The Legacy Of Odysseus

Download audio file read by Glyn Moody.

The famous ‘Cave of the Nymphs’, where Ulysses hid
His accumulated wealth on waking in Ithaca, we did
Not see.  Nor, in Stavros, could we locate
The remains of his palace (not that great,
By all accounts).  Laertes’ Farm we saw;
Basically olive trees, some stones and nothing more.
Polis, too, we found – a glorious place.
But of ancient sunken cities, not a trace.
And yet this was his isle.  Rocky,
And double-humped, every inch of this land
Is his, while a glance to sea always gives
The feeling he has just, at last, arrived.  His stocky,
Unmistakeable frame, and his crafty hand
Are manifest in every village.  Odysseus lives.

(31.8.96)

The Game

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“Father, let us play.”  A fearful old
Potentate among dulling perfumes and fans,
I think of all that I had bartered and sold
To reap the acme and nadir of every man’s
Life (the sweat of bullocks trudging through the mud
Of the patchwork paddy-fields, the maiden’s modest blush
As ochre skin turns to scarlet flood).
“With what and how shall we play?” I ask in the hush
That has lasted too long.  “It is easy, my father:
Give me but something, even the merest toy.”
“But alas, my son, I have nothing,” I parry, “ – or rather,
What I had is already yours, my dearest boy.”
“O sir, I know that your mighty bullocks have ploughed,
And your fair maidens threshed... ” (my head bowed

Slightly, I wait for what comes next
As a condemned man expects the swinging blade) 
“Go on,” I say, as if reciting a text
Already written, a part that must be played.
“And so, my generous lord,” – here, he smiles – 
“All I ask are a few seeds of rice.”
Like a fool, I laugh, trying to fathom the wiles
That lie behind.  “And the game, my son?”  And in a trice
He says, “ – Just this: place one grain on the first
Square of a chessboard; two grains
On the second, and double to the end – a little thing.”
I assent, and order my slaves –  though fearing the worst –  
To begin.  The child sings, and such strange refrains:
“Checkmate, the shah is dead: long live the king....”

(31.8.1996)

A Classic

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The problem, then, facing the Greek pol-
eis – those on the mainland, but excluding Sparta through its lack
Of appropriate traditions, on the islands, and among the col-
onies found to the far West and along the Black
Sea coast – was this.  Having created
The basic elements of the classical temple, it proved
Impossible to reconcile them completely.  Stated
Simply, either the extreme triglyphs were moved
Past the centre of the columns, or the latter stood
Proud of the former, leading to an ungain-
ly overhang.  Some said symmetry should never
Be sacrificed; others, though, held good
Design meant following function; all maintain-
ed the end-result should be a possession for ever.

(28.8.96)

The Greeks In The East

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Nobody buys food in Venice: there are no
Corner shops or supermarkets in the city.
Nor do people live here: go
To a doorway and you find only hotels.  But pretty
Well the world is an artist, to judge at least
By the galleries and museums found at every turn.
Hardly moribund, each summer this carneval feast
Of non-physical nourishment must spurn
Its visitors for simple lack of space.  Could 
This be the sinking West’s future: to make
A glorious exhibition of itself?  If so, we should
Not talk of loser or coloniser, since this is a game of take
And mutual take.  Look at St Mark’s Square:
Half the Japanese nation is happy to be there.

(19.8.96)

The Greeks In The West

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Back to the Palazzo Grassi, this time
To see ‘The Greeks in the West’.  At first, I’d not
Intended to go: it hardly sounded prime
Viewing – some sandstone fragments, a pale pot
Or two.  But there, re-oriented, it dawned on me
And my muddled, senescent brain what a colossal show
This was.  It supplied, through a lucid exege-
sis in the best tradition, a sense of how what we know
As the Classical was forged – from the origin of the Doric
To the perfecting of the temple’s majestic hexastyle.
Moreover, each room directed my attention
To the inescapable fact that much of this historic
Achievement was the work of the margins: while
Athens fiddled, the colonies burned with invention.

(19.8.96)

Odyssey

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The saga began at an unspeakable hour of the day
When we left London and took a taxi-cab
Down to Gatwick.  From there, half-way
Across Europe to Cephalonia airport, to grab
An oven-hot coach and begin a journey straight
Out of fable.  First, the city of Argostoli,
And its impossibly narrow streets.  Undulat-
ing like an eel, our bus moved on to worse folly,
Negotiating the goat-track roads that cling
To the curves of the unsayably beautiful head-
lands and turquoise bays delimiting the isle, to bring
Us to Fiscardo.  From the quay, we gingerly thread-
ed our way along the ship’s gang-plank to embark
On the short last leg of our voyage.  But hark....

(16.8.96)

Echt Oder?

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I linger in the Rosenkavalier restaurant,
Eat goulash soup and Wiener schnitzel, sip
Hundertwaßer’s mineral water.  Want-
ing are only the strains of the marvellous yet mindless trip-
le-time lilt of Johann Strauß’s Blue Danube waltz 
To make me feel rather too close to the heart
Of the unbearably kitsch in Österreich, of the cloying and false.
Yet just here really is the barycentre, the start
Of all the Gaßen in Mitteleuropa.  This place,
A mezzanine in the Südbahnhof, is station-
ed between the east and south platforms; deft
Migrations of peoples across this anonymous space
Route them back to every ex-nation
Of the Royal and Imperial.  Austria is what is left.

(10.8.96)