Excerpts from
Queen's Gate
By Pia Tafdrup
... and he looked like a god as he came from the bath
Homer
A bath I will give you, as Circe´s maids bathe Odysseus,
like those daughters of the groves and the fountains
and of the holy rivers that run down to the sea,
I fill the bath with water and pour you wine.
I mix in a jet hot water with some that is cooling,
while the mirrors mist over, and silence comes creeping;
a long bath you shall have, the wine will illumine your blood
and loosen those muscles I rinse with water from a jug.
As the fourth maid drove the weariness out of Odysseus´s limbs,
I shall bathe you, so that the world for a time narrows down to this room,
where mild vapours are yielded ever more densely, and your skin´s fragrances
expand in the room as warmth fills you, both from outside and in.
I move closer, wash your neck and your chest,
caress your face, your nape and your shoulders,
notice delight trickle forth as I see you forget your weapons,
see you let all your limbs relax and sink further down in the bath.
There must be water so that there is life,
and men need long baths .
I soap you and rinse you again, your body acquires gravity,
you are not just one man, but many men.
And when you stand up in the bath to emerge,
you are no less charming than Telemachus,
who was bathed by the lovely maiden Polycaste,
before he was anointed with glistening oil and covered with shirt and mantle.
Whose is the love that shines through the world like a running river,
and why does it flow pure as a soul
that comes towards me, so different from anything I have met
in the maze of the palace I long on my own strayed about in.
Translated by David McDuff
|
|
