Last Voyage: Selected Poems of Giovanni Pascoli

I. The Flail

97 I. The Flail And the navigator hero had hung his rudder in Ithaca, his longed-for home. He had retraced his path having lost his way, exhausted and foot-weary, this Odysseus, carrying on his strong shoulder an oar. Those he searched for didn’t know the sea, nor recognize the black ships with red prows, but ate their food without salt from the sea. And already many moons had burned out among the rugged cliffs, in the vain search for the deep blue sea into which their light plunged; when he sniffed the sky for the smell of salt, there was only the scent of vegetation. A man he met on his travels spoke to him; the wind howled all night and struggled around them toward the hills, like a bear fallen into a deep pit. “Stranger, are you going to see the king? Oh! Too late! The king’s grain is already winnowed in his granary. Some god sent this light breeze that blew yesterday, and even today, funneling the chaff. Today, oh tardy worker, your flail is useless.” He said this, but the full heart of Odysseus laughed warily for he remembered the words of the prophet Tiresias, with his golden scepter: he sees everything, and also knows the dead: among the tall poplars and the barren willows, in the midst of barren lands, the prophet drank blood 98 il sangue, disse: Misero, avrai pace quando il ben fatto remo della nave ti sia chiamato un distruttor di paglie. Ed ora il cuore, a quel pensier, gli rise E disse: Uomo terrestre, ala! non pala! Ma sia. Ben ora qui fermarla io voglio nella compatta aridità del suolo. Un fine ha tutto. In ira a un dio da tempo io volo foglia a cui s’adira il vento. E l’altro ancora ad Odisseo parlava: Chi, donde sei degli uomini? venuto come, tra noi? Non già per l’aere brullo, come alcuno dei cigni longicolli, ma scambiando tra loro i due ginocchi. Parlami, e narra senza giri il vero. 99 from ditch water, and said to the hero: “Miserable one, you will have peace when your well-made ship’s oar is taken for a flail by some peasants.” And so the full heart of the hero smiled at this thought: He said “Man of the soil, it’s an oar! Not a flail! But so be it. I’ll plant this oar in this arid, Hard soil. Everyone comes to an end. A god gave this weather in anger where I was Tossed about like a leaf on the angry winds.” And the other again spoke to Odysseus: “Who are your men and where are they from? How have you come to us? Not from thin air like one of the long necked swans, but from between two knees. Tell me straight and do not twist the truth.” ...