After reading Zbigniew Herbert’s small book Mr. Cogito, I was hungry for more. On the web, I found this disturbingly beautiful (and beautifully disturbing) Herbert poem about a Greek myth and wanted to share it. This translation comes from Alissa Valles in 2007. The good news? It led me to The Collected Poems? Riches lead to riches.
Apollo and Marsyas< The real duel of Apollo with Marsyas (absolute ear versus immense range) takes place in the evening when as we already know the judges have awarded victory to the god bound tight to a tree meticulously stripped of his skin Marsyas howls before the howl reaches his tall ears he reposes in the shadow of that howl shaken by a shudder of disgust Apollo is cleaning his instrument only seemingly is the voice of Marsyas monotonous and composed of a single vowel A in reality Marsyas relates the inexhaustible wealth of his body bald mountains of liver white ravines of aliment rustling forests of lung sweet hillocks of muscle joints bile blood and shudders the wintry wind of bone over the salt of memory shaken by a shudder of disgust Apollo is cleaning his instrument now to the chorus is joined the backbone of Marsyas in principle the same A only deeper with the addition of rust this is already beyond the endurance of the god with nerves of artificial fibre along a gravel path hedged with box the victor departs wondering whether out of Marsyas' howling there will not some day arise a new kind of art—let us say—concrete suddenly at his feet falls a petrified nightingale
he looks back
and sees
that the hair of the tree to which Marsyas was fastened
is white
completely
