MOTHER NATURE REVISITED

The Love Embrace of the Universe, the Earth (Mexico), Diego, Myself and Señor Xólotl

When you came back to me –

I painted a green day-hand and a brown night-hand
holding up Mexico, her canyons and deserts,
    her candelabra cacti.

And we were there, embraced by our land.
You were my naked baby
who is reborn every minute with your third eye open. 

Even our dog Señor Xólotl was curled
on the wrist of evening,
ready to bear our souls to the underworld if he had to.

Together, we stared out beyond the picture, saw
in the dark window a small woman in a wheelchair
cast out in a workshop far beyond the moon,

desperately mixing the colours of love
    until they vibrated –
watermelon greens, chilli reds, pumpkin orange.

She hurriedly drew the shattered arms
of the universe –
                             holding us all up

as if we were a mountain dripping roots and stones.

From What the Water Gave Me: Poems after Frida Kahlo (Seren, 2010)

© 2011 Pascale Petit

**

The modern idea of nature is chiefly benevolent. We speak of the nurturing “Mother Nature.” We don’t hear much about “Nature red in tooth and claw.” But let us take a look at that interesting passage in Tennyson’s In Memoriam:

55.

The wish, that of the living whole

No life may fail beyond the grave,

Derives it not from what we have

The likest God within the soul?

Are God and Nature then at strife,

That Nature lends such evil dreams?

So careful of the type she seems,

So careless of the single life;

That I, considering everywhere

Her secret meaning in her deeds,

And finding that of fifty seeds

She often brings but one to bear,

I falter where I firmly trod,

And falling with my weight of cares

Upon the great world’s altar-stairs

That slope thro’ darkness up to God,

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,

And gather dust and chaff, and call

To what I feel is Lord of all,

And faintly trust the larger hope.

  

 56.

‘So careful of the type?’ but no.

From scarped cliff and quarried stone

She cries, ‘A thousand types are gone:

I care for nothing, all shall go.

‘Thou makest thine appeal to me:

I bring to life, I bring to death:

The spirit does but mean the breath:

I know no more.’ And he, shall he,

Man, her last work, who seem’d so fair,

Such splendid purpose in his eyes,

Who roll’d the psalm to wintry skies,

Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer,

Who trusted God was love indeed

And love Creation’s final law–

Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw

With ravine, shriek’d against his creed–

Who loved, who suffer’d countless ills,

Who battled for the True, the Just,

Be blown about the desert dust,

Or seal’d within the iron hills?

No more? A monster then, a dream,

A discord. Dragons of the prime,

That tare each other in their slime,

Were mellow music match’d with him.

O life as futile, then, as frail!

O for thy voice to soothe and bless!

What hope of answer, or redress?

Behind the veil, behind the veil.

~ here Nature’s indifference to human needs is duly lamented.  “I care for nothing; all shall go” is her reply to man’s desperate plea for immortality – and if not immortality, then at least of some show of caring.

Man’s helplessness was presented earlier in Canto 54:

So runs my dream, but what am I?

An infant crying in the night,

An infant crying for the light

And with no language but a cry.

~ together with the “lame hands of faith,” Tennyson, though in the end defending religion, seems mainly to have eloquently stated the case for nature’s alleged “cruelty.” Cruelty, however, implies that nature is deliberate evil; in fact, nature is merely amoral, as innocent as that “infant crying in the night.”

It’s interesting that Czeslaw Milosz, known for poems praising the beauty of nature, was not in fact all that far from from Tennyson’s position. He writes,

Amost every day, Public Television airs nature programs, mainly for young people. About spiders, fish, lizards, coyotes, animals of the desert or of alpine meadow, and so on. The technical excellence of the photography doesn’t prevent me from considering these programs obscene. Because what they show offends our human, moral understanding – not only offends it, but subverts it, for the thesis of these programs is: You see, that’s how it is in Nature; therefore, it is natural; and we, too, are a part of Nature, we belong to the evolutionary chain, we have to accept the world as it is.

If I turn off the television, horrified, disgusted by the images of mutual indifferent devouring, and also by the mind of the man who filmed it, is it because I am capable of picturing what this looks like when translated into the life of human society?

. . . The makers of those films have a scientific outlook and show the truth, nothing but the truth; furthermore, they appreciate the splendid photogeneity of nature.

. . . Is hunting and devouring each other the very essence of Nature? It is, that is why I dislike Nature.

~ A Year of the Hunter, pp 48-50 (1994; emphasis mine)

But, as usual, Milosz shows that he has two souls. The prose quoted above was written by his more elevated, Catholic soul. But his cat-loving pagan soul wrote this charming defense of nature:

To Mrs. Professor in Defense Of My Cat's Honor And Not Only

My valiant helper, a small-sized tiger 
Sleeps sweetly on my desk, by the computer, 
Unaware that you insult his tribe. 

Cats play with a mouse or with a half-dead mole. 
You are wrong, though: it's not out of cruelty. 
They simply like a thing that moves. 

For, after all, we know that only consciousness 
Can for a moment move into the Other, 
Empathize with the pain and panic of a mouse. 

And such as cats are, all of Nature is. 
Indifferent, alas, to the good and the evil. 
Quite a problem for us, I am afraid. 

Natural history has its museums, 
But why should our children learn about monsters, 
An earth of snakes and reptiles for millions of years? 

Nature devouring, nature devoured, 
Butchery day and night smoking with blood. 
And who created it? Was it the good Lord? 

Yes, undoubtedly, they are innocent, 
Spiders, mantises, sharks, pythons. 
We are the only ones who say: cruelty. 

Our consciousness and our conscience 
Alone in the pale anthill of galaxies 
Put their hope in a humane God. 

Who cannot but feel and think, 
Who is kindred to us by his warmth and movement, 
For we are, as he told us, similar to Him. 

Yet if it is so, the He takes pity 
On every mauled mouse, every wounded bird. 
Then the universe for him is like a Crucifixion. 

Such is the outcome of your attack on the cat: 
A theological, Augustinian grimace, 
Which makes difficult our walking on this earth.


~ Czeslaw Milosz, Facing the River (1995)

**

Here Milosz acknowledges the innocence of nature. Only humans mistakenly say: cruelty, and imagine the kind of deity who cares for every mouse and bird. Yet if this is so, “then the universe for him is like a Crucifixion,” Milosz brilliantly observes. This position – that nature is “cruel” – only makes our life more difficult. Much as he would like to believe in a totally caring god, Milosz will not condemn his beloved cat. The cat is as innocent as Frida Kahlo's dog, Señor Xólotl "curled . . . on the wrist of evening." 

But wait! The human psyche and human values cannot be so easily dismissed. We are the ones capable of pity for all suffering – and of remembering the beings, human and animal and vegetal, who are no more. Lois P. Jones sent me this beautiful French poem by Rilke:

WHAT SURVIVES 

Who says that all must vanish?
Who knows, perhaps the flight
of the bird you wound remains,
and perhaps flowers survive
caresses in us, in their ground.

It isn’t the gesture that lasts,
but it dresses you again in gold
armor – from breast to knees –
and the battle was so pure
an Angel wears it after you.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke, tr. A. Poulin 

***


Michael (at Mile 410 of the Pacific Crest Trail)

I enjoyed wrestling with the thoughts in your most recent post.

A great injustice, an unfortunate thoughtlessness, is the inappropriate use – the gross use – of and in humans and nature – there is no and, humans are nature. We are as much nature as any other creature (and gasp! we haven't even begun talking about the so-called inanimate...). The AND in Human and nature has lead to a world of fear and division and disregard and power-over.

One such consequence is the world as an animal Auschwitz – 58 billion land animals senselessly killed each year for food, worldwide. The creatures taken from the sea are many, many more. I saw a butcher buying goats in NW China. He lead them to his cart, grabbed them by the skin on the back, and hurled each over the 6' side of the cart and let each drop on its back, on the floor. For him, the goat was apart from him. He believed in the AND. Nature is to be controlled. Disregarded. Killed. Not worthy of respect, nor is there reason to be concerned for its suffering.

Last week I was a hiking a few miles south of The Devil's Punchbowl on the PCT and rounded a corner and nearly bumped into two young men. From their clothing I guessed they were on their first day-hike, venturing into the wilds with only Hollywood as a guide. The meeting was sudden, neither of us had heard the other coming. One of them said, "Damn, I thought you were a bear." A bear. Right. But he was serious and to support his concern, he held a handgun, a version of the famed 1911 pistol, hammer back. I wanted to laugh and at the same time slap him silly for being so naive and stupid and for endangering my life and those of others hikers. He believed in the AND.

In a general way it might be said there are two kinds of Pacific Crest Trail hikers: First, those who believe nature is a force to reckon with, to be wary of, and they plan for her volatile ways – these folks carry gear for every contingency – one, two, or even three first aid kits, a satellite phone or tracking device, GPS, maps for several miles in every possible direction, food for an extra day or two, a back-up water filter, too much clothing, snow shoes (in spring and summer?), a shovel, etc. They believe in the AND. The second kind believes nature is benevolent and they pack lightly. These are the ultra-light backpackers. They may carry an extra pair of socks. That's it. Enough food for the miles, no back-up gear. These hikers are nature.

It's the view. Of nature. That allows for these different approaches.

Not far from where I live in San Diego someone has scratched into the concrete sidewalk: WE ARE ONE WITH EVERYTHING! Yes, we are. And the walk we must learn to walk is the one without the AND.

I hear the reasoning of the deep ecologists in your discussion--deep ecologists acknowledge the interconnected of systems, but have little concern for the individual. So the earth didn't pause its ponderous revolution when I was born, nor will it pause when I die. But what would happen if humans ceased to exist? If the oceans died? Or the polar ice caps melt? 

Oriana:

The ice caps are already melting, of course. Humans who run the world (presidents, generals, CEO's) seem like a bunch of young male teenagers. The gang mentality. The adolescent belief that we are “separate, different, and superior.” Why are we superior? Because we have morality, while nature, we were taught, is “red in tooth and claw.”

And anyway, by the time the polar caps are totally melted, that will posterity’s problem, and who really cares for posterity? It’s been observed that some people never use the future tense. 

Even having children and grandchildren does not necessarily make them care. I remember having chatted with a real-estate developer. He said he was working on “developing” the hills around San Luis Obispo. “Not those hills!” I moaned. “That’s such a beautiful area.” “I know,” he replied. I used to hike there when I was in college.” “And where will your children hike?” I asked. At first he pretended not to hear. Then he said, “People need housing,” and became busy working on his laptop.

After all, most agree that profit is more important than nature.

You are correct in your argument that people don’t seem to realize that they ARE nature. Hence either the romanticized, deified version of Nature, or the degraded rape-her-while-you-can nature. But Milosz has gotten himself into a different conundrum. He is disgusted by the food chain: all this devouring. He wants a divine order where maybe we can just feed on light. This reminds me of Linda Pastan’s wonderful poem:

The Imperfect Paradise 

If God had stopped work after the fifth day

With Eden full of vegetables and fruits,

If oak and lilac held exclusive sway

Over a kingdom made of stems and roots,

If landscape were the genius of creation

And neither man nor serpent played a role

And God must look to wind for lamentation

And not to picture postcards of the soul,

Would he have rested on his bank of cloud,

With nothing in the universe to lose,

Or would he hunger for a human crowd?

Which would a wise and just creator choose:

The green hosannas of a budding leaf

Or the strict contract between love and grief?

~ Linda Pastan

Nevertheless, Milosz is sane enough not to call nature “cruel.” After having witnessed a huge amount of human cruelty, he knows very well that it’s not his cat that is cruel. And he realizes that not even the God of Love (as opposed to Blakean “Nobodaddy”) could open up to all suffering, because then the universe would be a constant crucifixion. And even God wants to be happy! So, in midst of sorrow, we must choose to live in joy. Only a basically joyful person, I suspect, can be emotionally strong enough to try to actively minimize suffering and environmental destruction. 


But what I particularly fear is people who don’t seem to have any sense of the sacred or, what may be equivalent, a sense of beauty. 

Scott:


Where DO you find those pictures?! The clarity of the images for your posts are really striking. I really liked the Chinese fisherman with his cormorants, saw one of those birds just this weekend on the coast of Georgia. The Chinese fisherman image on your post brought to mind, oddly enough, the thought of the Quakers and their being known as
Children of the Light; Lowell's 'Quaker Graveyard on Nantucket' comes to mind as well. 

Which that leads to Melville(Lowell as you probably know makes many allusions to 'Moby Dick'). Melville was haunted by Calvinism most of his life. Like Milosz he never fully escaped his upbringing though at the end of his life he seemed to have acquired some peace.

Oriana:


For images, I scour the Internet. The best images are often not attributed, to my astonishment. But maybe it’s better that way, in line with Internet generosity.

That's a wonderful comparison of Melville's Calvinism to Milosz's old-time Catholicism. Either way, it's not a lovable deity. I think Milosz had at least some moments of peace – several late poems indicate that. He felt that at least in his old age he’d be accepted “as is” – but certainly without any apologies for the huge amount of suffering he had to witness or experience, for the silence when he prayed that the suffering of others be relieved. I think Milosz arrived at moments of blissful acceptance and moments of agonized acceptance.

THE SIRENS STILL SING TO US

We must steer clear of the Sirens, their enchanting

song, their meadow starred with flowers –

Odysseus warns his crewmen, repeating the advice given to him by Circe.  Homer’s Sirens are not beautiful; in their early depictions on Greek vases, they are monstrous hybrids of birds and women. Homer says they

loll in their flowered meadow, round them heaps of corpses

rotting away, rags of skin shriveling on their bones.

They do not devour the sailors who jump from their ship and swim to the Sirens’ island, lured by the irresistible song. The men presumably starve, unable to tear themselves away from listening to the Sirens.

When it comes to beautiful singing, Greek mythology supplies us with two main examples: Orpheus, and the Sirens. Both sang with ravishing voices. Animals, enchanted, followed Orpheus; even trees uprooted themselves to follow his song. The song of female Sirens was even more compelling, making men forget all else, listening to the singing until they became piles of bones and rotting skin. Ever since, “Siren song” has stood for “fatal attraction.”

We know the Sirens had beautiful voices and their song, we imagine, had a lovely melody. The Sirens are the daughters of a river god and the muse of tragedy, Melpomene. In an alternate version, their mother is the muse of epic poetry, Calliope.

But what were the lyrics of their song? Let us turn to Homer.

The wind dies down, and the crew starts rowing. Odysseus plugs their ears with wax, has himself lashed to the mast, and hears this:

Come here, honored Odysseus, Achaia’s glory,

and stay your ship to listen to our voices.

No one has sailed past here in his black ship

until he has heard our honey-sweet song;

Then he sails on, well-pleased and richer in knowledge.

We know the grief the Greeks and Trojans suffered 
on the wide plain of Troy because the gods willed it.

We know all that passes on the generous earth.

**

The song is not about sex, and not about homecoming.  Some scholars argue that it is about fame. On face value, however, the song seems to be about knowledge. Perhaps the song is customized, depending on what the listener most desires. To Odysseus, a man with a brilliant mind, the Sirens offer knowledge: the knowledge of all that happens, but possibly also the knowledge of the past and the future. Odysseus wants to stop and listen; he wants to be untied, which he desperately tries to signal to his crew by jerking his eyebrows; he is clearly tempted by the song.

The Sirens know how seductive, even irresistible, the search for knowledge can be; these ancient psychologists may even understand the compulsive nature of unfocused curiosity. Only in our age of “information overload” do we begin to understand the actual horror of it: Odysseus wants to know everything that happens in the world.

But the song of Homer’s Sirens does not seem to satisfy the modern reader. We expected something much more erotic and wonderfully strange. Here is how Margaret Atwood imagines what the Sirens sing:

SIREN SONG

This is the one song everyone
would like to learn: the song
that is irresistible:

the song that forces men
to leap overboard in squadrons
even though they see the beached skulls

the song nobody knows
because anyone who has heard it
is dead, and the others can’t remember.

Shall I tell you the secret
and if I do, will you get me
out of this bird suit?

I don't enjoy it here
squatting on this island
looking picturesque and mythical

with these two feathery maniacs,
I don’t enjoy singing
this trio, fatal and valuable.

I will tell the secret to you,
to you, only to you.
Come closer.  This song

is a cry for help: Help me!
Only you, only you can,
you are unique

at last.  Alas
it is a boring song
but it works every time.

~ Margaret Atwood, from You Are Happy

**

This is an appeal both to altruism (Help me!) and to vanity (only you are powerful and unique enough to help me).

Linda Pastan remains closer to Homer, beginning with a lament:

Is there no music now  . . .

for which a man would go breathlessly

off course, would even drown?

THE SIRENS

Is there no music now

except the chime

of coins in the pocket

for which a man would go breathlessly

off course, would even drown?

Odysseus tied to his mast

regretted his own foresight.

In ordinary days to come in Ithaca

the song of some distant bird,

the chords of water against

the shore, even Penelope

humming to herself at the loom

would make his head turn, his eyes

stray toward the sea.

~ Linda Pastan, The Imperfect Paradise

**

Pastan is not concerned with the words of the Sirens’ song. What’s ravishing is the music, the pure sound. We could even argue that it’s a beautiful death, listening to the divine melody. “Now more than ever it seems rich to die,” Keats said about listening to a nightingale.

Edward Hirsch, however, picks up on the image of the Sirens “lolling,” and the result is a marvelous poem not about music and singing, but another kind of bliss.

2. THE RAVISHMENT

  (The Odyssey, Book Twelve)

I listened so the goddess could charm my mind

against the ravishing sunlight, the lord of noon,

and I could stroll through country unharmed

toward the prowling straits of Scylla and Charybdis,

but I was unprepared for the Siren lolling

on a bed in a dirty room above a tavern

where workers guzzled sour red wine

and played their cards late into the night.

It takes only a moment to cruise eternity

who dressed quickly and left, after twenty minutes,

taking my money. I went back to the ship

and the ordinary men pressing for home,

but, love, some part of me has never left

that dark green shore sweetened with clover.

   ~ Edward Hirsch, The Desire Manuscripts,

               from Lay Back the Darkness

When I read Hirsch’s poems, only my delight keeps me from crying with envy. “It takes only a moment to cruise eternity” is my favorite line, but the entire poem ravishes the reader with its natural flow of a little narrative where everything seems natural and inevitable, and yet is a marvelous surprise at the same time.

When I was growing up in Warsaw, I was fascinated by what glimpses I could get of the city’s nightlife. It was presided over by beautiful, elegant women. Their every gesture was erotic, with a stylized, film-noir quality to it. It didn’t seem to matter what these Sirens whispered or crooned to the men kissing their hands and lighting their cigarettes; their power was a self-confident eroticism.

But I hated the thought of how much time those women had to spend on their looks; besides, I didn’t feel I’d ever have the expertise about the arcana of hairdos, make-up, and clothes. Not that I was attracted to the ideal of the modest service-type woman, the opposite of the temptress. Basically I didn’t want to grow up to be a woman; I desperately wanted to stay myself, a young girl watching the great city, exhilarated by its energy and mystery. 

My own “Siren” poem grew out of the earlier “women” version -- http://oriana-poetry.blogspot.com/2010/05/nightcity-warsaw-at-night.html

NIGHTCITY

Sirens shimmer fluorescent 

in shop windows, signs

tremble like thin ice

over cafés and bars –

narrow skirts, tight blouses

serving up their breasts,

Sirens lean toward men

lighting their cigarettes;

dusky voices uncoil

from lipstick and smoke.

I still cross myself

when passing a church,

but I want the bell of darkness

over the unfinished

arc of streetlights,

the electric hues

hiving in wet asphalt.

Chilled in winter sleet, 

I can't wait to ride

on the express C bus

through downtown Warsaw

at night: thin moons

of my breath on the pane,

a slippery algebra of lights.

The accordion doors

swoosh open and shut with a sigh;

on the radio, a song of those years:

The Dancing Eurydices.

Eurydices dance in hell,

the lights flow like destinies:

soon I will be a woman,

a Siren or a Eurydice –

multiplied, spiraled with neon,

arriving in metal and mirrors –

steep glare of entrances,

though the shivering signs

shuffle the avenues 

like a pack of cards;

the lights change but keep silent 

about the price of song. 

   ~ Oriana

**

On a more elevated level, I could also say that the choice presented to me was between Mary and Martha: Mary who “chose the better part,” listening to divine teaching, and poor Martha laboring in the kitchen. My father would sometimes remark, with some sarcasm, “I know those who chose the better part.” 

**

(I wish to thank Una, Lenny Lianne, and Jackleen Holton for their contributions to this part of the post, especially for their patience with my serial revisionism. The passages from Homer have been arranged by me using both the Richard Lattimore and the Robert Fables translations).

SIRENS AS CONSOLERS OF THE DEAD

I must add one more thing. Only yesterday, while visiting the “Hero” exhibit at the San Diego Museum of Art, I was astonished to learn that the concept of the Siren evolved away from the Homeric femme fatale toward something more akin to our notion of an angel.  The wings stayed, as well as the attribute of music. The most striking piece of art in the whole show was a funerary Siren: sculpted in marble, a lovely woman with large wings, playing a kithara, a string instrument resembling a lyre. It turns out that Sirens were believed to accompany the dead to the Underworld, consoling them with music. Ultimately, the Sirens, who could impart mystical wisdom, also became a symbol of the soul yearning for paradise.

And since I mentioned Orpheus as another ravishing singer, let us not forget that Orpheus too had a connection with the Underworld, and the Orphic mysteries were similar to the Eleusinian mysteries that honored Demeter and Persephone. While Orpheus sang in Hades, all suffering ceased. Need we say more about the power of music? Lovers of classical music often say that this is the closest we can come to the divine. Orpheus and the Sirens have more in common than enchanting music – not the Homeric Sirens, but the consolers of the dead. We lose the world, but we gain the song.

[Alas, this image of a funerary Siren, dating to the first century BC, is nowhere as lovely as the one I saw.]

ARGOS RECOGNIZES ODYSSEUS

[image: Odysseus as a beggar in Ithaca]   

           . . .  and so the swineherd

Led his master, looking like

An old, broken-down beggar, leaning

On a staff and dressed in miserable rags.

. . .

           While [Odysseus] spoke

an old hound, lying near, pricked up his ears

and lifted up his muzzle. This was Argos,

trained as a puppy by Odysseus,

but never taken on a hunt before

his master sailed for Troy. The young men, afterward,

hunted wild goats with him, and hare, and deer,

but he had grown old in his master’s absence.

Treated as rubbish now, he lay at last

upon a mass of dung before the gates –

manure of mules and cows, piled there until

fieldhands could spread it on the king’s estate.

Abandoned there, and half destroyed with flies,

old Argos lay.

But when he knew he heard

Odysseus’ voice nearby, he did his best

to wag his tail, nose down, with flattened ears,

having no strength to move nearer his master.

And man looked away,

wiping a salt tear from his cheek: but he

hid this from Eumaios, and said to him,

“Eumaios, this is amazing, this dog that lies on the dunghill.

The shape of him is splendid, yet I cannot be certain

whether he had the running speed to go with this beauty.”

[Eumaios speaks, describing Argos]

“If this old hound could show

the form he had when Lord Odysseus left him,

going to Troy, you’d see him swift and strong.

He never shrank from any savage thing

he’d brought to bay in the deep woods; on the scent

no other dog kept up with him. Now misery

has him in leash. His owner died abroad,

and here the women slaves will take no care of him.

You know how servants are: without a master

they have no will to labor, or excel.

For Zeus who views the wide world takes away

half the manhood of a man, that day

he goes into captivity and slavery.”

Eumaios crossed the court and went straight forward

into the [Great Hall] among the suitors;

but death and darkness in that instant closed

the eyes of Argos, who had seen his master,

Odysseus, after twenty years.

~ Homer, The Odyssey, Book 17, translated by Robert Fitzgerald; except for the first four lines here, translated by Stanley Lombardo, and the three lines spoken by Odysseus to Eumaios, translated by Richmond Lattimore.

**

In her sequence, “Re-reading the Odyssey in Middle Age,” (The Imperfect Paradise), Linda Pastan has a poem in the persona of Argos.

ARGOS

Shaggy and incontinent,

I have become the very legend

of fidelity. I am

more famous than the dog star

or those hounds of Charon’s

who nip at a man’s ankles

on is way to the underworld.

Even Penelope wanted

proof, and Eurykleia

had to see a scar.

But I knew what I knew –

what else are noses for?

Men are such needy creatures,

Zeus himself comes to them

as an animal. I’ll take

my place gladly

among the bones and fleas

of this fragrant dung heap

and doze my doggy way

through history.

            ~ Linda Pastan

**

This is perhaps the least successful poem in the whole sequence, and no, it’s not fair to present this weak poem after quoting a moving passage in The Odyssey – but I am glad Pastan reminds the readers of this touching scene of recognition, the first one in the Odyssey.

For the Western reader, the dung heap calls to mind Job, in his poverty and sickness, sitting on a dunghill, scratching his boils with a broken potsherd. It is also interesting to ponder the parallel between Odysseus, returning to his palace in a beggar’s rags, and the wretched circumstances of his old dog, once the best hunter. Argos on the dung heap is almost a symbol of Odysseus, who gets rough treatment as a beggar, except from the swineherd Eumaios, who believes strangers and beggars come from the gods.

We know that Odysseus is not a beggar; the rags are only a temporary disguise. Later, the “divine Odysseus,” the “godlike survivor,” will be restored to his glory. And Argos too is momentarily restored to his former glory, in the account of Eumaios.

Note that the recognition is mutual; Odysseus tears up at the sight of the dying Argos, who wags his tails and flattens his ears, trying to greet him, but has no strength to approach him.

John Guzlowski commented about Pastan’s “Argos”: “It feels like a betrayal of the original poem, something that is good and true.”

Since the sequence is titled "Re-reading the Odyssey in Middle Age," we must assume that Pastan had Homer's version still vivid in her memory. The dog's thinking, Oh, I'm so famous, I'm the most famous dog in history, feels utterly false. Anyone who has ever experienced the warmth of a dog's affection when the animal greets you knows a simple, all-forgiving love that's beyond human capacity, except for saints and little children.

And this is in fact a heart-rending scene, both Odysseus and the dog "in rags." It reminds me of another touching scene, when the blinded Cyclops speaks to his favorite ram. Is it the affection and empathy that can exist between humans and animals? Is it the richness of detail? Both scenes have a soulfulness that resists intellectual theorizing; in a mysterious way, they let me know that the poet has known the depths of suffering. 

I hasten to say that Linda Pastan has written many excellent poems, including "Circe" in the Odyssey sequence. And, to reiterate, I am grateful even for "Argos," because it made me re-read Homer.

As for the death of Argos, I can’t help thinking of yet another biblical parallel: the “nunc dimittis” scene of old Simeon being able to die now that he has seen the promised savior (Luke 2: 29-32).

The name Argos means “bright” or “shining.” How simple great poetry can be! The wagging of that tail, the flattening of those ears – immortal now, shining. 


**

As an aside, I want to draw the reader’s attention to this passage in Homer:

You know how servants are: without a master

they have no will to labor, or excel.

For Zeus who views the wide world takes away

half the manhood of a man, that day

he goes into captivity and slavery.

**

The ancient Greeks highly admired areté, or excellence (sometimes translated as “virtue” or “manhood”). The word is related to aristos, “best” – the root of “aristocrat.” It seems obvious that a slave would not be motivated to excel, since he labors under duress, for the benefit of someone else. I found the passage very striking because it always puzzled me why some people had the will to excel, while others, generally the majority, did not. I observed this not only as a teacher, but also at any job I ever held, or, in the realm of leisure, in any exercise class I ever took. There were those who worked hard and aspired to excellence, and those who tried to get away with doing the least.

What Homer illuminated for me is how freedom enters into this “will to excel” or its absence. Slaves have no will to excel; they will not work a minute more than required; they try to minimize effort, and no one can blame them. But why do so many people behave as though they were slaves? They do not see themselves as free agents. Striving for excellence presupposes freedom. I feel the most free when I work the hardest – given that no one is forcing me to work with dedication, to “walk the extra mile.” There is a pleasure in doing something at the level of excellence. But perhaps the underlying and more basic pleasure is in knowing yourself to be free. 

                                [ Arete in Ephesus: Arete personified as a goddess ]