  BETTER the wind, the sea, the salt in your eyes, than this, this, this. You grumble and sweat; my ears are acute to catch your complaint, almost the sea’s roar is less than your constant threat of “back and back to the shore, and let us rest.” You grumble and curse your luck and I hear: “O Lynceus, aloft by the prow, his head on his arms, his eyes half closed, almost asleep, to watch for a rock, (and hardly ever we need his ‘to left’ or ‘to right’) let Lynceus have my part, let me rest like Lynceus. “Rest like Lynceus!” I’d change my fate for yours, the very least, I’d take an oar with the rest. “Like Lynceus,” as if my lot were the best. O God, if I could speak, if I could taunt the lot of the wretched crew, with my fate, my work. But I may not, I may not tell of the forms that pass and pass, of that constant old, old face that leaps from each wave to wait underneath the boat in the hope that at last she’s lost. Could I speak, I would tell of great mountains that flow, great weeds that float and float to tangle our oars where the dolphin leaps you saw a sign from the god, I saw why he leapt from the deep. “To right, to left;” it is easy enough to lean on the prow, half asleep, and you think, “no work for Lynceus.” No work? If only you’d let me take an oar, if only my back could break with the hurt, if the sun could blister my feet, pain, pain that I might forget the face that just this moment passed through the prow when you said, “asleep.” Many and many a sight if I could speak, many and many tales I’d tell, many and many a struggle, many a death, and my pain so great, I’d gladly die if I did not love the quest. Grumble and swear and curse, brother, god and the boat, and the great waves, but could you guess what strange terror lurks in the sea-depth, you’d thank the gods for the ship, the timber and giant oars, god-like, and the god-like quest. If you could see as I, what lurks in the sea-depth, you’d pray to the ropes and the solid timbers like god, like god; you’d pray to the oars and your work, you’d pray and thank the boat for her very self; timber and oar and plank and sail and the sail-ropes, these are beautiful things and great. But Lynceus at the prow has nothing to do but wait till we reach a shoal or some rocks and then he has only to lift his arms, right, left; O brother, I’d change my place for the worst seat in the cramped bench, for an oar, for an hour’s toil, for sweat and the solid floor. I’d change my place as I sit with eyes half closed, if only I could see just the ring cut by the boat, if only I could see just the water, the crest and the broken crest, the bit of weed that rises on the crest, the dolphin only when he leaps. But Lynceus, though they cannot guess the hurt, though they do not thank of heart and brain worn out, you must wait, alert, alert, alert. |
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