the axion esti

THE AXION ESTI Much have they afflicted me from my youth up; But they have not prevailed against me. PSALM 129:2

''Axion esti" means "worthy it is" and is found in a hymn to the Virgin from the Byzantine liturgy and in a Good Friday encomium to Christ: "Worthy it is to glorify Thee, Giver of Life, Who didst extend Thy hand upon the Cross, and shatter the power of the enemy:' It is also the name of an icon of the Virgin on Mount Athos.

The Genesis

Seven free-verse hymns with a refrain, each hymn describing a new stage of Creation, of Man, of Day.

IN THE BEGINNING the light 1 And the first hour when the lips still in clay taste the things of the world Green blood and bulbs golden in the earth And the sea so exquisite in its sleep spread unbleached gauzes of sky beneath the carob trees and the tall standing palm trees There alone grievously weeping I faced the world My soul sought a Signalman and Herald Then I remember I saw the three Black Women Lifting their arms to the East Saw their gilded backs and on their right the slowly dissolving cloud that they left And plants of strange design It was the whole many-rayed sun with its axle in me that beckoned And he who I truly was He many aeons ago He still green in the fire He uncut from the sky I felt him come and lean over my cradle like memory become present it took on the voice of trees, of waves: "Your commandment:' he said, "is this world written in your viscera Readandtry and fight" he said "Each with his own weapons" he said And he spread his arms like a young novice God to mold together pain and joy. First high up on the walls the Seven Axes2 were pried loose with great force and fell "In the beginning"brings to mind the openings of both John's Gospel and the Book of Genesis. 2. "the Seven Axes": On the wall of Heracleion, on Crete, near where Elytis was born, were seven axes symbolizing the seven regiments enforcing Turkish rule. In 1912 Crete joined Greece, and the axes were taken down. i.

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like the Storm at its zero point where a bird is fragrant again from the beginning the blood returned home clean and monsters took on a human face

So sensible the Incomprehensible And then all the winds of my family came boys with puffed-out cheeks and wide green tails like Mermaids and other aged men known of old testaceous long-bearded And the winds divided the cloud in two And then again into four and they blew the bit that remained and sent it North And lofty the great Koules 1 set a broad foot on the waters The horizon line brightened visible and thick and impenetrable THIS the first hymn.

who I truly was he many aeons ago He still green in the fire He not created by Hand with his finger drew the distant lines sometimes ascending sharply on high and other times curving gently lower down one into the other

AND HE

great lands that I felt smell ofearth like mind So true was the earth that followed me faithfully it became redder in secret places and elsewhere with many small pine needles Later more indolently the hills the downslopes sometimes the hand slow in rest ravines plains and suddenly again savage naked boulders very strong impulses 1.

"Koules": Venetian fortress on the bay ofHeradeion.

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The moment he stood to contemplate something difficult or lofty Olympus Taygetus "Something to stand at your side "even after you die" he said And he drew threads through the stones and brought forth schist from earth's guts he fixed in place the wide stairs all around the hillside There alone he laid white marble fountains mills of winds small pink cupolas and tall perforate dovecotes 1 Virtue with its four right angles And as he thought it beautiful to be in each other's arms the big water troughs filled with love where animals calves and cows innocently stooped as if no temptation were in the world as if knives had not been made yet "It takes guts to endure peace" he said and turning around he sowed with open palms mullein crocuses bluebells all species of earth's stars pierced in one leaf as a mark of noble descent and superiority and power THIS the world the small the great!

BEFORE I heard wind or music as I set off for a clearing (ascending a boundless red sand dune erasing History with my heel) I wrestled with the bedsheets It was this I sought innocent and quivering like a vineyard and deep and uncarved like the sky's other face

BuT

"Virtue": The modem Greek word is arete. See "Sleep of the Brave (Variation)" in Six and One Remorses for the Sky, written at the same time as The Axion Esti.

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A bit of soul in the clay Then he spoke and the sea was born And I saw and I marveled And in it he sowed small worlds in my image and likeness: Stone steeds with manes erect and serene amphorae and dolphins' slanting backs los Sikinos Seriphos Melos "Each word a swallow to bring you spring in the midst of summer" he said And so many olive trees sifting the light through their hands so it spreads soft in your sleep and so many cicadas that you don't feel them as you don't feel the pulse in your wrist but only a little water so you hold it a God and understand what its word means and the tree by itself with no flock so you make it your friend and know its precious name the soil thin at your feet so there's no room to spread your roots and to keep going deeper and broad the sky above so you yourself can rea.d the infinite

THIS the world the small the great!

"AND THIS THE WORLDyoumustseeandreceive" he said: Look! And my eyes cast the seed running the thousands of untrod acres faster than rain Sparks taking root in the dark and sudden jets of water The silence I reclaimed to brood germ-cells ofletters and golden seeds of oracles With the spade still in my hands I saw the big short-legged plants, turning their faces

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some barking some sticking their tongues out Here's the asparagus here's the rabe here's curly parsley ginger plant and geranium Queen Anne's lace and fennel

Secret syllables through which I strove to articulate my identity "Bravo:' he said to me, "you know how to read and there is still a lot you'll come to learn if you study the Insignificant in depth And a day will come when you will take on helpers Remember: the infighting Zephyr, the erebus-killing pomegranate the flaming swift-footed kisses" And his speech vanished like fragrance Partridge the ninth hour beat into the deep heart of euphony1 the houses stood in solidarity small and square with white arches and indigo doors Beneath the grape arbor I daydreamed for hours with tiny chirps croaks, twitters, distant coos: Here's the pigeon here's the stork here's the gypsy bird the oriole and the water hen and the mayfly was there too and the praying mantis called Virgin's pony

The seaboard with my limbs naked in the sun and again the two seas with a third between-lemon citrus tangerine trees and the other northwester with its high upper strait spoiling the sky's ozone Low at the bottom of the leaves the smooth seashingle the flowers' little ears and the impatient shoot which are THIS the world the small the great! 1.

"partridge the ninth hour ... euphony": quoted from "The Whole World" (Orientations).

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AN o then I understood the surf and the long endless whisper of the trees I saw the red water jugs lined up on the dock and closer to the wooden window shutter where I lay sleeping on my side the northwind crowed more loudly Andi saw Korai beautiful and naked and smooth as a beach pebble with a bit of black in the nook of their thighs and a rich spread of it along their shoulder blades who standing blew into the Conch and others writing in chalk strange, enigmatic words: ROES, ESA, ARIMNA NUS, MORILMATITY, YELTIS 1 small voices of birds and hyacinths or other words of July At the stroke of eleven five fathoms deep perch gudgeon seabream with huge gills and short boat-stem tails Ascending I found sponges and starfish and slender speechless anemones and higher up at the water's lip rosy limpets and half-opened pina clams and sea grass "Precious words," he said to me, "ancient oaths spared by Time and the sure hearing of distant winds" And near the wooden window shutter where I lay sleeping on my side I pressed a pillow tight to my chest and my eyes filled with tears I was in the sixth month ofmy loves and in my belly a precious seed was stirring THIS

the world the small the great!

1.

"ROES ... ":anagrams. (In Greek a second choice for"ROES"would be "HOURS.")

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"BuT FIRST you will see the wilderness and give it your own meaning," he said

"It will precede your heart and will continue afterward Know this above all: what you save in the lightning will last pure forever" And high above the waves he set villages of cliffs The foam reached there as dust I saw a frail goat lick the crevices with a slant eye lean body hard as quartz I lived the grasshoppers and the thirst and their rough-joined fingers for the fixed number of years as Knowledge determines Stooped over papers night after night and descending into fathomless books with a skinny rope I sought the white up to the ultimate intensity ofblack Hope up to the point of tears Joy up to extreme despair Then came the moment for help to be sent and the lot fell to rain streams purled all day I ran like mad to the slopes I tore broom and my hand offered much myrtle for the breezes to bite "Purity;' he said, "is this on the slopes as in your guts" And he spread his arms like an old prudent God to mold together clay and heavenliness and he lightly tinged the peaks a molten red but he fixed the grass an unbitten green to the ravines mint lavender verbena and lambs' little hoofprints or elsewhere again thin threads of silver falling from the heights, cool hair of a girl I saw and desired Areal woman "Purity:' he said, "is this" and filled with yearning I caressed the body kisses teeth to teeth; then one into the other I quivered

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like an anchor rope I stepped so deep that the caves took in wind White-sandaled Echo passed quickly for a moment as a garfish under the water and I saw the Great Ram ascend Unstepping on high having the hill for a foot and the sun for its horned head And he who I truly was He many aeons ago He still green in the fire He uncut from heaven whispered when I asked: -What is good? What is evil? -A point A point and on it you balance and exist and beyond it trepidation and darkness and behind it the grinding teeth of angels -A point A point and on it you can infinitely proceed or else nothing else exists anymore And the Scales that, as I spread my arms, seemed to weigh light against instinct, were THIS the world the small the great!

AND BECAUSE THE HOURS turned like days with broad violet leaves on the garden clock I was the clock's hand Tuesday Wednesday Thursday June July August I was pointing to necessity which struck my face like seaspray Insect of girls Distant lightning flashes of Iris "All these the time of innocence the time of the whelp and the sprout long before Necessity:' he said to me And he pushed danger away with one finger He clothed the cape's ridge in a black eyebrow From an unknown place he poured phosphorous "For you to see:' he said, "inside your body veins of potassium, manganese

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and the calcified ancient remnants oflove" And then my heart clenched tight

it was the first creaking ofwood inside me perhaps of an approaching night the voice of the owl the blood of somebody killed returning to the upper world Far away, at the edge of my soul, I saw secretly passing by high lighthouses like field hands Crossbeamed castles on cliffs The polestar Saint Marina with the demons 1 And much further behind the waves on the Island with bays 2 of olive groves It seemed for a moment that I saw Him who gave his blood for me to incarnate 3 once more ascending the Saint's rough road once more Once more placing his fingers on the waters ofYera4 and so the five villages ignite Papados Plakados Palaiokipos Skopelos and Mesagros authority and inheritance of my kin "But now:' he said, "your other face must ascend to the light" and long before I had in mind a sign of fire or shape of tomb Where no one was able to see bending over his hands stretched out he prepared the great Voids on the earth and in the body of man: the void of Death for the Coming Infant

St. Marina wards off demons. "Island with bays": Lesbos, Elytis' ancestral island. 3. "who gave his blood... ": St. Theodore ofMytilene, (eighteenth century), claimed as an ancestor ofElytis. 4. "Yera": a beautiful bay on Lesbos; the five villages listed here overlook it. Elytis's mother was from near Yera. i.

2.

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the void of Murder for the Just Judgment the void of sacrifice for the Equal Compensation the void of Soul for the Responsibility to Others and Night a pansy of an old Moon sawn by nostalgia with ruins of an abandoned mill and the harmless fragrance of manure took a place inside me It changed the dimensions of faces; it portioned out burdens differently My hard body was the anchor sunk in men where is no other sound but thuds waitings and lamentations and cracks on the face's other side Ofwhat nonexistent race was I the descendent only then did I realize that the thought of the Other like a glass edge diagonally incised me from one side to the other as I stood I saw clearly as if there were no walls old women holding lanterns going about their houses cracks on their foreheads and on the ceiling and other mustached young men tying weapons around their waists speechless two fingers on the gunstock centuries now. "See;' he said, "they are the Others and there's no way for Them without You and there's no way for You without Them" See," he said, "they are the Others and you really must confront them if you want your countenance to be ineffaceable and to stay so. Because many wear the black shirt and others speak the language of oinks and they are Raweaters and Louts of Water Wheatphobes and the Livid and Neocondors a bunch and crowd of the Fourbeamed cross's points. If you truly stand firm and confront them;' he said, "your life will acquire keenness and you will lead;' he said "Each with his own weapons;' he said

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And he who I truly was He many aeons ago He still green in the fire He uncut from the sky He passed into me And became he who lam It was night's third hour the first cock crowed far over the huts I saw for a moment the Standing Columns the Metope with Strong Animals 1 and Men bearing Divine Knowledge The Sun assumed its face The Archangel forever on my right THIS then am I and the world the small the great!

I.

"Standing Columns ... Animals": the Parthenon.

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The Passion

Three forms are represented in this sequence: free-verse psalms (P), odes of complex metrical responsion (0), and prose readings (R). There are three sections, identically structured: PPOROPPOROPP. In the first, consciousness confronts tradition (Greeks resist in Albania in World War II); in the second it confronts danger (occupation of Greece in WWII); in the third, it overcomes danger (civil war, post-WWII). Elytis did not use the designations psalm and ode except in his notes. They are added here as an assist to the reader and for convenience in scholarly reference.

Psalm I BEHOLD here am I created for young Korai andAegean islands; lover of roe deer's leaping and initiate of olive leaves; sun-drinker and locust-killer. Behold then I confronting the black shirts of the resolute and the empty belly of years, in convulsion aborting its children! Wind lets loose the elements and thunder assails the mountains. Fate of the innocent, again alone, here at the Narrow Passes! At the Passes I opened my hands At the Passes I emptied my hands and I saw no other riches, and I heard no other riches but cool fountains flowing with Pomegranates or Zephyr or Kisses. Each with his own weapons, I said: At the Passes I shall open my pomegranates At the Passes I shall post Zephyrs as guards I shall unleash old kisses my longing consecrated! Wmd lets loose the elements and thunder assails the mountains. Fate of the innocent you are my own Fate!

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Psalm II* I WAS given the Greek language; a poor house on Homer's beaches. My only care my language on Homer's beaches. Seabream there and perch windbeaten verbs green sea-currents amid the azure currents which I felt light up in my viscera sponges, medusae with the first words of the Sirens pink shells with their first black shivers. My only care my language with the first black shivers. Pomegranates there, quinces swarthy gods, uncles and cousins pouring olive oil in huge jars; and breaths from the ravines smelling of chaste-tree and lentisk broom and ginger root with the first cheeps of the finches, sweet psalmodies with the very first Glory to Thee. My only care my language with the very first Glory to Thee! Laurel there and palm fronds censer and censings blessing the sabres and flintlocks. On the ground spread with vineleaves odors of grilled meat, eggs cracking and Christ is Risen 1 with the first gunshots of the Greeks. Secret loves with the first words of the Hymn. 2 My only care my language, with the first words of the Hymn!

* The unprinted title is "The Poet and His Language:' "On the ground ... Risen": Easter celebration. Friends knock together the tips of red-dyed eggs to see whose will crack first. 2. "the Hymn": the Greek national anthem, words by the poet Dionysios Solomos (17981857), who crucially influenced modern Greek poetry; Elytis considers hini his master.

1.

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Ode 1* wasstillinclay Rosy newborn babe And from that time he molded And the smoke ofyour hair He gave you articulation The airy and the in MY

MOUTH

And from that same moment Opening in me Bickering in the aether That the blood was for you The horrible and excellent For you the enticement During the pyrrhic dance I heard You say to Secret commands and also Words with the resplendence And hanging over the abyss THE TERRIBLE CUTTING

* andthenhenamedyou * with specks ofdew * the line ofyour lips

* deep yet in dawn * and the lambda and epsilon 1 * fallible stride. >f:

an unknown prison

* dun and white birds * rose up and I felt

* the tears for you * struggle throughout the centuries * and the beauty. * clashing spears and swords

* the trees' woodwinds * pure virginal words * ofclear green stars

* I could recognize hovering * EDGE OF YOUR

SWORD/ 2

* "Birth of Liberty and Language" "the lambda and epsilon": the first two letters of"Elytis" and of the words for freedom, Hellas, and Helen, all important themes throughout Elytis. 2. "The terrible ... sword": words adapted from the national anthem (see note 2. to Psalm II), the first two stanzas of which are I recognize thee by the edge Sprung from the sacred of thy terrible sword, bones of the Greeks, I recognize thee by the countenance valorous as at first hail, hail, 0 Freedom! that with violence measures the earth.

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First Reading* The March to the Front AT DAWN on St. John's Day, the day after Epiphany, we received the order to move up to the places where there are no weekdays or Sundays. We had to take over the lines till then held by the army ofArta, from Heimarra to Tepeleni, because they had been fighting without a break right from the start and only half of them were left and they couldn't hold out any more. We had already spent twelve days in the villages behind the lines.And as our ears again became accustomed to the sweet rustlings of the earth, and timidly we gave ear to the barking of the dogs, or to the sound of distant church bells, it was then we had to return to the only din we knew: slow and heavy from the cannons, dry and quick from the machine guns. Night after night, we marched without stopping, one behind the other, as if blind. Slogging through the mud with great effort, we sank in up to the knee. Because it often drizzled on the roads as in our souls. And the few times we stopped to rest, we wouldn't exchange a word, but grim and silent, with a little torch for light, we shared out our raisins one by one. At other times, if we had the chance, we hurriedly loosened our clothes and furiously scratched ourselves for a long time till we bled. Because the lice had come up as far as our necks, which was even more unbearable than our exhaustion.And then the whistle was heard through the darkness, signaling us to start off again, and like pack animals we advanced as far as we could before daybreak, when we would be targets for the airplanes. Because God had no idea about such things as targets, and as was his wont, he always made daybreak at the same hour. Then, hidden in gullies, we rested our heads on their heavy side, whence no dreams emerge.And the birds got angryat us, thinking we paid no attention to their words-or because we had perhaps made creation ugly for no reason. We were peasants of another kind, with spades and iron tools of another kind in our hands,