THE DEATH OF HYPATIA (415 A. D.)

Beyond pairs of antitheses.
Friends of Hypatia,
not that her beauty had dazzled us
—we too had for gifts
beautiful bodily stature and daring and
tranquility—

One day, I remember, we were sitting
to hear that crystalline voice—she with one leg
up to the knee was agitating the sea,
her other leg on Kleitos chest—
the conversation began again:

... the circle will come full circle
toward another circle of the spirit,
and we here on this beach suck in the mistral;
you Myrtro
and you Amynta, and you too my innocent friend
Kleitos, shall I hide my love
for your integral beauty?
Body, soul and spirit in harmony,
and we here
in a moment of eternity, we shall pass,
the barbarians will come. And we again:
the return of civilizers to a subhuman social
jungle,
we shall come again
to the beloved fields . . .

She said these things and although everything was
cheerful
and witty and strange
a sound was heard, a tumult
from the city, approaching.
They seized her, they bound her, they dragged her
to the church of the Christians—
some carried rods, some stones, some irons
and others books of papyrus,
burning and beating

I stood and watched the spectacle,
wounded by the rods of Christian love—
the crowd took me for dead—
Her sculptured fingers that once
in a dialectic gesture caressed me and closed
an impertinent mouth,
her sculptured fingers cut off, lying
in the middle of the church.
And behold, the ancient worshipper
was born again today
surrounded by the enmity of some treacherous
Greeks,
looking upon her beautiful face again
joyfully sad
and remembering her crystalline voice
the scene by the sea and God΄s creatures
which we loved together,
informed of her martyrdom
remaining alone
again and again,
alone, sensitive and as gentle as a plant,
the central robot-Brains electronic spying
on every meditation and feeling,
telerecording and telepunishment foreseeing
a population of robots.


NAUSICAA

The washing spread on shore,
on rocks, on branches, passions bathing in the
sun,
dreams of girls floating on foam.

For me the sea is desolate and empty.
The river flows, a child tumbling and laughing,
leaping on pebbles or carefree
climbing up to eternity, collapsing.

Lost, dismantled, is the raft.
Naked maidens washing,
and fish skimming at the springs mouth.
Seaweed, disheveled hair, buttocks, bodily grace,
laughter and light and the fragrance of oregano
with a tired Odysseus.

The dream awakens to live the dream
climbing up dark branches
to the vines tasty grapes,
armpits, tufts of thyme
when the naked and reclining girls
greet the sun with their feet.

And Nausicaa in the rotation of centuries and the
corners of myth,
Nausicaa with her crystalline voice,
naked, beautiful, vaporous in my sun,
her flesh wet with salt and sweetness,
with entangled feet, hands that fly
celestially in all directions;
panting on the sand, Nausicaa with a red
handkerchief
paints the Stranger stripped of everything.

Sweet melody of nymphs and charcoal,
screws of dismembered engines
and sweat and futile fatigue
on the scenes of man where Death browses.

But he who stepped on the utterly pure
and foam-washed island of Nausicaa,
confined in one of his hideouts after
the long voyage and the storm
when the land was desolate and empty,
he, in the minds solitude, is strong and
courageous.


IN THE PALACE OF KNOSSOS

The princess has now grown up.
They are digging in the vineyards; the weeds have
grown wild
in a corner of the garden, and she in a
venerable melancholy.
She walks in the peristyle mythically,
sits on the balcony,
listens to the voices coming from the house;
is it time, she thinks, to have her hair fixed?
Her good nurse is waiting.
It is time, she thinks, for her bath
or for her initiation with the priest?

She΄s lost the sense of time, she΄s lost her walk,
her steady walk on the cool
marble tiles of the palace.

She remembers a day when on the endless
hot fields the girls worked with the leaves, the
roots, the earth,
She remembers moments in the afternoon,
naked bodies and whispers,
sounds, shrill cries choked with pleasure.

She remembers the sailor in her arms,
merchandise and foreign faces,
salty, strong and strange,
painted with sea and dreams.

They are digging in the fields, the weeds have
grown wild,
and she, in a corner of the garden, in a
venerable melancholy.


AFTER THE SHIPWRECK

The ship sank, I swam
eighteen miles,
embracing the ultimate object;
secluded was the place where the waves cast me
on this shore,
body on dry land, feet in the sea;
shrimps, crabs caressed me.

I dragged myself to a rock, a spring gushed
out of the extreme heat of that stony land.

And then
the mountain nymphs
appeared dancing with laughter
and sat in a circle near me.

΄Dont you remember?΄ said Krypris,
΄It was I who dragged you fainting from the waves,
valiant helmsman of the antedeluvian Catastrophe.΄

They let their garments fall, and with their
hair down to their shoulders,
lured me to the rim, to the precipice.
I fumbled at my limbs, I was alive,
this body of mine was not my tomb,
that breathing breeze was not the rage of Death.

We decked ourselves with garlands of flowers
and ran among the leaves.
O mythical shudder, landscape and pure feeling
of things and creatures, discovery
again and again and again—
how many times was I born
into the virginity of the world?

Από το βιβλίο ΄΄MODERN GREEK POETRY΄΄ του KIMON FRIAR