Page 55 - Studio International - May 1969

a s to every object a quality and virtue, every being Then on the diction level. The language
th w all human (human or natural) comes into being before shifts gear constantly, moving from the bard/
we f surprisingly our very senses, is created ex nihilo: narrator's complex and metaphorical tale­
comprehensiveness telling, to lucid lyrical choruses, to stand-up
It als wa seei which And her Achilles went to make amends, rhetorical character speeches, to the collec­
( its the walking along beside the broken lace that hung tive voice of the soldiers ('We fight when the
scientific vision) is sought by more and over the sea's green fist. sun rises. When it sets we count the dead.
ar today. The sea that is always counting. What has the beauty of Helen to do with
su us?'), to the brevity and concision of shouted
story­ the 'Th or: slogans and cries. The diction seems to centre
the a shield as round as rich and big as moons in finally in the speech of Odysseus, intervening
retires, unt t ni whe spring in the proud argument between Achilles and
al all is lost, he returns to the fight and his king Agamemnon, an argument which is
dies gloriously -whereupon he is given a or: destroying the Greeks. It is as if Homer were
grand funeral. This p t Briseis in their midst, coming home to harbour, homing into a
modifications C her breasts so lovely that they emy one another; voice which speaks his deepest concerns, the
movies of the thirties It is an deepest concerns of his society:
folk it or:
the Why did you leave them, Hector? You What we have got to do is not embroidery;
st a fury, Mlho had generals like clouds, soldiers like drops for you the battle may be gold,
it of rain the men will go through it like needles,
is built th rh the con­ breaking or broken, but either way emerging
ventional plot.' or: naked as they went.
o witness He fell as a tree falls-oak, say, or jJine­ Think of the moment when th ey see the usual
i th sulking Slowly at first and then, with the bright loot, gold, horses, women, tin, is missing from
withdrawa at the kill of Commercial axes at its heart, this fight-although the usual risks are not.
his clos resigned The tall hurt trunk lies down They do not own the swords with which th ey
afte h has Patroclus's Among its leaves, resentfully. fight, nor the ships that brought them here;
killer- psychic jo something orders are handed down in words th ey barely
els i s enjoy understand; frankly, they do not care a whit who
aesthetically. fucks soft Helen.
H in Ithica' s mine; Pythia yours; but what are they
of w making defending?
order of it. What was consistently pleasurable They love you? Yes, they do. Th ey also loved
abo the Patroklos; and he is dead, th ey say; bury the
its th of dead, th ey say;
st as a hundred of us singing angels died for every
spectators and listeners were given to take in, knock Patroklos took-so why thefuss?-that's
put war, th ey say,
through. who came to eat in Troy and not to prove how
On the verbal level fi N no thing is much dear friends are missed.
epithet,
235