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The Voyage of Telegonus

by Henry Kendall

Ill fares it with the man whose lips are set

To bitter themes and words that spite the gods;

For, seeing how the son of Saturn sways

With eyes and ears for all, this one shall halt

As on hard, hurtful hills; his days shall know

The plaintive front of sorrow; level looks

With cries ill-favoured shall be dealt to him;

And this shall be that he may think of peace

As one might think of alienated lips

Of sweetness touched for once in kind, warm dreams.

Yea, fathers of the high and holy face,

This soul thus sinning shall have cause to sob

'Ah, ah,' for sleep, and space enough to learn

The wan, wild Hyrie's aggregated song

That starts the dwellers in distorted heights,

With all the meaning of perpetual sighs

Heard in the mountain deserts of the world,

And where the green-haired waters glide between

The thin, lank weeds and mallows of the marsh.

But thou to whom these things are like to shapes

That come of darkness thou whose life slips past

Regarding rather these with mute fast mouth

Hear none the less how fleet Telegonus,

The brass-clad hunter, first took oar and smote

Swift eastward-going seas, with face direct

For narrowing channels and the twofold coasts

Past Colchis and the fierce Symplegades,

And utmost islands, washed by streams unknown.

For in a time when Phasis whitened wide

And drove with violent waters blown of wind

Against the bare, salt limits of the land,

It came to pass that, joined with Cytheraea,

The black-browed Ares, chafing for the wrong

Ulysses did him on the plains of Troy,

Set heart against the king; and when the storms

Sang high in thunder and the Thracian rain,

The god bethought him of a pale-mouthed priest

Of Thebae, kin to ancient Chariclo,

And of an omen which the prophet gave

That touched on death and grief to Ithaca;

Then, knowing how a heavy-handed fate

Had laid itself on Circe's brass-clad son,

He pricked the hunter with a lust that turned

All thoughts to travel and the seas remote;

But chiefly now he stirred Telegonus

To longings for his father's exiled face,

And dreams of rest and honey-hearted love

And quiet death with much of funeral flame

Far in the mountains of a favoured land

Beyond the wars and wailings of the waves.

So, past the ridges where the coast abrupt

Dips greyly westward, Circe's strong-armed son

Swept down the foam of sharp-divided straits

And faced the stress of opening seas. Sheer out

The vessel drave; but three long moons the gale

Moaned round; and swift, strong streams of fire revealed

The labouring rowers and the lightening surf,

Pale watchers deafened of sonorous storm,

And dipping decks and rents of ruined sails.

Yea, when the hollow ocean-driven ship

Wheeled sideways, like a chariot cloven through

In hard hot battle, and the night came up

Against strange headlands lying east and north,

Behold a black, wild wind with death to all

Ran shoreward, charged with flame and thunder-smoke,

Which blew the waters into wastes of white,

And broke the bark, as lightning breaks the pine;

Whereat the sea in fearful circles showed

Unpitied faces turned from Zeus and light

Wan swimmers wasted with their agony,

And hopeless eyes and moaning mouths of men.

But one held by the fragments of the wreck,

And Ares knew him for Telegonus,

Whom heavy-handed Fate had chained to deeds

Of dreadful note with sin beyond a name.

So, seeing this, the black-browed lord of war,

Arrayed about by Jove's authentic light,

Shot down amongst the shattered clouds and called

With mighty strain, betwixt the gaps of storm

'Oceanus! Oceanus!' Whereat

The surf sprang white, as when a keel divides

The gleaming centre of a gathered wave;

And, ringed with flakes of splendid fire of foam,

The son of Terra rose half-way and blew

The triple trumpet of the water-gods,

At which great winds fell back and all the sea

Grew dumb, as on the land a war-feast breaks

When deep sleep falls upon the souls of men.

Then Ares of the night-like brow made known

The brass-clad hunter of the facile feet,

Hard clinging to the slippery logs of pine,

And told the omen to the hoary god

That touched on death and grief to Ithaca;

Wherefore Oceanus, with help of hand,

Bore by the chin the warrior of the North,

A moaning mass, across the shallowing surge,

And cast him on the rocks of alien shores

Against a wintry morning shot with storm.

Hear also, thou, how mighty gods sustain

The men set out to work the ends of Fate

Which fill the world with tales of many tears

And vex the sad face of humanity:

Six days and nights the brass-clad chief abode

Pent up in caverns by the straitening seas

And fed on ferns and limpets; but the dawn,

Before the strong sun of the seventh, brought

A fume of fire and smells of savoury meat

And much rejoicing, as from neighbouring feasts;

At which the hunter, seized with sudden lust,

Sprang up the crags, and, like a dream of fear,

Leapt, shouting, at a huddled host of hinds

Amongst the fragments of their steaming food;

And as the hoarse wood-wind in autumn sweeps

To every zone the hissing latter leaves,

So fleet Telegonus, by dint of spear

And strain of thunderous voice, did scatter these

East, south, and north. 'Twas then the chief had rest,

Hard by the outer coast of Ithaca,

Unknown to him who ate the spoil and slept.

Nor stayed he hand thereafter; but when noon

Burned dead on misty hills of stunted fir,

This man shook slumber from his limbs and sped

Against hoar beaches and the kindled cliffs

Of falling waters. These he waded through,

Beholding, past the forests of the West,

A break of light and homes of many men,

And shining corn, and flowers, and fruits of flowers.

Yea, seeing these, the facile-footed chief

Grasped by the knot the huge Aeaean lance

And fell upon the farmers; wherefore they

Left hoe and plough, and crouched in heights remote,

Companioned with the grey-winged fogs; but he

Made waste their fields and throve upon their toil

As throve the boar, the fierce four-footed curse

Which Artemis did raise in Calydon

To make stern mouths wax white with foreign fear,

All in the wild beginning of the world.

So one went down and told Laertes' son

Of what the brass-clad stranger from the straits

Had worked in Ithaca; whereat the King

Rose, like a god, and called his mighty heir,

Telemachus, the wisest of the wise;

And these two, having counsel, strode without,

And armed them with the arms of warlike days

The helm, the javelin, and the sun-like shield,

And glancing greaves and quivering stars of steel.

Yea, stern Ulysses, rusted not with rest,

But dread as Ares, gleaming on his car

Gave out the reins; and straightway all the lands

Were struck by noise of steed and shouts of men,

And furious dust, and splendid wheels of flame.

Meanwhile the hunter (starting from a sleep

In which the pieces of a broken dream

Had shown him Circe with most tearful face),

Caught at his spear, and stood like one at bay

When Summer brings about Arcadian horns

And headlong horses mixt with maddened hounds;

Then huge Ulysses, like a fire of fight,

Sprang sideways on the flying car, and drave

Full at the brass-clad warrior of the North

His massive spear; but fleet Telegonus

Stooped from the death, but heard the speedy lance

Sing like a thin wind through the steaming air;

Yet he, dismayed not by the dreadful foe

Unknown to him dealt out his strength, and aimed

A strenuous stroke at great Laertes' son,

Which missed the shield, but bit through flesh and bone,

And drank the blood, and dragged the soul from thence.

So fell the King! And one cried 'Ithaca!

Ah, Ithaca!' and turned his face and wept.

Then came another wise Telemachus

Who knelt beside the man of many days

And pored upon the face; but lo, the life

Was like bright water spilt in sands of thirst,

A wasted splendour swiftly drawn away.

Yet held he by the dead: he heeded not

The moaning warrior who had learnt his sin

Who waited now, like one in lairs of pain,

Apart with darkness, hungry for his fate;

For had not wise Telemachus the lore

Which makes the pale-mouthed seer content to sleep

Amidst the desolations of the world?

So therefore he, who knew Telegonus,

The child of Circe by Laertes' son,

Was set to be a scourge of Zeus, smote not,

But rather sat with moody eyes, and mused,

And watched the dead. For who may brave the gods?

Yet, O my fathers, when the people came,

And brought the holy oils and perfect fire,

And built the pile, and sang the tales of Troy

Of desperate travels in the olden time,

By shadowy mountains and the roaring sea,

Near windy sands and past the Thracian snows

The man who crossed them all to see his sire,

And had a loyal heart to give the king,

Instead of blows this man did little more

Than moan outside the fume of funeral rites,

All in a rushing twilight full of rain,

And clap his palms for sharper pains than swords.

Yea, when the night broke out against the flame,

And lonely noises loitered in the fens,

This man nor stirred nor slept, but lay at wait,

With fastened mouth. For who may brave the gods?