From the Hippolytus of Euripides (by H.D.)

From the Hippolytus  of Euripides
by Hilda Doolittle
[from The Poets’ Translation Series (issued by The Egoist, London, 1919)]

I

THERAPONTES.

	Daemon initiate, spirit
	of the god-race, Artemis,
	Latona’s daughter,
	child of Zeus,
	of all maids loveliest,
	we greet you, mistress:
	you dwell in your father’s house,
	the gold-wrought porches of Zeus,
	apart in the depth of space.

HIPPOLYTUS.

	Of all maids, loveliest,
	I greet you, Artemis,
	loveliest upon Olympus:
	dearest, to you this gift,
	flower set by flower and leaf,
	broken by uncut grass,
	where neither scythe has dipped
	nor does the shepherd yet
	venture to lead his sheep;
	there it is white and fragrant,
	the wild-bee swirls across;
	as a slow rivulet,
	mystic peace broods and drifts:

	Ah! but my own, my dearest,
	take for your gold-wrought locks
	from my hands these flowers,
	as from a spirit.

II

CHORUS OF TROIZENIAN WOMEN.

	At high-tide,
	the sea—they say—
	left a deep pool
	below the rock-shelf:
	in that clear place
	where the women dip
	their water-jars,
	my friend steeped her veils
	and spread the scarlet stuff
	across the hot ridge
	of sun-baked rocks:
	she first brought word
	of my mistress:

	“She lies sick,
	faint on her couch
	within the palace;
	her thin veils
	cast a shadow
	across her bright locks.
	I count three days
	since her beautiful lips
	touched the fine wheat—
	her frail body
	disdains nourishment:
	she suffers—
	some secret hurt
	hastens her death.”

	Surely, O young queen,
	you are possessed
	by Pan, by Hecate,
	by some spirit
	of the Corybantic rites,
	or by Cybele
	from the hill-rocks!
	or have you sinned
	that you suffer thus,
	against Artemis?
	Have you offered
	no sacrificial cakes
	to the huntress?
	For she walks above earth,
	along the sea-coast,
	and across the salt trail
	of the sea-drift.

	Or is it that your lord,
	born of Erechtheus,
	the king most noble in descent,
	neglects you in the palace
	and your bride-couch
	for another in secret?
	Or has some sea-man,
	landing at our port,
	friendly to ships,
	brought sad news from Crete?
	For some great hurt
	binds you to your couch,
	broken in spirit.

III

PHAEDRA.

	Lift my head, help me up,
	I am bruised, bone and flesh;
	chafe my white hands, my servants:
	this weight about my forehead?
	Ah, my veil—loose it—
	spread my hair across my breast.

TROPHOS.

	There, do not start,
	child, nor toss about;
	only calm and high pride
	can help your hurt:
	fate tries all alike.

PHAEDRA.

	Ai, ai! to drink deep
	of spring water
	from its white source;
	ai, ai! for rest—black poplars—
	t hick grass—sleep.

TROPHOS.

	What is this you ask,
	wild words, mad speech—
	hide your hurt, my heart,
	hide your hurt
	before these servants.

PHAEDRA.

	Take me to the mountains!
	O for woods, pine tracts,
	where hounds athirst for death,
	leap on the bright stags!
	God, how I would shout to the beasts
	with my gold hair torn loose;
	I would shake the Thessalian dart,
	I would hurl the barbed arrow from my grasp.

TROPHOS.

	Why, so distraught,
	child, child, why the chase
	and this cold water you would ask:
	but we may get you that
	from deep rills that cut the slopes
	before the gate.

PHAEDRA.

	Artemis of the salt beach
	and of the sea-coast,
	mistress of the race-course,
	trodden of swift feet,
	O for your flat sands
	where I might mount
	with goad and whip
	the horses of Enetas.

IV

	O Spirit,
	spark by spark,
	you instil fire
	through the sight:
	to hearts you attack
	you grant rare happiness!
	Do not front me with grief,
	yourself discord manifest!

	For neither lightning-shaft
	nor yet stars shot
	from a distant place
	can equal the love-dart,
	sped from your hands,
	child of God, Eros.

	In vain along Alpheos,
	in vain (if we defy Eros)
	are the Greek altars
	bright with blood,
	and the Pythian rocks
	with beasts slain
	for Helios:
	Aphrodite’s child
	is man’s chief absolute:
	he protects love’s portal
	and love’s rite,
	or ruthlessly betrays men,
	destroying them
	in his flight.

	So at Oechalie,
	that girl, chaste—
	a wild colt,
	mateless, uncaught—
	was betrayed by Kupris:
	Heracles dragged her,
	a bacchante, hell-loosed,
	from her palace
	to his ship:
	there was flame and blood spilt
	for the bride-chant,
	for rapture, unhappiness.

	O Thebes,
	high-built and chaste,
	O Dirke’s river-bank,
	you can tell how Kupris strikes:
	for with thunder-bolt,
	alight at both points,
	she slew the mother of Bacchus,
	child of Zeus!
	Ah evil wedlock! Ah fate!
	she incites all to evil,
	she flutters over all things,
	like a bee in flight.

V

	O for wings,
	swift, a bird,
	set of God
	among the bird-flocks!
	I would dart
	from some Adriatic precipice,
	across its wave-shallows and crests,
	to Eradanus’ river-source;
	to the place
	where his daughters weep,
	thrice-hurt for Phaeton’s sake,
	tears of amber and gold which dart
	their fire through the purple surface.

	I would seek
	the song-haunted Hesperides
	and the apple-trees
	set above the sand drift:
	there the god
	of the purple marsh
	lets no ships pass;
	he marks the sky-space
	which Atlas keeps—
	that holy place
	where streams,
	fragrant as honey,
	pass to the couches spread
	in the palace of Zeus:
	there the earth-spirit,
	source of bliss,
	grants the gods happiness.

	O ship
	white-sailed of Crete,
	you brought my mistress
	from her quiet palace
	through breaker and crash of surf
	to love-rite of unhappiness!
	Though the boat swept
	toward great Athens,
	though she was made fast
	with ship-cable and ship-rope
	at Munychia the sea-port,
	though her men stood
	on the main-land,
	(whether unfriended by all alike
	or only by the gods of Crete)
	it was evil—the auspice.

	On this account
	my mistress,
	most sick at heart,
	is stricken of Kupris
	with unchaste thought:
	helpless and overwrought,
	she would fasten
	the rope-noose about the beam
	above her bride-couch
	and tie it to her white throat:
	she would placate the daemon’s wrath,
	still the love-fever in her breast,
	and keep her spirit inviolate.

VI

	No more, O my spirit,
	are we flawless,
	we have seen evil undreamt
	I myself saw it:
	the Greek, the most luminous,
	the Athenian, the star-like,
	banished through his father’s hate
	to a country far distant.

	O sand dunes and sand-stretches
	of the Athenian coast,
	O mountain-thickets
	where you climbed,
	following the wild beasts,
	with hounds, delicate of feet,
	bunting with the daemon, Artemis!

	No more
	will you mount your chariot,
	yoked with horses of Enetas,
	nor spur forward your steed
	toward the stadium at Limnas,
	and your chant, ever rapturous,
	and the answering lyre-note,
	shall cease in the king’s house:
	far in the forest depth
	in the glades where she loves to rest,
	Latona’s child shall be crownless:
	at your flight
	the contest of the maidens will cease,
	and their love-longing, comfortless.

	And because of your fate,
	I accept bitter hurt,
	and weep:
	ai, ai, poor mother,
	your birth-pangs were fruitless:
	I am wroth with these spirits:
	alas, Karites, never-separate,
	why, why have you sent him forth,
	the unfortunate, blameless,
	from his palace,
	from his own gates?

VII

         Men you strike
         and the gods’
         dauntless spirits alike,
         and Eros helps you, O Kupris,
         with wings’ swift
         interplay of light:
         now he flies above earth,
         now above sea-crash
         and whirl of salt:
         he enchants beasts
         who dwell in the hills
         and shoals in the sea-depth:
         he darts gold wings
         maddening their spirits:
         he charms all born of earth,
         (all whom Helios visits,
         fiery with light)
         and men’s hearts:
         you alone, Kupris,
         creator of all life,
         reign absolute.

* * *

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From the Iphigeneia in Aulis of Euripides (by H.D.)

From the Iphigeneia in Aulis of Euripides
by Hilda Doolittle
[from The Poets’ Translation Series, No. 3 (issued by The Egoist, London, 1916)]

I

Chorus of the Women of Chalkis

1

	I crossed sand-hills.
	I stand among the sea-drift before Aulis.
	I crossed Euripos’ strait—
	Foam hissed after my boat.

	I left Chalkis,
	My city and the rock-ledges.
	Arethusa twists among the boulders,
	Increases—cuts into the surf.

	I come to see the battle-line
	And the ships rowed here
	By these spirits—
	The Greeks are but half-man.

	Golden Menelaus
	And Agamemnon of proud birth
	Direct the thousand ships.
	They have cut pine-trees
	For their oars.
	They have gathered the ships for one purpose:
	Helen shall return.

	There are clumps of marsh-reed
	And spear-grass about the strait.
	Paris the herdsman passsed through them
	When he took Helen—Aphrodite’s gift.

	For he had judged the goddess
	More beautiful than Hera.
	Pallas was no longer radiant
	As the three stood
	Among the fresh-shallows of the strait.

2

	I crept through the woods
	Between the altars:
	Artemis haunts the place.
	Shame, scarlet, fresh-opened—a flower,
	Strikes across my face.
	And sudden—light upon shields,
	Low huts—the armed Greeks,
	Circles of horses.

	I have longed for this.
	I have seen Ajax.
	I have known Protesilaos
	And that other Ajax—Salamis’ light
	They counted ivory-discs.
	They moved them—they laughed.
	They were seated together
	On the sand-ridges.

	I have seen Palamed,
	Child of Poseidon’s child:
	Diomed, radiant discobolus:
	Divine Merion, a war-god,
	Startling to men:
	Island Odysseus from the sea-rocks:

	And Nireos, most beautiful
	Of beautiful Greeks.

3

	A flash—
	Achilles passed across the beach.
	(He is the sea-woman’s child
	Chiron instructed.)

	Achilles had strapped the wind
	About his ankles,
	He brushed rocks
	The waves had flung.
	He ran in armour.
	He led the four-yoked chariot
	He had challenged to the foot-race.
	Emelos steered
	And touched each horse with pointed goad.

	I saw the horses:
	Each beautiful head was clamped with gold.

	Silver streaked the centre horses.
	They were fastened to the pole.
	The outriders swayed to the road-stead.
	Colour spread up from ankle and steel-hoof.
	Bronze flashed.

	And Achilles, set with brass,
	Bent forward,
	Level with the chariot-rail.

4

	If a god should stand here
	He could not speak
	At the sight of ships
	Circled with ships.

	This beauty is too much
	For any woman.
	It is burnt across my eyes.
	The line is an ivory-horn.
	The Myrmidons in fifty quivering ships
	Are stationed on the right.

	These are Achilles’ ships.
	On the prow of each
	A goddess sheds gold:
	Sea-spirits are cut in tiers of gold.

5

	Next, equal-oared ships
	Were steered from the port of Argos
	By one of the Mekistians.
	Sthenelos was with him.

	Then the son of Theseus
	Led out sixty ships,
	Prow to prow from Attica.
	A great spirit keeps them—
	Pallas, graved above each ship.

6

	Wings bear her
	And horses, iron of hoof:
	The phantom and chariot
	Appear to men slashed with waves.

	Fifty Bœotian ships,
	Heavy with bright arms,
	Floated next:
	The earth-god stood at the prow
	With golden-headed serpent.

	Leitos, born of earth,
	Guided this group of ships.

	Ships had gathered
	From ports of Phokis:
	The Lokrians sent as many.
	Ajax left beautiful Thronion
	To lead both fleets.

7

	From Mykenae’s unhewn rock,
	Men, led out by Agamemnon,
	Served beyond the breakwater
	In one hundred ships.
	His brother went with him—
	Lover to lover.

	Insult was thrown upon both.
	Helen, possessed,
	Followed a stranger
	From the Greek courtyard.
	They would avenge this.

	Nestor brought ships from Pylos.
	They are stamped
	With Alpheus’ bull-hoof.

8

	There were twelve Ænian sails:
	Gouneos led the twelve ships.
	He is the tribe-king.
	Near him were Elis’ petty-chiefs—
	The common people call Epians—
	And Eurytos, their great chief.

	Meges brought white-wood oars
	From island Taphos.
	He left Echinades—
	Sailors find no entrance
	Across the narrow rocks.

	Ajax of Salamis
	Finished the great arc:
	He joined both branches
	To the far border
	With twelve ships,
	Strung of flexible planks.

9

	I have heard all this.
	I have looked too
	Upon this people of ships.
	You could never count the Greek sails
	Nor the flat keels of the foreign boats.

	I have heard—
	I myself have seen the floating ships
	And nothing will ever be the same—
	The shouts,
	The harrowing voices within the house.
	I stand apart with an army:
	My mind is graven with ships.

II

	Paris came to Ida.
	He grew to slim height
	Among the silver-hoofed beasts.
	Strange notes made his flute
	A Phrygian pipe.
	He caught all Olympus
	In his bent reeds.
	While his great beasts
	Cropped the grass,
	The goddesses held the contest
	Which sent him among the Greeks.

	He came before Helen’s house.
	He stood on the ivory steps.
	He looked upon Helen and brought
	Desire to the eyes
	That looked back—
	The Greeks have snatched up their spears.
	They have pointed the helms of their ships
	Toward the bulwarks of Troy.

III

1

	The crowd of the Greek force
	With stacked arms and with troop-ships
	Will come to Simois—
	The strait, furrowed deep with silver.

	They will enter Troy.
	The sun-god built the porticoes.
	Kassandra shakes out her hair—
	Its gold clasped
	With half-opened laurel-shoots—
	When the god strikes her
	With his breath.

	They will stand on Pergamos.
	They will crowd about the walls.

	They will lift their shields,
	Riveted with brass,
	As they enter Simois
	In their painted ships.

	Two brothers of Helen are spirits
	And dwell apart in the air,
	Yet the shieldsmen will take her,
	And men, alert with spear-shaft,
	Will carry her to the Greek coast.

2

	And Pergamos,
	City of the Phrygians,
	Ancient Troy
	Will be given up to its fate.
	They will mark the stone-battlements
	And the circle of them
	With a bright stain.
	They will cast out the dead—
	A sight for Priam’s queen to lament
	And her frightened daughters.

	And Helen, child of Zeus,
	Will cry aloud for the mate
	She has left in that Phrygian town.

	May no child of mine,
	Nor any child of my child
	Ever fashion such a tale
	As the Phrygians shall murmur,
	As they stoop at their distaffs,
	Whispering with Lydians,
	Splendid with weight of gold—

	“Helen has brought this.
	They will tarnish our bright hair.
	They will take us as captives
	For Helen—born of Zeus
	When he sought Leda with bird-wing
	And touched her with bird-throat—
	If men speak truth.

	“But still we lament our state,
	The desert of our wide courts,
	Even if there is no truth
	In the legends cut on ivory
	Nor in the poets
	Nor the songs.”

IV

1

	Burnished-head
	By burnished-head,
	Pierides sought the bride:
	They touched the flute-stops
	And the lyre-strings for the dance,

	They made the syrinx-notes
	Shrill through the reed-stalk.
	They cut gold sandal-prints
	Across Pelion
	Toward the gods’ feast.

	They called Pelios
	From steep centaur-paths,
	And Thetis
	Among forest trees:
	They chanted at the feast
	Where Phrygian Ganymede,
	Loved of Zeus,
	Caught the measure of wine
	In the circle of the golden cups.

	While fifty sea-spirits
	Moved and paused
	To mark the beat
	Of chanted words
	Where light flashed
	Below them on the sand.

2

	A centaur-herd,
	Wild-horses, crowned with grass,
	Swept among the feasting gods
	With fir-shoots
	Toward the wine-jars.

	And Chiron,
	Inspired by the rites of song,
	Cried with a loud voice:

	“From Thessaly,
	The great light
	Whom Thetis will beget,”
	(He spoke his name)
	“Will come with the Myrmidons
	Spearsmen and hosts with shields,
	Golden and metal-wrought,
	To scatter fire
	Over Priam’s beautiful land.”

	Therefore the spirits blessed
	The fair-fathered,
	The Nereid,
	And chanted at Pelios’ feast.

3

	(To Iphigeneia.)
	Your hair is scattered light:
	The Greeks will bind it with petals.

	And like a little beast,
	Dappled and without horns,
	That scampered on the hill-rocks,
	They will leave you
	With stained throat—
	Though you never cropped hill-grass
	To the reed-cry
	And the shepherd’s note.

	Some Greek hero is cheated
	And your mother’s court
	Of its bride.

	And we ask this—where truth is,
	Of what use is valour and is worth?
	For evil has conquered the race,
	There is no power but in base men,
	Nor any man whom the gods do not hate.

V

IPH.

	It is not for me, the day,
	Nor this light of sun.
	Ah, mother, mother,
	The same terror is cast on us both.

	Alas for that Phrygian cleft,
	Beaten by snow,
	The mountain-hill, Ida,
	Where Priam left the young prince,
	Brought far from his mother
	To perish on the rocks:
	Paris who is called
	Idaeos, Idaeos
	In the Phrygian court.

	Would that he had never thrived,
	Would that he had not kept the flocks
	O that he had not dwelt
	At that white place of the water-gods:
	In meadows,
	Thick with yellow flower-sprays
	And flowers, tint of rose,
	And the hyacinth we break for gods.

	For Pallas came there,
	And Kypris, crafty-heart,
	And Hera and Hermes, legate of god
	(Beautiful Kypris,
	Pallas with spear-hilt,
	Hera, queen, wed with Zeus.)
	It was a hated judgment, O slender-girls.
	The contest of beautiful-face by beautiful-face
	Has brought this:
	I am sent to death
	To bring honour to the Greeks.

CH.

	For Ilium, for Ilium
	Artemis exacts sacrifice.

IPH.

	O wretched, wretched,—
	I know you, Helen, sharp to do hurt.
	I am slaughtered for your deceit.

	O I am miserable:
	You cherished me, my mother,
	But even you desert me.
	I am sent to an empty place.

	O that Aulis had not harboured
	These beaked ships,
	Nor sheltered their brazen prows
	As they floated toward Troy:
	O that Zeus had not turned them
	Nor wafted their splendour
	Through the straits:
	For Zeus strikes different winds
	To each ship,
	So that some men laugh
	With the light flap of the sails,
	Some bend with anger
	At their work:

	Some haul up the sheets,
	Some knot the great ropes,
	Some dash through the spray
	To quick death.

	And each man is marked for toil,
	Much labour is his fate,
	Nor is there any new hurt
	That may be added to the race.

VI

IPH.

	Now sing, O slight girls,
	Without change of note,
	My death-paeon and Artemis’ chant.

	Stand silent, you Greeks.
	The fire kindles.
	They step to do sacrifice
	With reed-basket of salt-cakes:
	I come—I free Hellas.
	My father, as priest awaits me
	At the right altar-step.

	Hail me now.
	I destroy Phrygia and all Troy.
	Clasp on the flower-circlet.
	Wind it through the locks just caught with it.
	Bear water in a deep bowl.
	Stand around the temple-front
	And the altar of heaped earth.
	For I come to do sacrifice,
	To break the might of the curse,
	To honour the queen, if she permit,
	The great one, with my death.

CH.

	O, mother, high-born,
	Of proud birth,
	Will you not weep for us?
	For we may not cry out
	In the splendour of this holy place.

IPH.

	Slight girls, stand forth,
	Chant Artemis—Artemis:
	She fronts the coast,
	She stands opposite Chalkis—
	For spears will clash in the contest
	My fame has brought
	In the shelter of these narrow straits.

	Hail, land of my birth.
	Hail Mykenae, where I once dwelt—

CH.

	(She calls upon the city of Perseos,
	Built of unchiselled rock.)

IPH.

	—you brought me to the Greek light
	And I will not hold you guilty
	For my death.

CH.

	Your name will never be forgotten,
	Your honour will always last.

IPH.

	Alas, day, you brought light,
	You trailed splendour
	You showed us god:
	I salute you, most precious one,
	But I go to a new place,
	Another life.

CH.

	Alas, she steps forward
	To destroy Ilium and the Phrygians.
	A wreath is about her head,
	She takes water in a dish.

	She comes to meet death,
	To stain the altar of the goddess,
	To hold her girl-throat
	Toward the knife-thrust.

	The land-springs await
	And the sacred bowls,
	And the Greek host, eager to depart.
	But let us not forget
	With our past happiness,
	Artemis, daughter of god,
	Queen among the great,
	But cry out:
	Artemis, rejoicer in blood-sacrifice,
	Send the force of the Greeks
	To Troy and the Phrygian court.

	And grant that Agamemnon may clasp
	Fame, never to be forgot
	Upon his brow—encircled
	By Greek spear-shafts,
	May he gain honour for all the Greeks.

* * *

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Helios (by H.D.)

H.D. in the 1910s

Helios
by Hilda Doolittle
[from Hymen (Henry Holt and Company, 1921)]


Helios makes all things right:–
night brands and chokes
as if destruction broke
over furze and stone and crop
of myrtle-shoot and field-wort,
destroyed with flakes of iron,
the bracken-stems,
where tender roots were sown,
blight, chaff and waste
of darkness to choke and drown.

A curious god to find,
yet in the end faithful;
bitter, the Kyprian’s feet–
ah flecks of whited clay,
great hero, vaunted lord–
ah petal, dust and wind-fall
on the ground–queen awaiting queen.

Better the weight, they tell,
the helmet’s beaten shell,
Athene’s riven steel,
caught over the white skull,
Athene sets to heal
the few who merit it.

Yet even then, what help,
should he not turn and note
the height of forehead and the mark of conquest,
draw near and try the helmet;
to left–reset the crown
Athene weighted down,
or break with a light touch
mayhap the steel set to protect;
to slay or heal.

A treacherous god, they say,
yet who would wait to test
justice or worth or right,
when through a fetid night
is wafted faint and nearer–
then straight as point of steel
to one who courts swift death,
scent of Hesperidean orange-spray.

* * *

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She Rebukes Hippolyta (by H.D.)

H.D. in the 1910s

She Rebukes Hippolyta
by Hilda Doolittle
[from Hymen (Henry Holt and Company, 1921)]


Was she so chaste?

Swift and a broken rock
clatters across the steep shelf
of the mountain slope,
sudden and swift
and breaks as it clatters down
into the hollow breach
of the dried water-course:
far and away
(through fire I see it,
and smoke of the dead, withered stalks
of the wild cistus-brush)
Hippolyta, frail and wild,
galloping up the slope
between great boulder and rock
and group and cluster of rock.

Was she so chaste,
(I see it, sharp, this vision,
and each fleck on the horse’s flanks
of foam, and bridle and bit,
silver, and the straps,
wrought with their perfect art,
and the sun,
striking athwart the silver-work,
and the neck, strained forward, ears alert,
and the head of a girl
flung back and her throat.)

Was she so chaste–
(Ah, burn my fire, I ask
out of the smoke-ringed darkness
enclosing the flaming disk
of my vision)
I ask for a voice to answer:
was she chaste?

Who can say–
the broken ridge of the hills
was the line of a lover’s shoulder,
his arm-turn, the path to the hills,
the sudden leap and swift thunder
of mountain boulders, his laugh.

She was mad–
as no priest, no lover’s cult
could grant madness;
the wine that entered her throat
with the touch of the mountain rocks
was white, intoxicant:
she, the chaste,
was betrayed by the glint
of light on the hills,
the granite splinter of rocks,
the touch of the stone
where heat melts
toward the shadow-side of the rocks.

* * *

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She Contrasts with Herself Hippolyta (by H.D.)

H.D. in the 1910s

She Contrasts with Herself Hippolyta
by Hilda Doolittle
[from Hymen (Henry Holt and Company, 1921)]

Can flame beget white steel–
ah no, it could not take
within my reins its shelter;
steel must seek steel,
or hate make out of joy
a whet-stone for a sword;
sword against flint,
Theseus sought Hippolyta;
she yielded not nor broke,
sword upon stone,
from the clash leapt a spark,
Hippolytus, born of hate.

What did she think
when all her strength
was twisted for his bearing;
did it break,
even within her sheltered heart, a song,
some whispered note,
distant and faint as this:

Love that I bear
within my breast
how is my armour melted
how my heart:
as an oak-tree
that keeps beneath the snow,
the young bark fresh
till the spring cast
from off its shoulders
the white snow
so does my armour melt.

Love that I bear
within my heart, O speak;
tell how beneath the serpent-spotted shell,
the cygnets wait,
how the soft owl
opens and flicks with pride,
eye-lids of great bird-eyes,
when underneath its breast
the owlets shrink and turn.

You have the power,
(then did she say) Artemis,
benignity to grant
forgiveness that I gave
no quarter to an enemy who cast
his armour on the forest-moss,
and took, unmatched in an uneven contest,
Hippolyta who relented not,
returned and sought no kiss.

Then did she pray: Artemis,
grant that no flower
be grafted alien on a broken stalk,
no dark flame-laurel on the stricken crest
of a wild mountain-poplar;
grant in my thought,
I never yield but wait,
entreating cold white river,
mountain-pool and salt:
let all my veins be ice,
until they break
(strength of white beach,
rock of mountain land,
forever to you, Artemis, dedicate)
from out my reins,
those small, cold hands.

* * *

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Phaedra (by H.D.)

H.D. in the 1910s

Phaedra
by Hilda Doolittle
[from Hymen (Henry Holt and Company, 1921)]


Think, O my soul,
of the red sand of Crete;
think of the earth; the heat
burnt fissures like the great
backs of the temple serpents;
think of the world you knew;
as the tide crept, the land
burned with a lizard-blue
where the dark sea met the sand.

Think, O my soul–
what power has struck you blind–
Is there no desert-root, no forest-berry
pine-pitch or knot of fir
known that can help the soul
caught in a force, a power,
passionless, not its own?

So I scatter, so implore
Gods of Crete, summoned before
with slighter craft;
ah, hear my prayer:
Grant to my soul
the body that it wore,
trained to your thought,
that kept and held your power,
as the petal of black poppy,
the opiate of the flower.

For art undreamt in Crete,
strange art and dire,
in counter-charm prevents my charm
limits my power:
pine-cone I heap,
grant answer to my prayer.

No more, my soul–
as the black cup, sullen and dark with fire,
burns till beside it, noon’s bright heat
is withered, filled with dust–
and into that noon-heat
grown drab and stale,
suddenly wind and thunder and swift rain,
till the scarlet flower is wrecked
in the slash of the white hail.

The poppy that my heart was,
formed to bind all mortals,
made to strike and gather hearts
like flame upon an altar,
fades and shrinks, a red leaf
drenched and torn in the cold rain.

* * *

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Why Have You Sought? (by H.D.)

H.D. in the 1910s

Why Have You Sought?
by Hilda Doolittle
[from Hymen (Henry Holt and Company, 1921)]


Why have you sought the Greeks, Eros,
when such delight was yours
in the far depth of sky:
there you could note bright ivory
take colour where she bent her face,
and watch fair gold shed gold
on radiant surface of porch and pillar:
and ivory and bright gold,
polished and lustrous grow faint
beside that wondrous flesh
and print of her foot-hold:
Love, why do you tempt the Grecian porticoes?

Here men are bent with thought
and women waste fair moments
gathering lint and pricking coloured stuffs
to mar their breasts,
while she, adored,
wastes not her fingers,
worn of fire and sword,
wastes not her touch
on linen and fine thread,
wastes not her head
in thought and pondering;
Love, why have you sought the horde
of spearsmen, why the tent
Achilles pitched beside the river-ford?

* * *

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Song (by H.D.)

H.D. in the 1910s

Song
by Hilda Doolittle
[from Hymen (Henry Holt and Company, 1921)]


You are as gold
as the half-ripe grain
that merges to gold again,
as white as the white rain
that beats through
the half-opened flowers
of the great flower tufts
thick on the black limbs
of an Illyrian apple bough.

Can honey distill such fragrance
as your bright hair–
for your face is as fair as rain,
yet as rain that lies clear
on white honey-comb,
lends radiance to the white wax,
so your hair on your brow
casts light for a shadow.

* * *

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Evadne (by H.D.)

H.D. in the 1910s

Evadne
by Hilda Doolittle
[from Hymen (Henry Holt and Company, 1921)]


I first tasted under Apollo’s lips
love and love sweetness,
I Evadne;
my hair is made of crisp violets
or hyacinth which the wind combs back
across some rock shelf;
I Evadne
was mate of the god of light.

His hair was crisp to my mouth
as the flower of the crocus,
across my cheek,
cool as the silver cress
on Erotos bank;
between my chin and throat
his mouth slipped over and over.

Still between my arm and shoulder,
I feel the brush of his hair,
and my hands keep the gold they took
as they wandered over and over
that great arm-full of yellow flowers.

* * *

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Fragment 113 (by H.D.)

H.D. in the 1910s

Fragment 113
by Hilda Doolittle
[from Hymen (Henry Holt and Company, 1921)]

      “Neither honey nor bee for me.” –Sappho

Not honey,
not the plunder of the bee
from meadow or sand-flower
or mountain bush;
from winter-flower or shoot
born of the later heat:
not honey, not the sweet
stain on the lips and teeth:
not honey, not the deep
plunge of soft belly
and the clinging of the gold-edged
pollen-dusted feet;

not so–
though rapture blind my eyes,
and hunger crisp
dark and inert my mouth,
not honey, not the south,
not the tall stalk
of red twin-lilies,
nor light branch of fruit tree
caught in flexible light branch;

not honey, not the south;
ah flower of purple iris,
flower of white,
or of the iris, withering the grass–
for fleck of the sun’s fire,
gathers such heat and power,
that shadow-print is light,
cast through the petals
of the yellow iris flower;

not iris–old desire–old passion–
old forgetfulness–old pain–
not this, nor any flower,
but if you turn again,
seek strength of arm and throat,
touch as the god;
neglect the lyre-note;
knowing that you shall feel,
about the frame,
no trembling of the string
but heat, more passionate
of bone and the white shell
and fiery tempered steel.

* * *

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