Ted Hughes

Erysichthon

Some are transformed just once And live their whole lives after in that shape. Others have a facility For changing themselves as they please. ProteusProteusA shape-shifting sea deity most famous for his role in Book 4 of Homer’sOdyssey. , who haunts the shadowy seas That scarf this earthThat scarf this earthDoes “scarf” here mean that the sea enwraps the earth or gulps it down? The Latin is clearer:complexi“embracing. ” But later in this poem, the voracious sea is described as draining the continents. , is glimpsed as a young man Who becomes of a sudden a lion That becomes a wild boar ripping the ground, Yet flows forward, hidden, through grass, without sound As a serpent, that emerges As a towering bull under down-bent horns, Or hides, among stones, a simple stone. Or stands as a tree alone. Or liquefies, and collapses, shapeless, Into water, a pouring river. Sometimes He is the river’s opposite––firefireHughes and Ovid both end their introductions to the tale with this word (ignisin Ovid’s Latin), which hints at an alternative name for Erysichthon in Greek myth: Aethon (“Burning, Blazing”). Another with a similar power Was Erysichthon’sdaughterdaughterNeither Ovid nor Hughes names her, though elsewhere she goes by Mestra. , The wife ofAutolycusAutolycusA notorious thief and trickster of Greek myth and the maternal grandfather of Odysseus who was a strategist and survivor of the Trojan War celebrated in theOdyssey, as a master of deception. . Her father Gave to the gods nothing but mockery. Without a qualm he cut down every tree In the sacred grove ofCeresCeresThe goddess of agriculture, who when pleased provides food in abundance. –– An ancient wood that had never, before that day, Jumped to the axe’s stroke. Among those trees One prodigious oak was all to itself A tangled forest. Its boughs were bedecked with wreaths And votive tributes––each for a prayer Ceres had sometime granted. DryadsDryadsMinor female tree deities, who some believed lived and died with their respective trees. there Danced a holy circle around its bole Or joined hands to embrace it–– A circumference of twenty paces. Erysichthon ignores all this as He assesses the volume of its timber, Then orders his men to fell it. Seeing their reluctance, he roars: “If this tree were your deity, that every clown adores, And not merely a tree you think she favours, Nevertheless, those twigs away there at the top Would have to come down now, as the rest falls. ” He snatches an axe––and hauls The weight of the broad head up and back. But in that moment, as the blade hangs Poised for the first downstroke, shudderings Swarm through the whole tree, to its outermost twigs And a groan bursts from the deep grain. At the same time Every bough goes grey––every leaf Whitens, and every acorn whitens. Then the bladebitesbitesThe biting imagery is Hughes’s addition, looking ahead to the tale’s theme of hunger. The Latin (literally translated): “his impious hand made a wound in the trunk. ”and the blood leaps As from the neck of a great bull when it drops Under the axe at the altar. Everybody stares paralysed. Only one man protests. TheThessalianThessalianErysichthon is king of Thessaly, an especially fertile region of the ancient Greek mainland. Erysichthon turns with eyes stretched Incredulous. “Your pious cares,” he bellows, “Are misplaced. ” And he follows That first swing at the oak with another At the protester’s neck, whose head Spins through the air and bounces. Then the oak, as he turns back to it, pronounces, In a clear voice, these words: “I live in this tree. I am anymphnymphAny of a variety of minor Greek deities closely tied to natural features such as trees (like the dryad speaking here), mountains, or bodies of water. , Beloved by Ceres, the goddess. “With my last breath, I curse you. As this oak Falls on the earth, your punishment Will come down on you with all its weight. That is my consolation. And your fate. ” Erysichthon ignored her. He just kept going, Undercutting the huge trunk, till ropes Brought the whole mass down, jolting the earth, Devastating the underbrush around it. All the nymphs of the sacred grove mourned it. Dressed in black, they came to Ceres, Crying for the criminal to be punished, Bewailing the desecration. The goddess listened. Then the summer farms, the orchards, the vineyards, The whole flushed, ripening harvest, shivered As she pondered how to make his death A parable of her anger. If his cruelty, greed, arrogance Had left him a single drop of human feeling What the goddess did now Would have drained mankind of its pity. She condemned him To Hunger–– But infinite, insatiable Hunger, The agony of Hunger as a frenzy. Destiny has separated Hunger So far from the goddess of abundance They can never meet; therefore Ceres Commissioned a mountain spirit, anoreadoreadCeres ventures outside her divine agricultural sphere in calling on a mountain nymph because the destination of this mission will prove to be a mountain. : “Hear what I say and do not be afraid. Far away to the north ofScythiaScythiaA region extending across the north of the Black Sea, exaggerated in Greek myth as a frozen wasteland at the edge of the earth. This description of Scythia bears striking resemblance to Ovid’s depictions elsewhere of Tomis, the town on the Black Sea to which the Roman emperor Augustus exiled him. Lies a barren country, leafless, dreadful: Ice permanent as iron, air that aches. “A howling land of rocks, gales and snow. There mad Hunger staggers. Go. Bid Hunger Take possession of Erysichthon’s belly. Tell her she has power over all my powers “To nourish Erysichthon. Let all I pour Or push down this fool’s gullet only deepen His emptiness. Go. My dragon-drawn chariot Will make the terrific journey seem slight. ” The nymph climbed away and her first halt Was the top ofCaucasusCaucasusA prominent mountain on the northeast shore of the Black Sea, in the extreme east of Scythia. . She soon found Hunger raking with her nails To bare the root of a tiny rock-wort Till her teeth could catch and tear it. In shape and colour her face was a skull, blueish. Her lips a stretched hole of frayed leather Over bleeding teeth. Her skin So glossy and so thin You could see the internal organs through it. Her pelvic bone was like a bare bone. The stump wings of her hip bones splayed open. As she bowed, her rib-cage swung from her backbone In a varnish of tissue. Her ankle joints And her knee joints were huge bulbs, ponderous, grotesque, On her spindly shanks. The oread Knew danger when she saw it. She proclaimed The command of the goddess from a safe distance. The whole speech only took a minute or so–– Yet a swoon of hunger left her trembling. She got away fast. All the way back to Thessaly She gave the dragons their headShe gave the dragons their headA rider pulls a horse’s reins to slow or stop the animal, so the opposite, “giving horses their head,” means relaxing the reins to achieve a full gallop. . Now hear me. Though Hunger lives only in opposition To Ceres, yet she obeys her. She soars through darkness Across the earth, to the house of Erysichthon And bends above the pillow where his face Snores with open mouth. Her skeletal embrace goes around him. Her shrunk mouth clamps over his mouth And she breathes Into every channel of his body A hurricane of starvation. The job done, she vanishes, She hurtles away, out of the lands of plenty, As if sucked back Into the vacuum–– Deprivation’s hollow territories That belong to her, and that she belongs to. Erysichthon snores on–– But in spite of the god of sleep’s efforts To comfort him, he dreams he sits at a banquet Where the food tastes of nothing. A nightmare. He grinds his molars on air, with a dry creaking, Dreaming that he grinds between his molars A feast of nothing, food that is like air. At last he writhes awake in convulsive Cramps of hunger. His jaws Seem to have their own life, snapping at air With uncontrollable eagerness to be biting Into food and swallowing––like a cat Staring at a bird out of reach. His stomach feels like a fist Gripping and wringing out The mere idea of food. He calls for food. Everything edible Out of the sea and earth. When it comes Dearth is all he sees where tables bend Under the spilling plenty. Emptying Bowls of heaped food, all he craves for Is bigger bowls heaped higher. Food For a whole city cannot sate him. Food For a whole nation leaves him faint with hunger. As every river on earth Pours its wealth towards ocean That is always sweeping for more, Draining the continents, And as fire grows hungrier The more fuel it finds, So, famished by food, The gullet of Erysichthon, gulping down Whatever its diameter can manage Through every waking moment, Spares a mouthful Only to shout for more. This voracity, this bottomless belly, As if his throat opened Into the void of stars, Engulfed his entire wealth. His every possession was converted To what he could devour Till nothing remained except a daughter. This only child deserved a better father. His last chattelHis last chattelWhy do you suppose Hughes calls Erysichthon’s daughter “chattel” (personal property), a term that has no parallel in Ovid’s version? , he cashed her in for food. He sold her, at the market. But she was far too spirited To stay as a bought slave. Stretching her arms towards the sea, she cried: “You whoravished my maidenheadravished my maidenheadThis alludes to the daughter’s previous rape by Neptune, the god of the sea. Greek myth offers many examples of mortal rape by a god or goddess, who would often, as here, also grant a special favor to their victim. , save me. ” Neptune knew the voice of his pretty victim And granted the prayer. Her new owner, Who minutes ago was admiring the girl he had bought, Now saw only Neptune’s art––featured And clothed like a fisherman. Perplexed, He spoke to this stranger directly. “You with your fishing tackle, hiding your barbs In tiny gobbets of bait––may you have good weather And plenty of silly fish that never notice The hook till it's caught them!––can you tell me “Where is the girl who was here a moment ago? Her hair loose, and dressed in the cheapest things, She was standing right here where her footprints–– Look––stop, and go no further. Where is she? ” The girl guessed what the god had done for her. She smiled to hear herself asked where she might be. Then to the man parted from his money: “I’m sorry, my attention has been fixed “On the fish in this hole. But I promise you, By all the help I pray for from Neptune, Nobody has come along this beach For quite a while––and certainly no woman. ” The buyer had to believe her. He went off, baffled. The girl took one step and was back In her own shape. Next thing, She was telling her father. And he, Elated, saw business. After that On every market he sold her in some new shape. A trader bought a horse, Paid for it and found the halter empty Where a girl sat selling mushrooms. A costly parrot escaped its purchaser Into an orchard––where a girl picked figs. One bought an ox that vanished from its pasture Where a girl gathered cowslips. So Erysichthon’s daughter plied her talent For taking any shape to cheat a buyer–– Straight and crooked alike. All to feed the famine in her father. But none of it was enough. Whatever he ate Maddened and tormented that hunger To angrier, uglier life. The life Of a monster no longer a man. And so, At last, the inevitable. He began to savage his own limbs. And there, at a final feast, devoured himself.