Agamemnon's Journey to Troy
AGAMEMNON’S JOURNEY
I rose as a star above the abyss, through which flew the river of poisonous drink,
With a hope to scatter from the throne the glory of the mortal king , who needed no other light,
I sought greater and greater height,
Drawn by the horses aided by the swiftest wings,
I rose higher and higher with the mind's restless wind.
I needed no God; from my kingdom all gods had fled,
Now Heaven was empty to be filled by the offspring of the weak and the dead.
I am a king unafraid,
No lightening of the gods or rumbling of the immortal frauds bring me any more dismay,
On the storm-tossed waves I feel secure and brave,
As on the glittering sand and the golden grains the sun turns its immortal face,
I see on Eearth my glory washing all shores and lands with victories' joyous waves.
I only have the longing for the star where the ultimate power will blink,
As the light of the burning star I wish to make myself brighter and brighter with the flames that only from myself rise and in myself sink,
I do not wish to fly away from the world where all things are destined to course with the sun with its wings,
I draw things downwards where there is no longing for gods but only for the mortal kings.
Where the eagle brings fire with its burning beak,
There flies my spirit with its turning blick,
Under the vault, that arches in the striving to climb over the splendour of the sky from where the sun strokes the ferocious lions' skins,
There runs the path along which my fearless heart seeks to quench unquenchable fiery stream,
My inexorable will flies over the river where in hundreds of mirrors the boat of life scatters my mind's kingly dream,
And as a jewel of light I glitter under heaven's beam.
Like the power riding the cosmic world's bejewelled steed,
Where the stars and the planets speed,
And the bodies, in ceaseless motion, around the night's streamlets train,
I wish to rise as a king over whom no mortal or god can reign.
Like the summer Sun, that burns to give the seeds their power to grow after birth,
Forces the nature to erupt with surge of lust,
I wish to be the lion, who dominates the destiny of Earth,
Like the burning disk of ray, that over the peaks takes violent wind's assaults,
Jutting over the cliffs upon the seas pounds on the golden salts,
I wish my royal spectre shall stand in the height and over all kingdoms sway,
Remaining untouched by the tumults of the wars and conflicts, that ravage the life on Earth every minute, hour and day,
I wish to illumine all affairs of man with my power's rays.
Where the havoc walk, cities fall in ruin, unceasing funerals blow the pyres' breath,
Like an unscratched lion breathing on the sun's fire, I wish to blow across the lands and seas the glorious rays with which the mortal soul can harvest the greatest power and wealth,
Like the shinning star of the sky moving through the twelve signs,
I wish to move as the sun-king to whom all powers of the destiny are assigned,
Like a lion prowling in the starry field growling with deep glaring eyes, where in great passion the power wakes,
In whose foaming tongue the torrent of will-to-power breaks,
Inside whose tossing mane the raging soul in ferocious animosity shakes,
From my eyes the thirst for power pours into a hellish lake.
In the vaulted dome, that shines in the passion's blaze,
Over the abyss of the darkness,
Where the flames of war and conquest whirl in wind in dust,
Tongues of the blazing pyre licks the world in wondrous lust,
Before following the order of the laws of the nature I shall fade away,
I wish to stand as a glorious king of the earth in this fiery play.
Like the glow of power that the mankind in greatest rulers watched,
Who rose as rays of fulminating blast,
In the mortal gaze,
Carrying a seldom splendour of the spirit , sought by kings for ages ,
Where the meteors streak their ways,
I wish to rise over the earth before I pass ...away away...
From the ruin and dust ,
From where nothing will draw me any longer to the suffering of the world of lust.
Though not the highest or the noblest,
As the greatest and the best,
Over the skyline decorated with the stellar signs ,
Astir upon the hills and the vales as a burning flame fierce and unbenign,
As a demigod I wish to fly from time,
In the orbit ruled by the nature, flying from east to west, and west to east,
I wish to rise from the lowest
To the highest peak,
And also sink below in the darkness that is infinitely deep.
From the fiery pit, where God's angels hurled Satan amidst the hellish beasts,
With wings of fire I wish to rise to heaven where I fear the gods least.
I am Devil's rock and Devil's bridge,
The king of light , the lord of evil, the flying time's taloned beast,
I am nature's shocks and waves, life's glory, and pleasures' feast.
Like the sun, in whose glint and glimmer,
The mighty squares in joyous waves move and shimmer,
The massive crowd teemed with troops, takes to light the nation's noise and clamour,
In my eyes the gods become deemer and deemer.
Good and evil,
God and Devil,
The ring of fire and the soothing light's dreaming shade,
Magic pyre, beauty of life in a teeming lake,
The phantoms and ghosts dreaming in flames,
The Fates and Furies spinning life's or vengeance's' webs,
Victory and fame,
Defeat and shame,
Friends and foes honouring or disgracing the slaughtering swords' flaming rage,
In the ring of mirrors in hero's thirst,
In the magic fire's burning lust in ruin and dust,
Like the glints of spears where flamelets dance,
More this life appears as a flaming river where all swim by chance,
In my mind the light and shadow the power's eternal contradictions enhance.
Knowing that like a meteor, that may fall by chance,
In heart's height I burn in an urn,
Brother or wife, whoever may come to threaten my sceptre's might,
Must march to the grave through the deepest night,
To whom God and "Devil" are alike,
Good and evil are allies,
To root out the danger and fear is my life's greatest delight,
I must find the enemies who are still in flight.
Destiny of the victor
As the beauty -unstained and innocent- fell ,
The sails swiftly rose with the gale,
The swiftly rising wind compelled the sails to bulge over the rising current of the stream,
And the ships sailed before the eyes as an unbelievable dream.
I heard the beauty's cry from the realm of death,
But in the warrior's mind , devoured by the lust for the honour of the nation and the wealth,
The death of the beloved seems as a necessary sacrifice to the hands of fate.
With the hands besmeared with blood I moved,
The fleet, that on the shore once unbulgingly stood,
In the refreshing wind opened their sails - shinning and white -
And drove me as the commander of the war to seek the return of the queen, who had defamed the house by her love's adulterous flight.
The beauty is a dubious boon, a brief gift of life with little stay,
Lent for a while it comes to life and then flies away,
A wise king does not trust her wings,
He knows that she may turn the hearts languish in love and ravage the glory of the nation and the honour of the kings,
And bring war among nations by seducing the lovers with her bejewelled beauty decorated with girdles, chains and rings.
After the sun fiercely burns at noon,
To bring man to his doom,
In the night's wheel she comes as the veiled moon .
With glowing cheeks and soothing hands,
With the flowing tresses, that flow over the shoulders where the tousled hair stand,
With eyes drawn as a bow soft and sure,
When she releases the flame that nothing else but her warmth can cure,
The ferocious beasts are more easy to win,
Than the fire fanned by the beauteous queen.
I remember , as the beauty, I sacrificed , sank and the white sails their canvas spread,
The death seemed nothing but a race with one's destiny and fate.
The sun rose above the waves,
The breeze whispered from mind's darkened caves,
Aeolian wind struck the heart's ethereal strings ,
With the slowly dispersing clouds the mind flew to the distant shore flapping its wings.
As the gallant vessels stealthily swept,
In swifter ripples the streams in the mind for the sacrificed beauty wept,
In the virgin foam in ease the sailors dashed their oars without being wet,
In order to win back the most beautiful queen on Earth,
Who had fled from her home with the prince of love,
As the oars plunged in rhythms with the sailors sang and revelled,
A beautiful happy world sprang out of the sacrificed beauty's darkened grave.
Where the foams rung from the rocks mingling with the waves,
The bubbling streams echoed the silence of the mountainous landscape in nature's ballad and staves,
The fresh buds of the feelings joined with the rocky main,
And churned from the heart the sprays of the beauty unstained,
From the toil and tumult of life,
Where like a sailor in an ocean the self always strives,
The sky lifted the mind in a beauteous world's blue lagoon,
While the desire to rescue the abducted beauty rose in the heart as the light of a tantalising moon,
The anger to destroy the foe, who had abducted the queen with love's skilful art,
Awakened the unconquered king's restless heart.
Amidst this the memory of the beauty sacrificed to the sea,
Billowed in the mind with unsurpassable energies,
The sorrow of life , the glory of happiness, mingled with the sky and the earth in a lucid hue,
In warmth of love that I never knew,
To win back the beauty I sailed the vessels,
Towards the shore of the enemy's land
And the island of Lesbos me closer and closer drew.
Where the wind in the ripples and waves played with light and threatened me with darkness and fear,
I saw her smiles and tears,
In the crushing waves' columns that fear amass,
I saw the light's fountains rush,
In the ruffled tears blinking as glass,
I saw how the blue-eyed daughter of Earth death's boundary surpassed.
In the highland's swelling blue,
Where love met the sky in innumerable hues,
My mind felt her light embrace,
In each crag, in each cliff, in every shore I saw her thrilling beauty being mirrored in the nature's face.
To save the honour of the home ,
To prove the power of the throne,
I had sacrificed her to Aeolus on the sand of the shore ,
Where in the murmuring breath the sea had wept in silent tears,
With face, blood smeared,
Sacrificing the one who was my dear,
Like the sea-born shells creeping in depth I had crept in sorrow hearing my comrades' joyous cheers,
Passing by the islands of Cyclades to reach the enemy's reign,
I had felt in the main,
The dazzling beauty's blood and pain,
In the charming strands robed in the virgin dress,
I had felt in the kindled heart the beauty's weeping carnage and wooing caress.
Where the rocks jutting out in the sea as enormous crags their ferocity protrude,
Hurl headlong the waves in the ocean's deep blue hue,
Where the nature strives in waves against its fate,
Between the sea and the sky where the mind in the beauty meditates,
By sacrificing the beauty I had gone to seek to rescue beauty from her monstrous fate.
This was the same way once Heracles had sailed,
In order to free the beautiful princess sacrificed by her father Heracles had the ferocious dragon haled and quelled,
And then set Troy ablaze and ignited a fire of Hell.
Crossing the wild ocean that Aeolus had secured,
With the blood of the beauty that was innocent and pure,
Where the Nerieds had once sheltered in the caves in the strand,
As a commander-in-chief I had arrived at the enemy's land.
Shinning with the hope of taking the queen of beauty back home,
We had anchored in the shore swept by the Aegean foams.
As my war-comrades the beauty of this land adored,
In coming here in their hearts torrents of joys poured,
And as battle ready warriors they leaped ashore feeling war's strange thrill and amour.
The war lasted for years before we won,
We sacked Troy and massacred the city in the way Heracles had shown,
When the Trojan tried to flee in vain,
We rescued the queen of beauty from the hands of the monster, seducing man to treacherous love, time and again.
Through the portal through which we had entered the city in a wooden horse,
We brought back the beauty that was our kingdom's greatest pride and our biggest loss.
After the victory and joy,
Kindling the citadel in fire as the punishment of Troy,
Sacrificing the beautiful daughter of the enemy in hero's tomb,
I sailed home in glory as the powerful sun-king's unrivalled son.
Follow Wandering Odysseus
ENTER THE HALL OF ILIAD