Orpheus. Eurydice. Hermes

Summary

It was a strange, unworldly mine of souls.

Like silent silver ore they wandered on —

like veins on through the dark. Between the roots

welled up the blood that makes its way to men;

it seemed hard porphyry in that darkness.

Nothing else was red.

And there were rocks,

and woods like apparitions, spans over voids,

and there, that lake — huge, gray, and blind — that hovered

high above its deep-down bed. It hung,

a rain-sky's stormcloud far above its landscape.

Between the meadows, soft and full of patience,

appeared the pale strip of the only path,

laid down like some long, bleached, and winding thing.

And it was by this single path they came.

In front, the slender, mantled man in blue.

Impatient, mute, he stared out straight ahead.

His strides ate up the path in giant bites

that never paused for chewing, and his hands

hung clenched and heavy from the fabric's folds.

No longer did they know the fragile lyre

that was engrafting in his left side like

rose tendrils growing on an olive branch.

It was as if his senses had been split:

for while his sight ran like a dog ahead,

then turned around, came back again, and waited

at the next — but distant — pathway's turning,

his hearing lingered after like a scent.

At times it seemed to him it reached as far

back as the footsteps of those other two

who must be following the whole ascent.

But then it only echoed his own steps,

or else his mantle's luffing breath behind.

But still he told himself that they were coming.

He said the words aloud … and heard them die.

They were still following, but they

were two who walked in quiet fear. And dared

he turn just once (though looking back would be

nicht die Zersetzung dieses ganzen Werkes,

das erst vollbracht wird), müßte er sie sehen,

die beiden Leisen, die ihm schweigend nachgehn:

Den Gott des Ganges und der weiten Botschaft,

die Reisehaube über hellen Augen,

den schlanken Stab hertragend vor dem Leibe

und flügelschlagend an den Fußgelenken;

und seiner linken Hand gegeben: sie.

Die So-geliebte, daß aus einer Leier

mehr Klage kam als je aus Klagefrauen;

daß eine Welt aus Klage ward, in der

alles noch einmal da war: Wald und Tal