George Seferis

 

i-01

The Companions in Hades

TRANSLATED BY EDMUND KEELEY

fools, who ate the cattle of Helios Hyperion;
but he deprived them of the day of their return.

— Odyssey

Since we still had some hardtack
how stupid of us
to go ashore and eat
the Sun’s slow cattle,

for each was a castle
you’d have to battle
forty years, till you’d become
a hero and a star!

On the earth’s back we hungered,
but when we’d eaten well
we fell to these lower regions
mindless and satisfied.

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