Poems Page 9

  not ride into combat on a snorting warhorse.

  You don’t want to be braying alarms on a raucous

  bugle, or letting Mars loose in Hesiod’s grove;

  or concerned on what battlefield Marius’ standard

  is raised, or Rome is smashing Teutonic hordes;

  or how the far-flung Rhine, dyed with Swabian blood,

  carries mangled bodies in grieving waters.

  No, you’ll sing of garlanded lovers at someone’s doorstep,

  holding the drunken standards of night-time dalliance,

  so anyone needing your skills to cheat scowling husbands

  can charm shut-away girls to come out to play.’

  Thus Calliope.

  She reached her hand into the spring

  and dabbed my lips

  with water Philitas drank.

  III.4

  Divine Caesar is pondering hostilities against the wealthy Indians,

  his fleet slicing through the narrows of the pearl-bearing sea.

  The pay off, Rome, is significant: the ends of the earth are preparing your triumph;

  the Tigris and Euphrates will flow according to your dictates;

  finally the back of beyond will come under the Western sceptre;

  Parthian trophies will get used to Italy’s climate.

  Forward, ships, billow out you sails of war!

  Men, steer your horses toward the customary task.

  The omens are favourable. Wipe clean the Crassus debacle.

  Godspeed and let Roman history be in your thoughts.

  Father Mars, holy Vesta whose fires control the future,

  let me survive, I pray, until that dawn

  when I see Caesar’s chariot loaded with loot,

  the spears of the fleeing cavalry, the bows of the Eurasian troops,

  the captured leaders sitting beneath their armour,

  the horses shying at the clapping of the mob …

  And me, I’ll be resting on the bosom of my true-love,

  watching and reading off the names of the cities we’ve taken.

  Look after your descendant, Venus – may Augustus live forever,

  the sole survivor of Aeneas’ line.

  Let the spoils go to those whose labours have earned them.

  I’ll be happy just applauding at the roadside.

  III.5

  Love is the god of peace:

  we lovers worship peace.

  I have regular hand-to-hand combat –

  but only with my lover;

  I don’t grab my food

  from tacky golden plate,

  or satisfy my thirst

  from jewel-encrusted cups,

  I have no rich country estates,

  ploughed by two thousand oxen,

  or any bronzes smelted

  in the sack of Corinth.

  What a failure Earth turned out

  for Prometheus its creator,

  so careless in his work

  on the human intellect,

  so concerned with the body

  he left the brain cavity short,

  when the mind’s pathways

  should have been set straight first!

  Now, heedless of the sea,

  we are tossed by the winds

  in search of enemies,

  piling wars on wars.

  You won’t take any cash

  to the waters of Acheron;

  you fool, you will go naked

  on the underworld ferry.

  Victor and vanquished rub

  shoulders among the dead:

  captured Jugurtha sits

  with consul Marius;

  Croesus just at arm’s length

  from the beggar Irus.

  Carpe diem and then die –

  that is the best way.

  I’m glad I worshipped Helicon

  in my early youth

  and joined my hands up in

  the dances of the Muses;

  I’m glad I occupy

  my mind with lots of wine

  and garlands of spring roses

  always adorn my head.

  When burdensome time calls

  a halt to my amours

  and old age sprinkles white

  hairs among the black,

  then I’ll enjoy learning

  the habits of Mother Nature,

  and which god really rules

  this home of ours on earth;

  where the rising sun comes from,

  where it goes when it sets,

  how it is that the moon

  refills its orb each month;

  why gales rule the ocean

  and what the east wind is chasing,

  how come there is everlasting

  water to feed the clouds;

  whether the day will dawn

  that will uproot fortress Earth,

  why the glistening bow

  drinks up the rainwater;

  what causes tremors in

  the summits of Mount Pindus

  or why the sun mourns and

  eclipse blacks out his horses;

  why the starry Ploughman drives

  his oxen and waggon so slowly;

  why the Pleiades’ chorus

  clusters together in fire;

  why the deep ocean

  doesn’t spill over its edges

  and the year is divided

  into its four seasons;

  whether gods hold court in the underworld

  and the wicked are tormented;

  whether there are wheels and rocks,

  and thirst amid all that water,

  the madness of Alcmaeon

  and the hunger of Phineus;

  whether Tisiphone’s head

  writhes with black snakes for hair;

  whether Cerberus guards

  with three mouths the abyss of hell,

  and nine acres are

  too few for Tityus.

  Or is it all some fiction

  that oppresses us poor mortals

  and there can be no fear

  of anything after the grave?

  That is how I shall spend

  my last days; but you who prefer

  to make war, off you go and bring

  the standards of Crassus home.

  III.6

  Oh tell me the truth about my love, Lygdamus,

  if you want to escape the chains of a mistress (mine).

  For every messenger should be worthy of trust,

  especially a vulnerable slave, a fortiori.

  Anything you recall, I want the whole story

  starting at the beginning; I shall be all ears.

  So. Did she cry? If so, how many tears

  fell from her eyes? Was her hair undone?

  Had she not got her mirror out? Was her bed unmade?

  No jewel adorning her snow-white fingers?

  I warn you, Lygdamus, don’t pump me up with false hope,

  reporting what you think I want to hear.

  ‘A dowdy dress hung from her delicate shoulders,

  and her make-up box was closed at the foot of her bed.

  The house was sad, so were her maids, picking up

  their spinning tasks, while she wove in the same room,

  drying her eyes by pressing the wool against them.

  She rejected your accusations indignantly:

  “Lygdamus, is this the reward he promised?

  (Even slaves can be punished for perjury).

  I’m innocent: can he leave me in misery,

  with some unspeakable slut kept in his home?

  Is he happy I’m wasting away alone in bed?

  If he wants to, let him dance, then, on my tomb.

  “That hussy wins on herbs, not on performance:

  she’s got him on her wheel and pulls the strings;

  it’s the magic powers of toad essence or

  bones picked from dried-out snakes that draws him in,

  scre
ech-owl feathers found amid fresh graves,

  a wool headband snatched from a passing corpse.

  “If my dreams come true, Lygdamus, I vow he’ll get

  his punishment, late but lengthy, at my feet:

  a dusty cobweb stretched across his bed:

  Venus snoring on their nights together.”’

  If that’s what she honestly said to you, Lygdamus,

  run back the same way to her house, fast as you can,

  and give her this message, laying on the tears:

  I was angry, not deceitful – and I love her;

  I too am being roasted on the same fire,

  and will swear that I’ve been celibate twelve days.

  Should you manage a happy outcome to our war,

  Lygdamus – if it’s down to me – you’re a free man.

  III.7

  QED. Money, you are the root of all evil.

  You take us on a premature last journey,

  feeding men’s vices with your toxic diet,

  seedbed of our neuroses.

  You smashed a raging sea time and again

  over Paetus sailing to Alexandria.

  Chasing you, he’s lost in the bloom of youth,

  floating, strange fruit for exotic fish.

  Let’s not stop! Let’s lay more hulls, causes

  of oblivion, death brought on by human hand!

  Land wasn’t enough; we added sea, putting

  our skills to building more paths to destruction.

  Will an anchor hold you if your house could not?

  What does he merit who finds his country cramped?

  The winds take anything you acquire, no ship

  ever made it to old age; harbours deceive.

  Tied to boulders in storms overnight,

  your ropes frayed, all your moorings failed.

  Nature spreads out the sea to trap the grasping:

  you might be lucky once, not more.

  Kafireas’ reefs once broke the victorious fleet

  of Greece, driven to wreck in the desolate ocean.

  Ulysses mourned his comrades, lost one by one,

  his wiles worthless against the waves.

  Now Paetus had to hear the storm whistle,

  his soft hands rubbed raw by rough cables;

  no bedroom of citron-wood or terebinth,

  no multi-coloured pillow to prop his head:

  that villainous night saw him lie on a tiny plank,

  his gasping mouth sucking in the fatal water,

  the surge tearing out his still-living nails:

  disasters conspired to make Paetus die.

  These his final tearful words,

  as the black liquor closed over his dying lips:

  ‘Aegean gods, winds that control the seas,

  waves pulling down my head, why

  are you snatching the doomed years of my youth?

  I came to your channels, boyish hair uncut,

  to be dashed against sharp rocks where razorbills preen!

  Neptune has raised his trident against me.

  At least may the swell wash me to Italy,

  so my mother may hold whatever is left of me.

  But why spell out my age or, as I swim,

  speak of my mother? The sea has no gods.’

  Then the maelstrom dragged him under –

  his last words, his last day.

  If he’d been content to turn the soil with the family

  oxen, if he’d taken my advice,

  he’d be living, happily dining with friends at home,

  poor but on terra firma, just riches missing.

  You sea-nymphs, the hundred daughters of Nereus,

  and Thetis, touched by a mother’s grief,

  you could have cupped his tired chin in your hands:

  he’d not have weighed upon your arms.

  Sinister North Wind, feared rapist of Orithyia,

  what were the great spoils you took from him?

  Some trophy – eh, Neptune? – that shattered ship,

  the keel that carried those men of religion.

  Seagulls hover now above your bones,

  the whole Aegean is your cemetery;

  your mother can’t make offerings at your grave

  or inter you in the family vault.

  Hand back the body, waves: the sea took his life;

  cheap sand, cover Paetus naturally;

  and the sailor passing Paetus’ sepulchre

  will say: ‘Even the bold should fear the ocean.’

  Cruel North Wind, you’ll never see my sails:

  mine’s a landlubber’s tomb at my lady’s door.

  III.8

  What a thrill last night our lamplit battle!

  All the abuse of your enraged voice!

  Go for it, grab hold of my hair,

  dig your designer nails into my face,

  threaten to burn my eyes out, tear

  my shirt from off my chest! Un petit verre

  and then you knock the table over, full

  glasses come flying at me in your anger:

  true love! The signs are unmistakable –

  when a female’s stressed out, it’s the real thing.

  Women who throw around foul-mouthed insults

  are grovelling at Venus’ feet.

  One rings herself with bodyguards, one hurtles

  like a maenad under the influence down the street,

  one’s terrorised by mad dreams every night,

  one’s moved to misery by a girl’s portrait –

  all proof of passion, Doctor Propertius says

  after years of studying love’s telltale symptoms.

  True commitments are expressed in quarrels.

  (I’ll leave slow-burning girls to my enemies.)

  Competitors can see the bite-marks cover

  my neck; bruises are my girlfriend’s souvenirs.

  Let me feel pain in love, or hear you suffer,

  and see my tears or yours.

  Give me an angry woman to swoon over.

  What fun is sleep when undisturbed by sighs?

  Paris sharpened his erotic joy

  by pleasuring Helen amid the battle’s roar:

  the Greeks advanced, Hector fought on for Troy –

  Paris’ main thrust was ‘twixt his lady’s thighs…

  With you – or about you with rivals – endless war

  will be my lot: peace cannot be.

  But he who plots to steal you from my bed,

  may his house be forever haunted by in-laws!

  And any night that he may get gifted

  is not for love of him but to spite me.

  III.9

  Maecenas, sprung from Etruscan kings yet not

  ruling-class, always anxious not to tempt fortune,

  why launch me on an ocean of versification?

  Great billowing sails will not fit my craft.

  Putting a weight on one’s head that it won’t stand,

  staggering and giving up – it’s humiliating.

  Make allowances for muscle power.

  Palm trees grow at different elevations.

  Lysippus was famed for his ‘breathing’ human sculptures;

  Calamis’ boast (for me) is his perfect horses.

  Apelles painted the woman he adored as Venus;

  Parrhasius plays games in his intricate art.

  The pieces from Mentor’s smithery tell a story;

  those of Mys trail fine acanthus leaves.

  Resplendent ivory for Phidias’ Jupiter,

  while local stone sells Praxiteles.

  Some win Olympic medals for chariot-racing;

  others gain their kudos in the sprint;

  one man’s a diplomat, one excels in war:

  all cultivate the seeds sown in their souls.

  You, Maecenas, could wield the symbols of office,

  lay down laws out in the Roman Forum,

  or charge through the massed ranks of Parthian bo
wmen,

  then load the walls of your home with captured weapons –

  Augustus would give you authority to do it,

  easy wealth would flow to you any time …

  Yet you hold back, modestly hug the shadows,

  you yourself furl your swelling sails.

  Your judgment, trust me, puts you alongside

  men like Camillus; people will speak of you,

  you’ll march to the beat of Caesar’s fame,

  loyalty the real trophy of Maecenas.

  I’ve taken a leaf from your book, Maecenas,

  following your lead so closely I overtake you.

  I don’t cut the sea-swell in a galleon –

  under the banks of a rivulet’s where I’m safe.

  I’ll shed no tears over Thebes’ citadel sinking

  to warm ashes or the rout of all seven attackers;

  I’ll not report on the gates and towers of Troy,

  the ten summers before the Greeks sailed home

  after the city walls had been ploughed over

  by the wooden horse fashioned by Minerva.

  I’ll just give pleasure from Callimachus’ library,

  write in Philitas’ metre – that’s enough.

  Let these writings set the young ablaze –

  they can call me a god, bring me offerings!

  You should flex the reins to steer my youth,

  give direction to my rolling wheels;

  if you showed the way, I’d write of Jupiter’s wars,

  the giants threatening heaven from Thessaly;

  I’d relate how Rome’s bulls grazed the Palatine,

  how Remus’ murder strengthened the ramparts,

  the twin kings suckled at a wild beast’s teat,

  my genius growing to match your commands;

  I’d hail the triumphal chariots from east and west,

  the arrows fired in the Parthians’ crafty flight,

  Egyptian bastions toppled by Roman steel,

  Antony’s death by his own hand…

  As it is, Maecenas, you bring me praise: it’s thanks

  to you that people say I have joined your ranks.

  III.10

  I wondered why the Muses smiled

  standing beside my bed at the blush of sunrise: