Memery

[sovay]

Whatever you're reading right now, what does it make you think of?

Line 81 of Euripides' Helen, spoken by the Greek Teukros to the woman he does not know is Helen -- for all Greece hates the daughter of Zeus, μισεῖ γὰρ Ἑλλὰς πᾶσα τὴν Διὸς κόρην -- touched off an Imagist flash in my brain . . .

All Greece hates
the still eyes in the white face,
the lustre as of olives
where she stands,
and the white hands.

All Greece reviles
the wan face when she smiles,
hating it deeper still
when it grows wan and white,
remembering past enchantments
and past ills.

Greece sees, unmoved,
God's daughter, born of love,
the beauty of cool feet
and slenderest knees,
could love indeed the maid,
only if she were laid,
white ash amid funereal cypresses.
(H.D., "Helen")

. . . and now I'm slightly more inclined to read Helen in Egypt than to continue with the actual Helen in Egypt I have here, conversing anonymous with Aias' brother beside the Nile. So, join the the club. Think tangentially. Give me your free associations!

Comments

[upstart-crow.livejournal.com]

Currently finished doing dramaturgy for a play about Savitri, a character from the Mahabharata (and a very cool play it was too, you would have really liked it!)

She holds his death inside her
lotus-petal lungs and muscle spreading
at the sage's feet. Her pearl mind, pure as
the prayer-beads of water down the reed devises
the only word she knows when Yama, virtue-bright
nooses his prana

please.

I'm working on a longer poem about her. This is pretty rough.