this poem is dedicated
by Her gracious Permission
to the goddess of wisdom and of warfare:
PALLAS ATHENA
Geographies
It is night.
Lofted above the whalesmoke waves of Ocean,
A gull free-zoning rides the weather east
Above the clouds and cliffs which gate
The shores of a tideless sea.
Many horizons further,
The realms of warrior kings await:
Among them, Troy's dominions,
And Greece,
Land of uplofted cities and goatleg landscapes
Rimmed by a winedark sea.
Dominions
By darkened rivers, the dreaming cities sleep;
The sea husks inland.
Awake, a Cyclops shepherd counts the stars,
Conjuring their intelligence to constellations.
Many oceans.
On land far distant,
Warm shadows thatch a ruling house
Where free-speaking Penelope dreams away her rest.
Trancing on the midnight air, the moth is leisured,
Matching wings to the cadence of flames.
By hearthlight, a mouse dusts past a sleeping cat,
Whiskers past a sleeping king:
Odysseus, of Ithaca.
Elsewhere, Agamemnon,
King of Argos, master of Corinth,
Lord of Mikinai and the lands of Helice,
Troubles from sleep, and blinks.
Restless shadows stir from a honey-wax flame.
His face is heavy — the aftermath of wine —
But stirring now to worry,
Nagged by toothache.
Divorced from his concerns by a separate bed,
Coiffed in perfume, Clytaemnestra sleeps;
Gold burns unsleeping at her throat.
Elsewhere yet again,
In Sparta,
Veiled in dreams, young Helen sleeps,
Breasts uplifted by her breathing's ease.
While kingdoms dream to ream her,
She keeps her peace,
A silken girl adrift in a silken bed,
Trapped in the lockspace shadows of a granite palace,
Hilltop home of a warrior king.
That worthy sleeps beside her:
Cockshafting Menelaus
Who owns her thanks to Agamemnon's gold.
Nightly his bearded voice commands her
As he grips her, boards her, shafts her:
And now she sleeps, as always,
Her nipples dreaming of a gilded kiss,
Dead sperm between her thighs.
Night, then.
The world is at ease, with even the gods,
Drink-sodden,
Subdued by embalming clouds of ambrosial sleep.
Yet, while they sleep,
Bronze dreams of war,
Of suns as yet unkindled which will see
The swords of heroes glutted to the hilt:
Bronze blood-glazed, and blade
Sharpened against the living bone.
Soon the world will wake, and the sun will see
Love, lust and murder,
Armies mustered for invasion,
Kings matching strength,
Fire, slaughter, falling towers,
Gaunt ships marauding.
This is the song of those named,
And many not yet called:
Among them, Achilles,
Patroclus,
Hector.
Not least,
This is the story of Troy, of Ilion,
Priam's six-gated city,
East of Greece, across the Aegean Sea.
Many voices speak, energies shaping,
Gathering strength across three thousand years
To drive a single engine: this
War machine.
War lacks conceits: death no symbol: instead,
A truth rammed home at swordpoint.
For blood read blood,
And, for destruction, ruin.
The Adventurer
His shepherd days behind him, young Paris,
Now heir to the kingdom of Troy,
Decides to dare for the woman
The world's rumour holds to be most beautiful:
Helen.
He boasts to those who listen, and
(Thinking all ears open)
To those who don't:
"Menelaus won her with Mikinai's gold —
Even that from his own brother.
Now I by my own grace will claim her."
Yet, setting sail, he races no arrow:
Instead, his daysailing ship charms south,
Coasting by easy stages past Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Kos,
To Rhodes, and then beyond:
Cyprus, Lebanon and Egypt.
From there,
The weather of the world remaining fair,
He dares his sail from sight of land,
Venturing north across the fish-infested sea
To come to haven on the shores of Crete,
The sunline's seawashed mountain kingdom.
Idomeneus, the king who holds the island,
Accepts him as a guest,
Tells his story,
Then hears Paris tell one of his own.
Idomeneus Speaks
"It's Helen you thought to hear of. Yes?
You won't deny it, surely,
A strong young blood like you.
Her home, of course, was Athens.
You know it? No? Well then:
There's pleasure yet.
Athens, yes ...
Olive and citron ...
Athletes oiled and girls in garlands
Trancing their limbs in limber dance
Round sunlit temples skirling into sky ...
Ah, yes.
But I digress —
Perhaps because my memories of Helen
Are wound-bright still.
From Crete we came: myself and Lycomedes.
Both suitors, and soldiers,
Simples amidst the flattery and wit
Which dolled itself in silver,
And spoke in gold.
I was the oldest —
Too old, too poor —
And yet, I tried.
I tried, and failed.
Ah, Helen ...
Her beauty will survive earth's incognito,
For those who saw remember,
And will tell ...
What's that? Steal her?
Oh, when she was pledged, no doubt hot thoughts
Tempted the hottest loins.
But good sense prevailed,
And treatied us to honour
The choice her father made for her.
By an oath sworn on disjointed blood
We pledged ourselves
To join together in a single cause
To take up arms and wage to war
Should any man dare trespass on our peace.
It was Odysseus who matched us to that oath.
Odysseus? Oh, from Ithaca.
Where?
An island, north of us, and west.
Small. Rocky. Barren.
Or so they say —
Not that I've ever been there.
Now let me hold my silence, to quench
Both thirst and curiosity together."
The Doom of Treaty
"Myself," says Paris, "Now that's my favourite fancy,
I'll not deny it.
And yet, before I speak myself —
Pray, my lord,
Elucidate the logic of this treaty
Which fates the wise to war
Should any fool concede his will to lust.
It seems a desperate thing for ruling kings
To bind by the doom of solemn oaths
A world entire to automatic war:
And, thus binding all,
To put the death of nations beyond review.
Let's say. Let's say some man —
Let's say young Helen fled, eloping with a lover.
Surely it would be better to concede
Pride, possession and the higher joys of ego
Than to embroil the world in war."
An Old Campaigner Answers
An old campaigner in the war of words,
Idomeneus summons extra wine:
The wine of Lesbos, flavoured by a grape
Hinting of salt and the sea.
To this he adds fresh water,
Then cantilevers out his leg, to ease
The ache he suffers from a scar he got
In battle, fighting pirates in his youth.
And, having thus prepared himself for rhetoric,
He kills a fly for insolence,
Then drinks —
Then starts to speak of war, by way of peace.
Of War And Peace
"Peace!"
Thus says Idomeneus.
"Peace —
Let there be peace, and let the girls in garlands dance!
And let old soldiers drink their wine,
And watch the girls,
And then —
Oh, I could use such peace!
But can we have it?
I think we can —
If we can crop the human race entire
And plant a growth of dandelions instead.
But, as things are,
I say
That as a man has legs, his birth declares him —
Infantry!
And, as a man has arms, his grip
Can fabricate his passions into bronze.
The grip declares the weapon.
The grip declares a measure of capacity
Constant in politics, and not to be ignored.
Erase the weapons and the forges can remake them
Overnight.
Since we have forges, and our neighbours likewise,
We cannot risk that naked peace
Which puts its trust in trust alone
And sleeps unsentinelled, guarded by less than geese.
Instead, we must defer all war by treaty,
And use the day of truce to ready death,
To lay up doom and store up devastation,
Preparing for whatever act of pride, of greed,
Distracting feint or treachery
Sunders our treaty, and sets at odds
Thrones with powers, and powers against dominions.
Make treaty, yes, but know
That treaty will be broken.
Whatever token guard its strength, whatever oath assure it,
Still,
Treaty will be broken.
For what can words by treaty bind
That swords cannot asunder?
It follows — does it not? —
That peace is but a name for war in waiting —
And those who will not arm for war
Are but the bloody meat of pirates,
The slaves of tyrants, waiting to be taken.
You talk of peace?
Then talk!
But, while you talk,
Ever the forges beat, and ever
The warlords and the weaponmasters
Gather their strength, perfect the means of slaughter.
This
Is the truth of weapons:
Concede nothing.
Never.
This
Is the way of wisdom:
Make certain
Fear, hate, death, doom:
These certain things
Alone preserve the world.
The wise in our generation, we know
The only peace is that beneath the sword."
Paris Is Unconvinced
So says Idomeneus, but leaves his guest
Quite unconvinced, and baffled by the answer.
Indeed, he thinks the answer quite at odds with question.
If weapons hold our trust: then why make treaty?
If treaty cannot guarantee the peace, then why
Accept its liability?
If bloody oath cannot forestall a war, then why
Make bloody oath to guarantee one?
And yet — young Paris knows
Philosophy is not his suit, nor rigour.
And so he merely says:
"I merely thought —
I merely thought the war to doom the world
Should be against a threat of fate far worse
Than mere surrender of a single woman,
However sweet her flesh or fair her face.
Still — you are wise in your generation,
Wise indeed —
I'll not dispute it."
"Then, setting dispute aside," says his kingly host,
"Pray speak your past."
Paris Speaks
"They say my birth was difficult.
Perhaps.
Still, I was born beautiful:
Beautiful, and strong, and bright:
Bright with the promise of love and laurels.
And that's what counts.
It cost me nothing to be born.
And, since my birth,
It's all been easy.
I'm constantly amazed at how some fellows sweat
For the merest scraping of a slave's existence,
Labouring light to darkness
All so they can wake again to labour.
As for myself,
I was raised a country boy, yet became
Heir to the city and kingdom known as Troy.
Does that sound difficult?
Believe me,
It asked less than wishing.
My mother, you see, was queen to start with.
Hecuba —
An ugly name — as ugly as her face.
With me as yet unborn, Hecuba
(Having eaten mushrooms over-much)
Slept poorly,
And dreamed herself delivered of a firebrand
Which set all Troy in flames.
Such women's nonsense
She conjured into cause for murder.
My father — gods above! — agreed.
Extravagant?
I thought so when I heard it, and said as much —
Though that, of course, was later.
At the time, I'd neither ears nor voice.
I, mere mindless appetite,
A fish-kick afloat in her womb.
Anyway, my fate was settled: death.
Keeping the afterbirth, they threw me out,
My squalling flesh abandoned to the frosts,
Left by a slave on a barren hillside
Where the wolf
Rules unencumbered.
After that ...
But it's a long story, and the day is hot.
In brief, my fate was good:
Saved by a shepherd of humble hearth,
Marrying, in my season, the nymph Oenone.
Entering Troy at last to fight for a bull,
Wrestling down the heroes.
Recognised by Cassandra, my sister,
Accepted by my father, the lordly Priam —
Dreamsaying incompetent to contend against
A father's love for a young son fresh victorious.
In me, you see, all possibles compete
To grace me with their laurels.
And now ...
Yes, now to Sparta.
And Helen.
What?
Me?
Come now —
Even in jest, I'd never dare the half.
I know the dangers.
I wish ... only to see.
To see, that I may know,
And, knowing, speak.
For, if beauty live to rumour,
Then to have seen
Is boast sufficient ...."
To Greece
Then with Idomeneus, Paris feasts,
And shares a soldier's toast to comrades past
And death in battle —
And having thus been braced against the fates,
The Trojan lovelord dares his future north,
His beaked ship driving through the chancing seas,
Fleeting his hopes to Greece.
As winds from sternward belly out the canvas,
Paris
Stands in the bow, cape flecked with foam,
Imagining Helen's milk-white warmth.
Will he be disappointed?
For good, for bad, he's sure he'll know —
And swiftly.
For, as he watches,
Blue horizons uplift darker hills.
Sea shallows into shore, and quick gold liberates
A chariot, to north the road in style:
A rush of heat and hills to the gates of Sparta.
The Greeting
Tortured hinges and rheumatic echoes groan
As gates of oak and bronze creak open.
A harsh voice leathers out commands.
A trumpet screams,
An honour guard swings out:
And sun
Multiplies its own white-hot intolerance
In metal splinters mortal men dare bear,
Wielding, as if it were some attribute of flesh,
The deathless splendour of the ruling bronze.
With this array drawn up in formal order,
Enter a king:
Menelaus.
Menelaus of the golden hair,
King of Sparta and of Lacadaemon,
A king to greet a prince.
"Welcome," says Menelaus.
And then again (and this his stab at eloquence):
"Welcome."
Greeted by Menelaus, Paris
Greets Helen with his eyes,
And, to his hope,
Is not ignored, nor yet rebuffed.
Come night, he sits with Menelaus,
And, as with Idomeneus,
Drinks toasts on themes of war:
Though all the war young Paris knows
Is tales of Heracles, and distant Thebes.
Helen
Pondering by the waters of the lily pond,
Where dragonflies weave rainbows through the air,
Young Helen — her age is twenty-two —
Thinks of her guest from distant Troy,
The man she fancied in her dreams the night before
Arrayed in golden light, and no cloth coarser.
Paris is young, of course —
Young, and a king's son.
Yet she
Has a king already:
Menelaus.
A palace roof upholds above her stars.
Queen in a king's city,
She bathes herself in petals, and perfects
The balance of a silkworm's weaving.
And yet is bored:
Tired of Sparta and its fatuous obsession with bronze,
Its soldiers
Punishing their flesh for living so their battle-death
Will not be cheated by a lust for life.
Somethings, at evening,
Gathering silence around her as the dark dusts down,
She wonders how she can bear it for a lifetime.
Seven years already!
Seven years of marriage, and still her flesh,
Warm oyster-softness,
Draws no worship from her king.
He's no beatfist monster, yet his dreams
Are armoured against concession.
Not that he neglects her —
Nightly he goes campaigning,
Efficient breathing timed to shove his flesh
Home to habitual conclusions,
Grunting with satisfaction:
The sound the same as when he takes a charging boar,
Weight braced, a cross-brace holding
Widthwise against the death which otherwise
Would gore the spearlength through,
Tusks driving home to end both lives together.
Thus love with Menelaus:
A sullen weight, a laboured rhythm,
A grunt:
Then sleep, for him at least.
While Helen lies awake,
Listening to the tactics of his teeth
Grinding his enemies at close-quarters combat.
It's no surprise that Paris takes her eye.
Light-footed in the dance he wheels,
His grace in balance on the tender air.
Throwing the discus, he declines
To heft the flint as if it were a weight
But wings it forth with ease, as if his skill awoke
Energies of flight within the stone.
Even in pankration he smiles,
Facing a beef-bone hero:
Avoids a kick and ducks a bunch of fives,
Slips sideways, and lets panache deliver
A backhand to the face:
A blow that's half a joke, yet opens
Rage-blinded anger to a killing combination:
The final blow withheld, for this is sport,
And Paris treats it so,
Lightly smiling to accept a victor's laurels,
And so enraging half the youth of Sparta,
Their sullen pride defeated to enhance
A stranger's beauty.
Watching him, Helen knows
Exactly how those hands of his would hold her:
He whose touch now gives
Grace to that slim-fingered javelin he sports
Further than any other.
And when he talks, he talks of Ilion,
His voice a silk of sun on water,
Conjuring a city of airy exultation,
Of poetry, of courtly song, of dance,
Of gardens where the last of summer's butterflies linger,
Distracted from their search for paradise.
Helen
Wonders about Paris.
His voice molests her sleep,
And, waking,
She knows that he will have her, and knows how.
The Flesh
In Helen's slightest gesture,
Some find signification.
Surely she has mastery of the flawless arts:
Silence, grace and poise.
Her stance perfects her mystery,
Weighting her footsteps with a measured tread
Which dignifies the very ground she walks on.
Paris sees as praise portrays,
Yet dares to know her lower nature.
Surely she urges, hot as a monkey,
Concupiscent as a hare;
Surely she sweats and stales,
Digests and dungs,
And,
Daily,
Grows older:
Her end to sink to silence,
Then decay.
Knowing so,
He dares.
Their eyes meet often,
Their slightest glance aspiring to conspiracy.
And when at last the shadows make them one,
They speak
Not to propose but to confirm.
And so it comes to pass, the half-made animal
Forcing its urgings to a single humping shadow.
Skilled in the ways of love, young Paris
Whispers of his ardour, her eyes' sky-glory,
Murmers of celestial adoration
Even as his goat ruts hard and home,
Ramming his swollen heat to her clenching gash,
His bulb unleashing in her humid rose,
Which holds him,
Hot as tongues and urine, hot as steam,
Tense as cramp, as urgent as a fist,
Yet soft as cream, and shit, and pulp, and petals.
Locked hard,
Mouths gape toward conclusion,
Motive of gravity shifting.
Paris
Breathes no violets,
Finds no stars in Helen's eyes —
Yet owns himself most favoured to possess
This cow's milk skin,
This gold-spun hair light-weaving,
These thighs grape-smooth beneath his touch,
And this wine-coloured birthmark which he finds
Sprawling, like a map of languid aftermath,
From wool-warm weather of outer thigh
To damp and hairy heat most intimate
Of inner buttock.
The leisure of the talk of love
Renews their ardour.
They touch, and hold,
And copulate, and kiss.
A good fuck.
He'll keep her.
The Counsels of Suspicion
Of rumour and of rumour's rebuff
Let's tell:
A simple story.
First understand that this is Sparta: a place
Where Menelaus has construed the law
To hold in check the ruler with the ruled.
And so, when rumour puts him to the test,
He weighs the flesh of shadow against the substance,
And merits out the facts: then reckons fates.
Helen Accused
When Helen stands accused, says Menelaus to his ministers:
"What quote you?"
And they,
These brighter wits who think their lord betrayed,
Can quote him nothing but the smile which floats:
Too light to be but bliss upon her lips.
Can quote him nothing but the pace of peace:
Love's lotus smoothing to an even meditation
Her songlight passage and her sunset promenade.
Says Menelaus to his ministers:
"What, then — what quote you?"
But they, though sure the obvious is truth,
Can quote him nothing more — except, except
That hint of stars which lights within her eyes
Cosmetics of celestial charm.
The Accusation Questioned
Now men have burnt for less.
But Menelaus says:
"And has her guard denounced her,
Or has her maid?
Or have you caught her, her and him?
Well, have you?
Have you caught her flaunting with the peacock,
A pit to his javelin?
Well?
What answer, gentlemen?
What speech, denouncements, facts, figs, figures —
What rags of underwear, what
Timetables of admission,
What charts of exit —
What maps of bottle and stopper,
Of corking, plunging, oiling, greasing —
Dorking! —
Mapped and figured, charted and painted —
Proved.
Well?
Is it fact?
Or is it fancy?
Tell me!
Have you been dreaming, gentlemen,
Mistaking clouds for elephants —
Or have you caught him?
Have you caught him, slapped him, held him, proved
him?
Have you caught the couple dog on dog,
Her tongue, hands, buttocks, breasts,
Splayed — wrenched — vomit — wet —
And him,
And him —
His panting nub, his cream —
And her —
Well — have you?"
The King Deliberates
Here Menelaus pauses, then he says:
"I put upon your silence, I put —
My father used to use the words, you know his habit —
I put a negative construction on your lack
Of claim to certain knowledge of time and place,
Of breach and stain, of hip and haunch,
Of tongue to tongue, and of —
Configuration.
You say —
You say you think, but what,
What, when we weigh this shadow for its stone,
What, when we grill these feathers for their gold,
What do you say?
You say — you say she has two legs, and makes their use.
At dawn, fair Helen walks:
At sunset, walks.
Well.
Then should I have her carried, or take an axe —
Blood griefs me!
She walks, talks, smiles, sees —
By what — what excess of astrology,
By what — by what divining pidgeons
Do you make this out as treason to my bed?
You say she has two eyes.
Two eyes to see with, eyes —
What was it?
You randomed cliche, and called those eyes
Bright stars, or was it islands —
Islands of light, and lit —
I bought her for those eyes, and hope
Those eyes will stay awake and lit forever.
In all my life,
I never heard it sin to see — and if it is
Then should I hood her like a hawking bird?
Or pluck her face?
Or keep her in a bucket without a key?
She smiles! She sees! You call it treason!
And I —
Am I to hold you traitors for a frown,
Or think your indigestion treason, or think
A war-wound limp is laziness,
And your arthritis equal in delinquency?"
Thus Anger
So speaks King Menelaus, and speaks in anger:
Suspicion rounding on suspicion.
For, make no bones about it:
Though Menelaus denies it to the heavens,
He fears his Helen a traitor to his bed.
A Man Estranged
Now Menelaus knows himself a jealous man:
A man, please note,
Who thinks himself betrayed.
For she who once was woman has become
Estranged in silence, obdurate as rock.
Critique must still admit this sculptured stone
Most marvellously expressive of the flesh.
The statue more than breathes: it walks and talks,
Equips itself with etiquette, and speaks
With accents made in Athens, and exported
Free with every purchase of the flesh.
Yet stone is stone regardless, and this
Is just such insult to his bed.
There was a woman, once,
More than the moulded marble of her flesh.
Estrangements have taken her.
But now —
She makes herself a paperweight in bed,
And moulds herself to shadows, and holds her silence.
But why?
King Menelaus introspects — but finds no cause.
The King Considers
Surely he has given her his best.
He has housed her under granite:
Has fed her with the soup of turtles,
Has bathed her with the milk of roses,
Has graced her with the oyster's moon,
With sheens of gold and butterfly endeavour.
Attendants are hers, and service:
A slave to each fingernail, if she wants it!
Ever his queen, she lacks for nothing:
And least of all for him.
In Athens, when his brother's gold had purchased,
He made his pledge:
And keeps it.
He's wenched no slave in owner's right,
He's mobbed no drab in passing lust,
But saved and saves his all: saves all in gift for Helen.
Nightly to their marriage bed he brings
His energies, his drive:
Not for himself alone, but for them both:
A mutual pleasure, this,
This strength which bucks and rides,
Which sweats both bodies to a single string:
Which strives until it melts the harpstring's bones
To a sweetness soft as melted cheese:
A sweetness
Of music wet beyond all echo,
Soft, soft in closure.
And then fatigue, in spiders of caesura,
To web them down to nightslum sleep and finish.
Thus the ritual,
Making flesh of flesh,
And making of two complex human creatures
Two snoozing bears, two badger-lair incumbents,
Anatomy at rest at one
With paw and claw, with snore-down hibernation.
Thus love.
Thus lust.
Thus nights with Menelaus:
Taking Helen.
At minimum,
This discourse of the energies
Must make the woman certain of her value,
And make her — what?
Must make her pleasured. Or so at least one hopes.
But who can tell?
For, when a woman moans, then is it passion,
Or is she merely seasick?
Or faking it, and wishing to be gone?
The King Has Done His Duty
King Menelaus fingers Helen in his thought,
And finds her curves, her moist, her sinking grease:
Constructs and reconstructs his rutting,
And merits each thrust by angle, by depth of gynaecology:
Ponders each encounter, and seeks to judge
If he by serving Helen served her well.
He knows her flesh —
And yet,
To know the hills is not to know the battle.
And, as terrain to war,
Thus
Anatomy to pleasure.
Effect remains uncertain, but this he knows:
At least he tried.
He matched his flesh to hers, and only hers —
And, diligent in duty,
Has shunned all other women:
Has cleaved to her, and mightily has cleaved.
And, if his cleaving has not pleased — well, if not pleased,
She never asked for more.
The king has done his duty,
And does not think the woman serves him well.
When she plays imitation to a statue.
The Boundaries of Time
This much King Menelaus knows,
And knows for certain:
That Paris, young Paris was not yet guest,
Was not yet known
When all this started.
This change to stone began by slow progression
When Paris was but a distant grace of rumour.
When Sparta's bounds were all young Helen's world,
She shifted dew to diamond:
And then the king first thought —
He thought himself betrayed.
But how?
And why?
And who, with wom and where?
And when?
What favoured wish came dancing in
To flaunt the woman from her king?
And was it wish? Mere woman's whim and fantasy?
Or was it fact?
And if some fact, some fact of flesh —
If flesh, then what flesh?
What slave in sweating secrecy, or what —
What girl, or dog, or digit,
What bursting soldier hoisting with a grin?
What flesh?
The King's Logic
Now Menelaus knuckles fact with fact,
And argues out causation, then declares
That cause existed, acted, took effect
Before young Paris played upon the scene.
Hence Paris was not cause.
However speculation rifes,
Beyond all doubt, young Paris stands
Quite innocent of all initations.
And yet:
The king takes counsel from his ministers,
And they persist —
To shortcut past all trials of innocence to declare
That Helen has changed,
And, as her change has cause,
That prancing cause is Paris — so they claim.
Since Paris is their whipping boy,
They lash on well —
But repetition stands as all their proof.
And Menelaus,
Though no great master of the logics,
Yet knows that repetition merely heaped
Is sheaves of air and bales of empty laughter.
Now Words Are Water
Now: stone repeating stone creates the castle.
But words are water: their heap is but a puddle:
And so says Menelaus, and says:
"Were I a jealous man," says he,
"I'd say the very shadows
Seduce my wife to join them in the sheets.
But jealous am I not
And hence not maddened by suspicion
To think that Paris breathes the self-same air,
And walks the very earth she treads,
And at the self-same table sits,
Indulged by Helen's graces and her smiles.
This I hold to be not yet adultery,
Nor hint of such — nor proves
That even thought has seized upon the flesh.
You what?
You say he looks!
No doubt he does.
I saw it from the first, and see it still.
Of course he looked, and looks the more
As each day passes.
A man would have to be
Dead in the stone —
Or sick —
Or locked in lust for cattle, dogs or men —
Were he to pass such beauty without a glance.
I say
To look is yet no crime.
A cat may look at a king
And think to mouse down monarch, boots and all —
But such a whim bespeaks no actual monster.
This Paris is but a boy,
And I a man,
And Helen a woman made for a man,
Wherefore I love her,
And she loves me,
And whims for no boy,
However much he looks her."
Thus: thus Menelaus closes out all argument.
Paris Proclaims Departure
A king can silence tongues:
But tongues have teeth
Which gnaw as much in echo as in action.
Much vexed, much gnawed, much knuckled by his musings,
The good Lord Menelaus stands relieved
When Paris says: he's going.
And, Paris thus announcing his departure,
The king declares a prompt relief by banquet,
And ladles wine, and stacks up meat,
And heaps up honours for this prince of Troy:
All, all for Paris:
A welcome guest: a guest
Whose prompt departure will be welcomed even more.
The Feast
Late afternoon.
"To Paris! Drink!"
They drink.
They drink up large and lush;
They drink until the bifurcating sun
Drowns down in an oxblood rush of wines incarnadine.
And still they drink.
Upon the blood of grapes they glutton,
Souse riot home and loose the guttered cups.
Though all is staked on enterprise, young Paris
Outdrinks the rest:
Drinks with a steady fist
Then lifts his cup for more.
Squanders sobriety, and then, at last,
Bestirs himself to act.
Go: it's time to go.
The Woman
She is ready. Yet. Almost. Not quite.
Her hair in snatching coils
Clutches her comb in tangles.
A bedside table flails toward the floor.
Cascading perfumes sprint.
Down on her knees
She scrabbles for a spillage of jewels.
Gold gutters beneath her fingers,
The glittering heads of kings and emperors
Cascading to the dust.
Arresting hands molest her.
Shocked, she gasps a breath —
Then hears him laugh.
"You're ready, then. We'll go."
"Ready?"
Still half-dazed with shock she speaks:
Uncertain.
"Ready, yes," he says. "Then come —
Come. Let's go."
Flight
Go. It's time to go.
She grasps his hand
Which slips away and leaves her.
She follows, her breath
Not far from panic.
Dark halls. A falling taper.
Collapsing shadows.
Her hand escapes a closing door:
A crash.
Their slap-trap sandals harrying across the stone.
Cold stars: the bitter night.
Uneasy horses, two and two,
Ready, hitched to a chariot.
"Up!" he says, and shoves her into place.
And as he shoves
A casket slides —
Slides, slips and shatters.
"Wait!"
But the wheels are rolling: bronze-shod weight
Striking concatenating echoes from the stone.
A donkey brays, a cockerel screams, and then —
Shouts outbreak, alarums roused by fire.
Helen wrenches round to see
A brightsplurge blaze upfling
The range of the rhythms of arson.
And Paris in his drunken glory laughs:
"They'll seek our bones for days.
Seek, yes! And likely find —
And bury us."
He laughs again, and flogs the horses,
And speeds their rolling warcar through the night,
Making for the south, for freedom and the sea.
Escape
So it's done. He has the wench. What now?
This dare will win no friends in Greece
If once the Greeks should learn
That he with Sparta's queen has fled.
He must be gone, and soon:
Delay is death.
In flight for Troy
The journey east is fastest —
But if by chance the maiming winds
Should wreck his ship or break it on the shore
Then any Greek to save him then would wolf him.
Paris decides for the south:
To plunge past Crete and dare
Four days across horizons striding
To the shores of Egypt.
To plan is easy, but to succeed:
First summon up the wind.
But there is no wind.
So Paris cries his men to oar, and so
His ship with its forty jointless legs
Crawls out upon the fish-infested sea.
The sea which is crushed by the sun.
The rowers sweat and strain.
The wind
Rumours in the sails, then cheats to nothing.
Paris, idle but not at ease,
Watches the hills recede,
Hills still bulking high when a chariot
Slews in a flurry of dust to the saltpan shore.
A man leaps out, and shouts:
His outrage turned to nonsense by the distance.
He draws a weapon: hurls it.
Light glints on plunging bronze
Which sharps the sea with a flash:
A sudden flash of fire, like the eagering spark
Which sets a forest raging.
Helen nuzzles Paris, seeks his hand
And finds his grip —
Though for a moment only —
Strangely uncertain.