Meditation That Means What It Says

HELEN IN EGYPT. By H. D. Intro-
duction by Horace Gregory. 315
pp. New York: Grove Press. $5.

By REX WARNER

THE story goes that the early
Greek lyric poet, Stesichorus,
once wrote a poem about Helen
of Troy in which he called
her the usual insulting names,
adulteress, warmonger, etc. He
was then smitten with blindness.
He had forgotten that Helen
was, after all, divine and quite
capable of looking after her
reputation. He therefore com-
posed a recantation or "pal-
inode," in which he declared
that Helen was quite guiltless.
She had never been to Troy
at all. Only a phantom, looking
exactly like her, went there. The
real Helen was all the time in
Egypt.

Euripides wrote a brilliant
play on the same theme, a kind
of romantic comedy, full of ex-
citement and wit. It is a play
that deserves to be better
known. The same subject has
been beautifully handled in his
own way by the modern Greek
poet, George Seferis. And now

Among Mr. Warner's books
are "Greek Philosophers" and
"Greeks and Trojans."

we have from H. D.* a long and
intricate poem based also on the
old palinode,

This poem is, as Horace Greg-
ory states in his Introduction,
"a rarity." It is, to begin with,
long (more than 300 pages). It
is not an epic and does not pre-
cisely tell a story. Yet there is
a ce tain narrative sequence.
The whole poem is made up of
a series of lyrical passages, all
in stanzas of three lines, and
each introduced by a short pas-
sage in prose. These prose pas-
sages are not exactly explana-
tory, but they do guide the
reader through a maze of medi-
tation.

The poem itself may be de-
scribed as a sustained meditation
of great seriousness and beauty.
It is possible that some people
will call it obscure, because
precise everyday prose mean-
ings are not easy to grasp. In
fact, it is not obscure at all. It
means just what it says, and
the meaning of poetry is dif-
ferent from the meaning of
prose. The images are clear,
distinct and moving, and they

*Poet, translator, author of an excellent study of Freud, expatriate for half a century. American born H. D. (contracted from Hilda Doolittle) was one of the pillars of the anti-Romantic Imagist movement of World War I. Productive until the end (a novel was published last year), H. D. died recently in Zurich at the age of 75.

convey a sense both of time-
lessness and of reality.

All sorts of myths are brought
together into this Helen story.
There is Achilles as well as
Paris. There are Theseus, Cly-
temnestra, Thetis, Iphigenia
and many more of those old
names that the present age
seems to be finding increasingly
significant. And the themes are
great ones: war, love, guilt, in-
nocence, time and timelessness,
reality. Yet, as I have already
suggested, such an ambitious
poem is easily readable. It
charms one. It is a very fine
achievement, indeed. And though
it is unfair to dismember it by
quotation, I cannot resist quot-
ing one or two stanzas in the
hope that they will give some
idea of the fine, spare, imagina-
tive quality of the verse:

How did we know each other?
was it the sea-enchantment in
his eyes of Thetis,
his sea-mother?
what was the token given?
I was alone, bereft,
I wore no zone, no crown
and he was shipwrecked,
drifting without chart,
famished and tempest driven
the fury of the tempest
in his eyes.

AN EVERGREEN BOOK (E-375)—$2.45

HELEN IN EGYPT
BY H.D.

*Introduction by Horace Gregory*

The fabulous beauty of Helen of Troy is legendary. But some say that Helen was never in Troy; that she had been abandoned by Zeus to Egypt; that Greeks and Trojans fought for an illusion, a phantom. Out of a fifty-line fragment by the early Greek poet, Stesichorus, H. D. has woven her book-length poem. *Helen in Egypt* is not a simple retelling but a re-creation and fusion of the myths of Helen, Paris, Theseus, and fellow figures from the Greek and Egyptian pantheons.

The magnificent culmination of the poem is the meaning of the classical Greek experience to us. It is a meditation of the highest order.

"The poem is as easy to read as breathing; it could be
danced, it could be sung, the clarity of image is so perfect.
... Tremendous suggestiveness and magnetic force radiate
from the scenes invoked and their symbolic details...
H. D.'s verse has the balance, the amplitude and the clean
outlines of a Greek temple."—*The Nation*

"The poem itself may be described as a sustained medi-
tation of great seriousness and beauty. ... It is a very fine
achievement, indeed."—*The New York Times Book Review*

"She achieved a sense of enchanted action in a timeless world."—*Saturday Review*

"The wedding of the intellect and the emotions...
carries in its wake a sensuous beauty of imagery; the right
word always conveys her design.... Many a line will haunt
the memory."—*Library Journal*

GROVE PRESS, INC., 64 University Place, New York 3, N. Y.

Helen in Egypt
by H. D.

INTRODUCTION BY HORACE GREGORY

HELEN IN EGYPT
BY H.D.

E-375
GROVE
PRESS

$2.45

EVERGREEN E-375