caught with it.

Bear water in a deep bowl.

Stand around the temple-front

And the altar of heaped earth.

For I come to do sacrifice,

To break the might of the curse,

To honour the queen, if she permit,

The great one, with my death.


CH.

O, mother, high-born,

Of proud birth,

Will you not weep for us?

For we may not cry out

In the splendour of this holy place.


IPH.


Slight girls, stand forth,

Chant Artemis—Artemis:

She fronts the coast,

She stands opposite Chalkis—

For spears will clash in the contest

My fame has brought

In the shelter of these narrow straits.


Hail, land of my birth.

Hail Mykenae, where I once dwelt—


CH.

(She calls upon the city of Perseos,

Built of unchiselled rock.)


IPH.

—you brought me to the Greek light

And I will not hold you guilty

For my death.


CH.

Your name will never be forgotten,

Your honour will always last.


IPH.

Alas, day, you brought light,

You trailed splendour

You showed us god:

I salute you, most precious one,

But I go to a new place,

Another life.


CH.


Alas, she steps forward

To destroy Ilium and the Phrygians.

A wreath is about her head,

She takes water in a dish.


She comes to meet death,

To stain the altar of the goddess,

To hold her girl-throat

Toward the knife-thrust.


The land-springs await

And the sacred bowls,

And the Greek host, eager to depart.

But let us not forget

With our past happiness,

Artemis, daughter of god,

Queen among the great,

But cry out:

Artemis, rejoicer in blood-sacrifice,

Send the force of the Greeks

To Troy and the Phrygian court.


And grant that Agamemnon may clasp

Fame, never to be forgot

Upon his brow—encircled

By Greek spear-shafts,

May he gain honour for all the Greeks.



* * *

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Posted by Jesus Crisis at 1/9/2010 5:15 PM
Categories: 1900s, Euripides, Writing, Doolittle (Hilda), American
Tags: H.D. Hilda Doolittle Imagiste Imagist American Poetry American Literature
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