2,

Yes, Achilles spoke, Paris spoke. Greece and Troy challenged and contradicted each other in her fantasy. She had said to Theseus, "there is a voice within me, listen!" But we do not feel that Achilles and Paris were "a voice within" her. They were disparate beings, separate from each other and separate from Helen. How bring them together? But why bring them together? Perhaps it is the very force of opposition that creates the dynamic intensity of "the high-altar, your couch here."

#

Achilles said, which was the veil,
which was the dream?
truly, Troy had never been

2 1/2

till I came here;
then I encountered or seemed to remember
an old enchantment, an old lover;

it seemed real till he insisted,
she died, died, died,
when the Walls fell;

Helen was never dead,
or is this death here?
Achilles said, a catafalque, a bier,

the high-altar, your couch here;
surely, it was his voice that spoke,
and Paris reviled him,

though I did not see them, or did I?
their words contradict each other,
Theseus would have the answer,

but no, I will not call
until I review all the past
in the new light of a new day.

143

The opposites have been reconciled actually, in Theseus. "The lyre or the sword? Theseus has both together." Where Theseus is, Athens is. Where Helen is a? For the first time in our sequence, she is in Sparta. What had she lost? What had she gained? She had lost her childhood or her child, her "Lord's devotion" or the devotion of the conventional majority.

The lyre or the sword?
Theseus has both together,
this is Athens, he said;

this is Athens or was or will be,
but Oh the ecstacy a familiar fragrance,
late roses, bruised apples,

now I remember, I remember
Paris before Egypt, Paris after;
I remember all that went before,

Sparta; autumn? summer?
the fragrant bough? fruit ripening
on a wall? the ships at anchor?

I had all that, everything,
my Lord's devotion, my child
prattling of a bird-nest,

playing with my work-basket;
the reels rolled to the floor
and she did not stoop to pick up

the scattered spools but stared
with wide eyes in a white face,
at a stronger a and stared at her mother,

a stranger a that was all,
I placed my foot on the last step
of the marble water-stair

and never looked back;
how could I remember all that?
Zeus, our-father was merciful.

3

Hul 51

5

There is no question of Helen's integrity nor even of the old anta+
gonists, "Eros? Eris?" There is a story, a song, "the harpers will sing
forever." It is a play, a drama, "who set the scene? who lured the play+
ers?" The players have no choice in the matter of the already-written
drama or script. They are supremely aware of the honour that "all song
forever" has conferred upon them. They would play their parts well.

Was Troy lost for a kiss,
or a run of notes on a lyre?
was the lyre-frame stronger

than the bowman's arc,
the chord tauter?
was it a challenge to death,

to all song forever?
was it a question asked
to which there was no answer?

was it Paris? was it Apollo?
was it a game played over and over,
with numbers or counters?

who set the scene?
who lured the players from home
or imprisoned them in the Walls,

to inspire us with endless,
profitless questioning?
why did they fight at all?

was Helen daemon or goddess?
how did they scale the Walls?
was the iron-horse an ancient symbol

or a new battering-ram?
was Helen another symbol,
a star, a ship or a temple?

how will the story end?
was Paris more skillful than Teucer?
Achilles than Hector?

Indeed it was "Apollo's snare." None other.

Was it Apollo's snare
so that poets forever,
should be caught in the maze of the Walls

3

of a Troy that never fell?
was it a round of Delphic priestesses,
beating on Holy Ground,

a rhythm before the altar,
or the crash of sword upon sword
of the Pyrrhic dancers?

how could the lyre-string fail?
I am called back to the Walls
to find the answer,

to wander as in a maze,
(Theseus' labyrinth),
to explore each turn of the street,

for a way to the ships and the wharves,
to return and sort over and over,
my bracelets, sandals and scarves

1/2

but who would stoop to pilfer,
who would steal
these intimate, personal things?

the servants were richer than Helen,
counting the links in a chain,
the pearls on a string,

that the merchants should not cheat
a suspect stranger from Greece,
is she a slave or a queen?

So Helen remembers her part in the greatest drama of Greece and of all time. She seems almost to speak by rote, she has grown into her part. But she breaks off, as it were, from the recorded drama to remind us of the unrecorded ... her first meeting with Achilles, "on the ledge of a desolate beach."

Another shout from the wharves;
I fight my way through the crowd,
but the gates are barred;

are the ramparts free?
I am an enemy in a beleaguered city;
I find my way to the tower,

to the tower-stairs,
do I run? do I fly?
what pity for Helen?

Hecuba's lordly son
has been slain by Achilles;
could I join the confusion below,

I would leap from the Walls,
but a sentry snatches my sleeve,
dragging me back ¼ what curse

can equal his curse?
how answer his scorn?
"for this is Hector dead,

was Hector born to be conquered
by harlots and thieves,
stealing a prince's honour?

let Paris retrieve
the fate of Priam's city;
he is next to the king

in the Trojan hierarchy,
but we will have no decadent lover
for king, none sick of a fever,

a Grecian harlot brings
to weaken the fibre,
to melt the sinews of war

in a lascivious seven-year dallying";
was it seven years, was it a day?
I can not remember ...

Eidolon

Book Three

Again the veil, the dream, bringing the symbolism of the "fluttering
veil" of which Helen has just spoken into line with "the horizon". Achilles'
early question, "Helena, which was the dream, which was the veil of Cypris,
thereafter?" is answered, and Helen herself has answered it, "they were one."
They are "the ships assembled at Aulis", and one a mermaid ...

Achilles said, which was the veil,
which was the dream?
they were one on the horizon,

a sail sensed, not seen;
a bow, a familiar prow,
a hand on the rudder,

ropes, rope-ladders, the smell of tar,
I think he remembered them all,
(when he stooped to gather the sticks),

scattered tackle and gear,
a wheel, a mast, a dipping sail;
he struck the flint

and the blaze outlined
the skeleton shapes
of the broken sticks

and caught the inflammable weed
in a sudden flare
and a sputter of salt;

what scent? what wind? what hope
on the ledge of a desolate beach?
what did he remember last, what first?

I think he remembered everything
in an instantaneous flash,
as he straightened after he flung

the last faggots down,
and looked at the stars,
sweying as before the mast,

and looked at Helena,
what spirit, what daemon, what ghost?
a host of spirits crowded around the fire

Achilles had been alone, for the women that Theseus had named and
the same names as Paris repeats them, are to Helen as she again recalls
them, "no problem any more." For Achilles, there is one love and perhaps
for Helen, "his own ship that would lead them all."

How could any woman hope
to achieve Victory
over the Sea? name them,

Briseis, Chryseis, Polyxena; name again
Deidamia, the king's daughter,
he married in Scyros;

did any of them matter?
did they count at all,
or were they mere members of a chorus

in a drama that had but one other player?
in any case, the struggle was over,
as I stood at the stair-head

there was no problem any more,
I did not care who won, who lost,
Achilles was dead;

Zeus had rapt you away, Paris said,
there by the spiral-stair,
yes, Zeus had rapt me away,

but had it happened before
the arrow sped from the door
and I was gone before Paris fell?

38

So we see with the eyes of Helen, "the swords flash". We hear the "thunder across the plain." We feel and know the dedication of the "child of Thetis" to the Sea. We are hardly surprised that this "greatest hero in Greece" dismissing as it were, the traditional sacrifice of Iphigenia, should promise "another white throat to a goddess."

I say there is only one image,
one picture, though the swords flash;
I say there is one treasure,

one desire, as the wheels turn
and the hooves of the stallions
thunder across the plain,

and the plain is dust,
and the battle-field is a heap
of rusty staves and broken chariot-frames

and the rims of the dented shields
and desolation, destruction for what?
a dream? a towered town?

proud youths for slaves,
a princess or two for lust?
I say there is one image,

and slaves and princesses
and the town itself are nothing
beside a picture, an image, an idol

or eidolon, not much more than a doll,
old, old for ship-rigging and beam
can be changed, a mast renewed,

a rudder re-set but never the hull;
this is the same, this is my first ship,
this is my own, my beloved

who will lead the host;
we will sail, we will sail
with or without Iphigenia's death,

for I have promised another
white throat to a goddess,
but not to our lady of Aulis.

4

#

Helen herself seems almost ready for this sacrifice at least, for
the immolation of herself before this greatest love of Achilles, his
dedication to "his own ship" and the figurehead, "an idol or eidolon ...
a mermaid, Thetis upon the prow."

#

Did her eyes slant in the old way?
was she Greek or Egyptian?
had some Phoenician sailor wrought her?

was she oak-wood or cedar?
had she been cut from an awkward block
of ship-wood at the ship-builders,

and afterwards riveted there,
or had the prow itself been shaped
to her mermaid body,

curved to her mermaid hair?
was there a dash of paint
in the beginning, in the garment-fold,

did the blue afterwards wear away?
did they re-touch her arms, her shoulders?
did anyone touch her ever?

3

had she other devotee and lover,
or did he alone worship her?
did she wear a girdle of sea-weed

2 ca./st

or a painted crown? how often
did her high breasts meet the spray,
how often dive down?

So Achilles disguised, deserts "the Trojan plain" and "a far shadow upon the beach ... he went to the bulk of his love, his beloved."

Achilles skulks in his tent,
they said, but it was not true,
Achilles avoids the battle;

we will trick him
and lure him out,
Patroclus shall bear his shield

and lead his men;
so they armed Patroclus
and Patroclus was slain;

where is Achilles?
they sought for him everywhere,
but never thought the unarmed

hostler who tended his steeds,
was Achilles' self,
wrapped in a woolen cloak

with the hood drawn over his head;
he skulks in his tent, they said,
but he was a far shadow upon the beach;

"a spy, an emissary of Troy"?
but he answered the sentinel's threat
with the simple pass-word

of Achilles' Myrmidons,
Helena; so he went to the prow
of his love, his beloved,

feeling her flanks,
tearing loose weed from her stern,
brushing sand from her beams,

not speaking, but praying:
I will re-join the Greeks
and the battle before the gate,

if you promise a swift return,
if you promise new sails for the fleet
and a wind to bear us home,

I am sick of the Trojan plain,
I would rise, I would fall again
in a tempest, a hurricane.

7

#

Was Helen stronger than Achilles even "as the arrows fell?" That
could not be, but he recognised in her some power other than her legendary
beauty.

#

He could name Helena,
but the other he could not name;
she was a lure, a light,

an intimate flame, a secret kept
even from his slaves, the elect,
the innermost hierarchy;

only Helena could be named
and she was a public scandal
in any case, a cause of shame

to Agamemnon and Menelaus;
it was not that she was beautiful,
true, she stood on the walls,

5

taut and indifferent
as the arrows fell;
it was not that she was beautiful,

5

there were others,
in spite of the legend,
as gracious, as tall;

it was not that she was beautiful,
but he stared and stared
across the charred wood

5

and the smouldering flame,
till his eyes cleared
and the smoke drifted away.

8

"So she cheated at last." It is not granted human or super-human
intelligence and ingenuity to escape the "lure of the sea."

Did her eyes slant in the old way?
was she Greek or Egyptian?
it was not his own ship

but a foreign keel
that had brought him here;
the Old Man who ferried him out,

called it a caravel;
a caravel ⌒ what is that?
Phoenician? so she cheated at last,

she, Empress and lure of the sea,
Queen of the Myrmidons,
Regent of heaven and the star-zone;

she had promised him immortality
but she had forgotten to dip the heel
of the infant Achilles

into the bitter water,
Styx, was it?
o careless, unspeakable mother,

o Thetis ...
so she failed at last,
and worse than failure,

the mockery, after-death,
to stumble across a stretch
of shell and the scattered weed,

to encounter another
whose eyes slant in the old way;
is she Greek or Egyptian?

2,

So this third Helen, for the moment, rejects both the transcendental
Helen and the intellectual or inspired Helen for this other, "numb with
a memory."

So it was nothing, nothing at all,
the first words he seemed to speak
in my fever, awake or asleep;

it was nothing, the corridors,
the temple, the temple walls,
the tasks of the star-beasts,

the words I had spoken before
to Theseus, and my prayer;
it was nothing, the Amen-script,

the Writing, the ster-space,
the Wheel and the Mystery;
it was all nothing,

and the anger of Paris
was only a breath to fan the flame
of thoughts too deep to remember,

that break through the legend,
the fame of Achilles,
the beauty of Helen,

like fire
through the broken pictures
on a marble-floor.

3

The memory is really that of Achilles but she lives it with him.

#

It was only then,
when the pictures had melted away,
that I saw him stretched on his pallet,

that I seemed to hear him say,
she failed me, my Daemon, my Goddess;
she had led him astray,

prompting an Old Man to guide her son
to a battered, unwieldy craft;
true, the boat had a mast,

but otherwise, it was a foreign
unseemly thing, with awkward sails
where are the Thetis-wings?

it was only, when I felt
with him, lying there,
the bitterness of his loss,

that I knew he loved, that I knew
the ecstacy of desire had smitten him,
burnt him; touched with the Phoenix-fire,

the invincible armour
melted him quite away,
till he knew his mother;

but he challenged her, beat her back,
are you Hecate? are you a witch?
a vulture, a hieroglyph?

5

Yes, Helen is awake, she sees the pattern; the "old pictures" are eternal, the ibis, the hawk and the hare are painted in bright primary colours. But superimposed on the hieroglyphs is the "marble and silver" of her Greek thought and fantasy.

Perhaps his death was bitter,
I do not know: I am awake,
the slats of the shutter make

a new pattern, seven and seven,
as the light moves over the wall;
I think I see clearly at last,

the old pictures are really there,
eternal as the painted ibis in Egypt,
the hawk and the hare,

but written in marble and silver,
the spiral-stair, the maze
of the intricate streets,

each turn of the winding
and secret passage-ways
that led to the sea,

my meanderings back and forth,
till I learned by rote,
the intimate labyrinth

that I kept in my brain,
going over and over again
the swiftest way to take

through this arched way or that,
patient to re-trace my steps
or swift to dart

past a careless guard at the gate;
Oh, I knew my way,
Oh, I knew my ways,

and a sombre scarf
hid Helena's eyes,
but not Helena's passionate speech,

"only a Master Mariner
at the wharves of here is silver,
let me pass."

6.

Helen was seeking the "Master Mariner"; she does not find him,
though her preliminary search leads finally to the "Master of Argo."

#

Is this a dream
or was a lover waiting there?
I only know that I climbed
up a ladder or wooden stair,
I only know that I slipped
on the floating weed

 near the edge was it Simois' river?
 was it the sea?
 it was a harbour, a bay or estuary;

I only know that I lay
on the salt grass and my hands
tore at the bitter stems

that cut me like adders' tongues;
it was dark, I had not the power
to leap from the platform or wharf;

Oh, it was dark
so I lost my lover;
I slid on a broken rung

and my hand instinctively caught
at the skeleton-frame of the ladder
and I had not the strength to drown.

4

Eidolon

Book Five

So they will always be centralized by a moment, "undecided yet".
Though *La Mort, L'amour* will merge in the final illumination, there is
this preliminary tension that can be symbolized by the "circle of god-like
beasts." The great "frieze, the zodiac hieroglyph" comes to life with
the magnetic intensity of these two. Forever, there is "the pad of paws
on the sand ... "

Did he fear her more
than I could ever fear
the pad of paws on the sand,

the glare of eyes in the fire,
the lion or the crouching panther?
it almost seemed they were there,

the circle of god-like beasts,
familiars of Egypt;
would they turn and rend each other,

or form a frieze,
the zodiac hieroglyph,
on a temple wall?

they are there forever, quiet
or slow to move
like their Guardians in heaven;

I might have counted them, twelve,
the outline of hero and beast,
or I might have counted seven

and seven, like the bars of light
that have slowly climbed up the wall;
I might have numbered them over,

I might have implored or invoked
the planets of the day,
the planets of the night.

24

Though there is the intense, almost unbearable excitement in this
circle of "god-like beasts", Helen does not invoke the power of lion or
panther, wolf or bear. Undoubtedly, she is at one with them. She loves
them, certainly, nor does she dismiss them. She is not afraid of them but
she feels that Achilles is afraid of something. That fear creates the
tension that he expresses in his attack, "are you Hecate? are you a witch?"
Maybe, if so, she had already proved the invincibility of the "lure of
the sea, Queen of Myrmidons, Regent of heaven and the star-zone." So
again, Helen "cried to one Daemon only, the goddess I knew from his eyes,
was his mother, the sea-enchantment."

But I did not entreat the twelve
nor the seven and the seven,
I cried to one Daemon only,

the goddess I knew from his eyes,
was his mother, the sea-enchantment;
did she harbour them there,

in the caves of the Mysteries,
when they wheeled and fell from heaven?
was it Thetis who herded the flock,

the two and the two, begotten
of light and of dark?
was it Thetis who lured him here,

in a battered ship with a mast
that measured the sky-space
and the space beneath the sky,

in the infinite depth of the sea
that she rules with the arc of heaven,
with day and night equally?

was it fate, was it destiny
that brought us together?
would we blaze out like a meteor?

would the blazing ember
sputter and fail and fall
or burn forever?

40

There is a word. Helen has spoken it. "How did she know the word?"
It may not seem a matter of great importance that in their first encounter,
she "dared speak the name that made that of the goddess fade," but
apparently, "a whisper, a breath" of which Helen, it seems, was unaware,
had alarmed Achilles ("O child of Thetis"), provoked his attack and
projected the first of the series or circle of the ever-recurring "eternal
moment."

How did she know the word,
the one word that would turn and bind
and blind him to any other?

he could name Helena
but the other he could not name;
she spoke of the goddess Isis,

and he answered her "Isis",
but how did she know that her Thetis
(that followed immediately after

he repeated after her, "Isis"),
would brand on his forehead
that name, that the name

and the flame and the fire
would weld him to her
who spoke it, who thought it,

who stared through the fire,
who stood as if to withstand
the onslaught of fury and battle,

who stood unwavering but made
as if to dive down, unbroken,
undefeated in the tempest roar

and thunder, inviting mountains
of snow-clad foam-tipped
green walls of sea-water

to rise like ramparts about her,
walls to protect yet walls to dive under,
dive through and dive over;

how dared she speak the name
that made that of the goddess fade
or stiffen in painted folds

4. (continued)

in a niche above an altar;
"pray, pray your vulture, your Isis,"
he seemed to say;

but there is one secret,
unpronounceable name,
a whisper, a breath,

two syllables, yes, like the Isis-name,
but broken, not quite the same,
breathed differently,

or spoken as only one could speak,
stretched on a pallet,
numb with a memory,

or as a sleepless child,
crouched in the leaves
of Chiron's cave.

Jal 61

173

5

What is this "simple magic" of a "ring of no worth, a broken oar"
that finds more favour in the eyes of the "Regent of heaven" than the
priceless treasure "from the uttermost seas"

#

How did she know the name?
true, the world knew her,
she is carved on the harbour walls,

she is found on the lintel or set
in a niche under the eaves,
like a bird in a bird-nest,

a man will barter or filch
anything for the grains
left in an emptied sack

of incense-sticks or wait
to barter or share with another
scattered shreds of the sandal-bark,

a man will wait hours on the wharf
for some chance unexpected thing,
the simple magic coming

from something lost or left over,
or spilled like the ash-of-myrrh
on the Paphos-temple floor,

which a simple servant (no priestess)
sweeps up to bring to another;
Oh yes, the world knows her name,

the richer for poorer worshippers,
for meaner offerings,
a filigree ring of no worth,

a broken oar, a snapped anchor-chain;
why did they bring her these,
when the whole world saw

3/2

sea-chests from the uttermost seas,
empty their priceless treasure
on the Paphos-altar?

174

8.

But with "the lure of war", the hero forgot "the magic of little things," and his mother's "simple wish that he learn to rule a kingdom" until in the end, "he paused to remember, but he was seared with an agony, the question that has no answer."

He knew the trick, the magic of little things, how the reapers brought his mother the gleanings

and not the sheaves, but he had been lured from Scyros, where she hid her son,

entreating the king to instruct him, as the Centaur Chiron had done, in the laws and the arts of peace;

for none could reach the youth in the race, he so far out-paced the others, he seemed to run alone,

and none could teach him anything of the ways of the bird or the beast, and none dared draw the bow

where the young Achilles stood; his were Chiron's arrows; hers was a simple wish

that he learn to rule a kingdom, but he had forgotten Scyros, forgotten his vows of allegiance

to the king, forgotten his marriage-vows to the king's daughter; he had followed the lure of war,

and there was never a braver, a better among the heroes, but he stared and stared

2½ through the smoke and the glowing embers, and wondered why he forgot and why he just now remembered.

127

Eidolon

Book Six

1

There is the ultimate experience, La Mort, L'amour. But Helen "in the new light of a new day" fully realizes the price of that ultimate. Is the price too great? "The numberless tender kisses, the soft caresses" have no part in the epic. But there is a miraculous birth. The promised Euphorion is not one child but two. It is "the child in Chiron's cave" and the "frail maiden", stolen by Theseus from Sparta.

#

I only saw him from the ramparts
and on the desolate beach,
and we talked apart in the temple;

true, we followed a track in the sand
though we spoke but little,
and the absolute, final spark,

the ember, the Star had no personal,
intimate fervour; was it desire?
it was Love, it was Death,

but what followed before, what after?
a thousand-thousand days,
as many mysterious nights,

and multiplied to infinity,
the million personal things,
things remembered, forgotten,

remembered again, assembled
and re-assembled in different order
as thoughts and emotions,

the sun and the seasons changed,
and as the flower-leaves that drift
from a tree were the numberless

tender kisses, the soft caresses,
given and received; none of these
came into the story,

it was epic, heroic and it was far
from a basket a child upset
and the spools that rolled to the floor;

and if I think of a child of Achilles,
it is not Pyrrhus, his son,
they called Neoptolemus,

2

Helen had recalled "the fragrant bough" when she thought of her child
hood in Sparta. Now she thinks of "a sorcery even more potent", that of
the child Achilles. A tree holds the secret "that Thetis' child hid away."

Paris is beautiful enchantment
and enchantment lives
in the tree he called _Dendritis_,

while another tree,
the tree before Chiron's door,
holds another secret,

a sorcery even more potent,
a wooden doll
that Thetis' child hid away;

O mysterious treasure,
O idol, O eidolon,
with wings folded about her,

her hands are clasped as in prayer,
in the garment-fold;
is she carved of red-cedar?

only a child could follow
the living grain of the tree,
as if sap were rising within her,

only a child or a master-hand
could fit a crown or a cap
from the rose-vein of the wood;

he set her upon a plinth
like the curved prow of a ship,
and perhaps the tree is a ship

and he sails away, but he forgot her,
the charm, the eidolon,
when his own mother came,

and he forgot his mother
when the heroes mocked
at the half-god hidden Scyros.

A

17

But what is "the living grain of the tree" and "the rose-vein of
the wood" to "one brandished spear that enflames a thousand others?"

Did she rise and fall
like the ebb and flow of the sea?
not she, her power was measureless,

she could not fail,
but could she understand?
could a woman ever

know what the heroes felt,
what spurred them to war and battle,
what fire charged them with fever?

like the lightning-flash
was the flash of their metal,
the spark from their sword and steel;

O spear of light,
O torch of one brandished spear
that enflames a thousand others,

O light reflected from polished buckler
and shield, a mirror to show the dead,
we may not look upon,

lest we pause and waver
and question the chances of war;
O glory of Pallas,

O Gorgon-head,
turn us not to stone, let us live to strike
merciless strokes for the Flower

that is Greece,
her hearth-stone and altar;
so the warriors spoke,

so the warriors lured him out;
what can a woman know
of man's passion and birth-right?

True, he forgot her and that is where her power lay. Was not his own mother more desirable than the "wooden doll" he had made to represent her? The prophecy of Achilles' fame could only be fulfilled if he died in battle. So "his own mother came" and Thetis "hid him in Scyros." But the heroes found him and "mocked" and that was the end of Thetis' plan for her son's inheritance of the island-kingdom. But "a sorcery even more potent" was to claim him in the end.

Paris said she was poor,
when she walked (as he said I walked)
to the door; they were rich

in their battle array,
their gold and their silver;
true, they emptied their sea-chests

and coffers upon the Paphian's altar,
but there was another Love,
another Love's mother,

secret, hidden away under Achilles' armour;
he lost his arms, his famous shield,
when Patroclus fell, but Thetis

entreated Hephaestus to forge again,
another helmet and greaves
with sword and sword-belt and buckler,

but she left him defenceless;
he could name the heroes who lived,
who died in a just defence

of a cause, he was blameless
like all the rest,
like Agamemnon and Menelaus;

she fought for the Greeks, they said,
Achilles' mother, but Thetis mourned
like Hecuba, for Hector dead.

5

182

What was that sorcery or magic? It can only be defined by the most
abstruse hieroglyphs or the most simple memories. All between, Helen
seems to tell us is "nothing, nothing at all." But there is something
between. There is the old problem, "how reconcile Trojan and Greek?"
In the beginning of this sequence, the voices of Achilles and Paris seemed
to argue, unreconciled. Helen woke to struggle with the problem, in the
human dimension, "my mind goes on, spinning the infinite thread." Helen
is "awake, no trance." In a trance, "on the gold-burning sands of Egypt",
she may have solved the problem. And Theseus, wholly intellectual and
inspirational, resolved it with his "all myth, the one reality dwells
here." But Helen says, "did I challenge the Fates when I said to Theseus,
'the Wheel is still'?"

Was it nothing, nothing at all,
I asked when I heard Paris say,
"call on Thetis, the sea-mother";

but why was it Paris who spoke?
and why did I call him back?
what formula did I plot,

like an old enchanter?
how reconcile Trojan and Greek?
my mind goes over the problem,

round and round like the chariot-wheel;
did I challenge the Fates
when I said to Theseus,

"the Wheel is still"?
my mind goes on,
spinning the infinite thread;

surely, I crossed the threshold,
I passed through the temple-gate,
I crossed a frontier and stepped

on the gold-burning sands of Egypt;
then why do I lie here and wonder,
and try to unravel the tangle

that no man can ever un-knot?
I was quiet, I slept, then a fever
ravaged my heart and my thought;

who after all, is Paris?
and why did he say, "call on Thetis"?
they are centuries, worlds apart.

Helen returns to the two voices and again, almost grudgingly it seems,
contrasts them. She had not known Paris in Egypt, but she had said, "Paris
is beautiful enchantment", and at the last, "Paris before Egypt, Paris
after, is Eros." L'amor? Yet there is no refutation of her final decision
or choice, "there is no before and no after, there is one finite moment."
Is this the "eternal moment" of her constant preoccupation, La Mort?

Is it death to stay in Egypt?
is it death to stay here,
in a trance, following a dream?

Achilles said, a catafalque, a bier,
Paris said, call on Thetis;
what had Paris to give her?

it lies at her feet
with torn nets and the spears,
the fishing-nets and the chariot-staves,

mixed offerings of rich and poor,
of peace and of war;
I see the pitiful heap of little things,

the mountain of monstrous gear,
then both vanish, there is nothing,
nothing at all, a single arrow;

what had Paris to give her, or Eros?
for even the aim of Achilles
was not so sure, his bow so taut,

and even the arrow of Chiron
might sometime fail the mark,
but this one, never.

8

One greater than Helen must answer, though perhaps we do not wholly understand the significance of the Message.

Paris before Egypt, Paris after,
is Eros, even as Thetis,
the sea-mother, is Paphos;

so the dart of Love
is the dart of Death,
and the secret is no secret;

the simple path
refutes at last
the threat of the labyrinth,

the Sphinx is seen,
the Beast is slain
and the Phoenix-nest

reveals the innermost
key or the clue to the rest
of the mystery;

there is no before and no after,
there is one finite moment
that no infinite joy can disperse

or thought of past happiness
tempt from or dissipate;
now I know the best and the worst;

the seasons revolve around
a pause in the infinite rhythm
of the heart and of heaven.