48591604 4953701 odysseas elytisa selection of poems

8/3/2019 48591604 4953701 Odysseas ElytisA Selection of Poems

1/25

1

Odysseas

ElytisA Selection of Poems


2/25

2


3/25

3

I LIVED THE BELOVED NAME...

I lived the beloved nameIn the shade of the aged olive treeIn the roaring of the lifelong sea

Those who stoned me live no longerWith their stones I built a fountainTo its brink green girls comeTheir lips descend from the dawnTheir hair unwinds far into the future

Swallows come, infants of the windThey drink, they fly, so that life goesonThe threat of the dream becomes a

dreamPain rounds the good capeNo voice is lost in the breast of the sky

O deathless sea, tell what you arewhisperingI reach your morning mouth early

On the peak where your love appearsI see the will of the night spilling starsThe will of the day nipping the earthsshoots

I saw a thousand wild lilies on themeadows of lifeA thousand children in the true windBeautiful strong children who breatheout kindnessAnd know how to gaze at the deephorizonsWhen music raises the islands

I carved the beloved nameIn the shade of the aged olive tree

In the roaring of the lifelong sea.

Translation: Edmund Keeley andPhilip SherrardFrom: Sun the first


4/25

4


5/25

5

LA PALLIDA MORTE

Odourless yet like blossomDeath is grasped through theNostrils. Square silent buildings with

Endless corridors come between but the odourPersistently passes folds in white sheets orcrimsonCurtains throughout the rooms lengthSometimes a sudden reflection of lightThen once again only the trolleys wheelsAnd the old lithograph with the sceneOf the Annunciation as it appears in themirror

Whereupon, with arm outstretched He

Who announces and is silent, brings and takesawayPale and with an air of guilt (as if not wantingbut having to)Takes and extinguishes one by one the redGlobules inside me. As does the verger withthe candles whenAt the end of the long list of prayersFor a fair wind and all of creation orAbove all, for such things as each has in mindThe congregation disperses

O Such things have I! Yet howIn what way may the unutterable berevealedFor while with irises and anemones the May-months effuseAnd with verdant slopes step down to the seaWhen this too in whispers ever disclosesSomething of its ancient secrets, men is leftspeechless

The soul alone. ThisLike the mother of fledglings in danger takesunder its wingAnd patiently gathers from out of the stormsA few crumbs of peace; so tomorrow, the nextdayAll that you have in mind with new shinydownMay open out in the skies even if the gates tothe heavenly dwellingsOpen and close without justice

The Angel knows. And furtively withdrawshis finger

So that gold becomes blue again and afragranceOf burning incense ascends to the rose-coloured domeThe candles in every stand light up all at onceThen they all follow. Footsteps on the wet

leavesSince men too like graves and with reverencepile lovely flowers thereYet, death, not one of them has anything tosayExcept the poet. The suns Jesus. The sameone who aftereach SaturdayRises. He who Is, Was and Will Be.

Translation: David ConnolyFrom: The oxopetra elegiesPublished: Harwood Acedemic Publishers,Amsterdam, 1996


6/25

6

MARINA OF THE ROCKS

You have a taste of tempest on your lipsButwhere did you wanderAll day long in the hard reverie of stone andsea?

An eagle-bearing wind stripped the hillsStripped your longing to the boneAnd the pupils of your eyes received themessage of chimeraSpotting memory with foam!Where is the familiar slope of shortSeptemberOn the red earth where you played, lookingdownAt the broad rows of the other girlsThe corners where your friends left armfuls of

rosemary.

But where did you wanderAll night long in the hard reverie of stone andsea?I told you to count in the naked water itsluminous daysOn your back to rejoice in the dawn of thingsOr again to wander on yellow plainsWith a clover of light on you breast, iambicheroine.

You have a taste of tempest on your lipsAnd a dress red as bloodDeep in the gold of summerAnd the perfume of hyacinthsBut wheredid you wanderDescending toward the shores, the pebbledbays?

There was cold salty seaweed there

But deeper a human feeling that bledAnd you opened your arms in astonishmentnaming itClimbing lightly to the clearness of the depthsWhere your own starfish shone.

Listen. Speech is the prudence of the agedAnd time is a passionate sculptor of menAnd the sun stands over it, a beast of hopeAnd you, closer to it, embrace a loveWith a bitter taste of tempest on your lips.

It is not for you, blue to the bone, to think ofanother summer,


7/25

7

For the rivers to change their bedAnd take you back to their motherFor you to kiss other cherry treesOr ride on the northwest wind.

Propped on the rocks, without yesterday or

tomorrow,Facing the dangers of the rocks with ahurricane hairstyleYou will say farewell to the riddle that isyours.

Translation: Edmund Keeley and PhilipSherrardFrom: Orientations


8/25

8

THE AUTOPSY

And so they found that the gold of the oliveroot had dripped in the re-cesses of his heart.

And from the many times that he had lainawake by candlelight waitingfor the dawn, a strange heat had seized hisentrails.

A little below the skin, the blue line of thehorizon sharply painted. Andample traces of blue throughout his blood.

The cries of birds which he had come tomemorize in hours of great lonely

ness apparently spilled out all at once, so thatit was impossible forthe knife to enter deeply.

Probably the intention sufficed for the evil

Which he metit is obviousin theterrifying posture of the innocent.His eyes open, proud, the whole forestmoving still on the unblem-ished retina.

Nothing in the brain but a dead echo of thesky.

Only in the hollow of his left ear some lightfine sand, as though in a shell.Which means that often he had walked by thesea alone with the painof love and the roar of the wind.

As for those particles of fire on his groin, theyshow that he moved timehours ahead whenever he embraced a woman.We shall have early fruit this year.


9/25

9

Translation: Edmund Keeley and Philip


10/25

10

THE SLEEP OF THE BRAVE

They will smell of incense, and their faces areburnt by their crossing through the Great DarkPlaces.

There where they were suddenly flung by theImmovable

Face-down, on ground whose smallestanemone would suffice to turn the air ofHades bitter

(One arm outstretched, as though straining tobe grasped by the future, the other arm underthe desolate head, turned on its side,

As though to see for the last time, in the eyesof a disembowelled horse, the heap ofsmoking ruins)

There time released them. One wing, theredder of the two, covered the world, whilethe other, delicate, already moved throughspace,

No wrinkle or pang of conscience, but at agreat depth

The old immemorial blood that beganpainfully to etch, in the skys blackness,

A new sun, not yet ripe,

That couldnt manage to dislodge thehoarfrost of lambs from live clover, but,before even casting a ray, could divine theoracles of Erebus...

And from the beginning, Valleys, Mountains,Trees, Rivers,

A creation made of vindicated feelings nowshone, identical and reversed, there for themto cross now, with the Executioner insidethem put to death,

Villagers of the limitless blue:

Neither twelve oclock striking in the depthsnor the voice of the pole falling from theheights retracted their footsteps.


11/25

11

They read the world greedily with eyes nowopen forever, there where they were suddenlyflung by the Immovable,

Face-down, and where the voltures fell upon

them violently to enjoy the clay of their gutsand their blood.

Translation: Edmund Keeley and PhilipSherrardFrom: Six and one pangs of consience for thesky


12/25

12

THEY CAMEdressed up as friends,came countless times, my enemies,trampling the primeval soil.And the soil never blended with their heel.They brought

The Wise One, the Founder, and theGeometer,Bibles of letters and numbers,every kind of Submission and Power,to sway over the primeval light.And the light never blended with their roof.Not even a bee was fooled into beginning thegolden game,not even a Zephyr into swelling the whiteaprons.On the peaks, in the valleys, in the ports

they raised and foundedmighty towers and villas,floating timbers and other vessels;and the Laws decreeing the pursuit of profitthey applied to the primeval measure.And the measure never blended with theirthinking.Not even a footprint of a god left a man ontheir soul,not even a fairys glance tried to rob them oftheir speech.They camedressed up as friends,came countless times, my enemies,bearing the primeval gifts.And their gifts were nothing elsebut iron and fire only.To the open expecting fingersonly weapons and iron and fire.Only weapons and iron and fire.

Translation: Edmund Keeley and GeorgeSavidisFrom: The Axion Esti


13/25

13

"THIS WIND THAT LOITERS..."

This wind that loiters among the quinces

This insect that sucks the vinesThis stone that the scorpion wears next to his

skin

And these sheaves on the threshing floor

That play the giant to small barefoot children.

The images of the Resurrection

On walls that the pine trees scratched with

their fingers

This whitewash that carries the noonday on

its back

And the cicadas, the cicadas in the ears of thetrees.

Great summer of chalk

Great summer of cork

The red sails slanting in gusts of wind

On the sea-floor white creatures, sponges

Accordions of the rocks

Perch from the fingers even of bad fishermen

Proud reefs on the fishing lines of the sun.

No one will tell our fate, and that is that,

We ourselves will tell the suns fate, and that

is that.

Translation: Edmund Keeley and Philip

Sherrard

From: Sun the first


14/25

14

WEDNESDAY, 8c

IF ONLY MOTHER you could see me: as Iwas born, Ideparted. I was far too little - besides who un-derstands? - and far too many were the

creepingmonsters with the lateral, slimy legs.

So, from the length of a life constructed withsuch dif-ficulty all that remains is a half-ruined doorand a lotof large decaying water anemones. TherefromI passand proceed - who knows? - to a wombsweeter than

my country.

Translation: David ConnolyFrom:Journal of an unseen aprilPublished: Ypsilon publishers,Athens, 1998


15/25

15

DEATH AND RESURRECTION

OF CONSTANTINOS

PALAEOLOGOS

As he stood there erect before the Gateand impregnable in his sorrow

Far from the world where his spirit soughtto bring Paradise to his measureAnd harder even than stonefor no one had ever lookedon him tenderly - at times his crooked teethwhitened strangely

And as he passed by with his gaze a littlebeyond mankind and from them allextracted One who smiled on himThe Real oneWhom death could never seize

He took care to pronounce the wordsea clearly that all the dolphinswithin it might shineAnd the desolation so great it mightcontain all of Godand every waterdrop ascending steadfastly towardthe sun

As a young man he had seen gold glitteringand gleaming on the shoulders of the greatAnd one nighthe remembersduring a great storm the neck of the searoared so it turned murky


16/25

16

but he would not submit to it

The world's an oppressive place to live throughyet with a little pride it's worth it.

II

Dear God what nowWho had to battle with thousandsand not only his lonelinessWho?He who knew with a single word

how to slake the thirst of entire worldsWhat?

From whom they had taken everythingAnd his sandals with their criss-crossedstraps and his pointed tridentand the wall he mounted every afternoon likean unruly and pitching boat

to hold the reigns against the weather

And a handful of vervainwhich he had rubbed on a girl's cheekat midnightto kiss her(how the waters of the moon gurledon the stone steps three cliff-lengths

above the sea...)

Noon out of nightAnd not one person by his sideOnly his faithful words that mingledall their colors to leave in his handa lance of white light

And opposite


17/25

17

along the whole wall's lengtha host of heads poured in plasteras far as his eyes could see

"Noon out of night - all life a radiance!"he shouted and rushed into the hordedragging behind him an endless golden line

And at once he feltthe final pallorovermastering himas it hastened from afar.

III

Nowas the sun's wheel turned more and more swiftlythe courtyards plunged into winter and onceagain emerged red from the geranium

And the small cool domeslike blue medusaereached each time higher to the silverworkthe wind so delicately worked as a paintingfor other times more distant

Virgin maidenstheir breasts glowing a summer dawn

brought him branches of fresh palm leavesand those of the myrtle uprootedfrom the depths of the sea

Dripping iodineWhile under his feet he heardthe prows of black shipssucked into the great whirlpool

the ancient and smoked seacraft


18/25

18

from which still erect with riveted gazethe Mothers of God stood rebuking

Horses overturned on dumpheapsa rabble of buildings large and smalldebris and dust flaming in the air

And there lying pronealways with an unbroken wordbetween his teeth

Himselfthe last of the Hellenes!


19/25

19

GIFT SILVER POEM

I know that all this is worthless and that the languageI speak doesn't have an alphabet

Since the sun and the waves are a syllabic script

which can be deciphered only in the years of sorrow andexile

And the motherland a fresco with successive overlaysfrankish or slavic which, should you try to restore,you are immediately sent to prison andheld responsible

To a crowd of foreign Powers always throughthe intervention of your own

As it happens for the disasters

But let's imagine that in an old days' threshing-floorwhich might be in an apartment-complex childrenare playing and whoever loses

Should, according to the rules, tell the othersand give them a truth

Then everyone ends up holding in hishand a small

Gift, silver poem.


20/25

20

"Calendar of an Invisible April"

"The Tree of Light and The FourteenthBeauty"

Translation from Greek: Marios Dikaiakos

"The wind was wistling continuously, it wasgetting darker, and that distant voice wasincessantly reaching my ears : "an entire life"..."an entire life"...

On the opposite wall, the shadows of thetrees were playing cinema"

----------------

"It seems that somewhere people are celebrating;although there are no houses or human beingsI can listen to guitars and other laughters whichare not nearby

Maybe far away, within the ashes of heavensAndromeda, the Bear, or the Virgin...

I wonder; is loneliness the same, all over theworlds ? "

----------------


21/25

21

"Almond-shaped, elongated eyes, lips; perfumesstemming

from a premature sky of great feminine delicacyand fatal drunkeness.

I leant on my side -almost fell- onto thehymns to the Virgin and the cold of spaciousgardens.

Prepared for the worst."

----------------

"FRIDAY, 10c

LATE MIDNIGHT my room is moving in theneighborhood shining like an emerald.

Someone searches it, but truth eludes himconstantly. How to imagine that it isplaced lower

Much lower

That death too, has its own Red sea."

----------------


22/25

22

Adolescence of Day

Adolescence of day first lily of joyThe ancient myrtle flutters its flagThe breast of skylarks shall open to the lightAnd a song shall hover in mid-airSowing the golden barley of fireTo the five winds

Setting free a terrestial beaty

Translated by Kimon Friar.

I know the night no longer

I know the night no longer, the terrible anonymity of deathA fleet of stars moors in the haven of my heartO Hesperos, sentinel, that you may shine by the sideOf a skyblue breeze on an island which dreams

Of me anouncing the dawn from its rocky heightsMy twin eyes set you sailing embracedWith my true heart's star: I know the night no longerI know the names no longer of a world which disavows meI read seashells, leaves, and the stars clearlyMy hatred is superfluous on the roads of the skyUnless it is the dream which watches me againAs I walked by the sea of immortality in tears

O Hesperos, under the arc of your golden fire


23/25

23

I know the night no longer that is a night only.

ODYSSEUS ELYTIS. Translated by Kimon Friar.

Odysseus Elytis on his poetry

November 12, 2002It has been said that I am a Dionysian poet, particularly in myfirst poems. I do not think this is correct. I am for clarity. As I

wrote in one of my poems, I have sold myself for clearness. Itold you that I am critical of occidental rationalism, skeptical ofits classicism, and that I feel the breach opened by surrealismwas a real liberation of the senses and the imagination. Couldone possibly conceive of a new classicism in the spirit ofsurrealism? Is this a contradiction in terms? Do you know thework of Hans Arp? There you have great simplicity! He is aclassical sculptor, isnt he? Yet he was a surrealist! In other

words, the world of surrealism had its classicists andromanticists. Essentially, it was romantic movement. Butluard, for example, I personally find more classical thanromantic.

I never was a disciple of the surrealist school. I found certaincongenial elements there, as I have told you, which I adapted tothe Greek light. There is another passage in my Open Book

where I say that Europeans and Westerners always find mysteryin obscurity, in the night, while we Greeks find it in light, whichis for us an absolute. To illustrate this I give three images. I tellhow once, at high noon, I saw a lizard climb upon a stone (itwas unafraid since I stood stock-still, ceasing even to breathe)and then, in broad daylight, commence a veritable dance, with amultitude of tiny movements, in honor of light. There and then Ideeply sensed the mystery of light. At another time I

experienced this mystery while at sea between the islands ofNaxos and Paros. Suddenly in the distance I saw dolphins that


24/25

24

approached and passed us, leaping above the water to the heightof our deck. The final image is that of a young woman on whosenaked breast a butterfly descended one day at noon whilecicadas filled the air with their noise. This was for me anotherrevelation of the mystery of light. It is a mystery which I thinkwe Greeks can fully grasp and present. It may be somethingunique to this place. Perhaps it can be best understood here, andpoetry can reveal it to the entire world. The mystery of light.When I speak of solar metaphysics, thats exactly what I mean.

I am not for the clarity of the intelligence, that which the Frenchcall la belle clart. No, I think that even the most irrational

thing can be limpid. Limpidity is probably the one elementwhich dominates my poetry at present. The critic Varonitis hasperceived this. He says that in my book The Light Tree thereis an astonishing limpidity. What I mean by limpidity is thatbehind a given thing something different can be seen and behindthat still something else, and so on and so on. This kind oftransparency is what I have attempted to achieve. Is seems to mesomething essentially Greek. The limpidity which exists in

nature from the physical point of view is transposed into poetry.However, as I told you, that which is limpid can at the sametime be altogether irrational. My kind of clarity is not that of theratio or of the intelligence, not clart as the French andWesterners in general conceive it.

You always look somewhat puzzled, I notice, whenever Icontrast Greeks with Westerners or Europeans. This is not a

mistake on my part. We Greeks belong politically, of course, tothe Occident. We are part of Europe, part of the Western world,but at the same time Greece was never only that. There wasalways the oriental side which occupied an important place inthe Greek spirit. Throughout antiquity oriental values wereassimilated. There exists an oriental side in the Greek whichshould not be neglected. It is for this reason that I make thedistinction.


25/25

Let me conclude by reading to you a concise statement I haveprepared concerning the aims of my poetry:

I consider poetry a source of innocence full of revolutionaryforces. It is my mission to direct these forces against a world myconscience cannot accept, precisely so as to bring that worldthrough continual metamorphoses more in harmony with mydreams. I am referring here to a contemporary kind of magicwhose mechanism leads to the discovery of our true reality. It isfor this reason that I believe, to the point of idealism, that I ammoving in a direction which has never been attempted untilnow. In the hope of obtaining a freedom from all constraints and

the justice which could be identified with absolute light, I am anidolater who, without wanting to do so, arrives at Christiansainthood.

Athens, 27 March 1972

Odysseus Elytis (Translated byIvar and Astrid Ivask)

48591604 4953701 odysseas elytisa selection of poems

Documents