Translation of The Delphic Logos / Δελφικός Λόγος of Angelos Sikelianos

The First Principle of the Noblest

Even if I vowed this very heart of mine
to lift it to its summit—
a mighty votive—like an athlete, priest, and prophet,
to trample down, in bitterness, the lure of vainglory,
for that I would not turn my eyes
to look.

Alas: where naked rocks alone
would roof the heights above me,
there often I had hidden my toil
like treasure.

And like an ascetic in the desert,
who opens a well
so that, within its depths, he may behold
the heaven and the underworld—Hades—
and he does not care if time
and his own flesh should pass away
before the vein of the spring
pours out and offers him his thirst’s reward;
but in the great labor
he falls asleep a little,
and thinks the water rises up,
the water he so longs for;

like a strong hermit
who fasts his whole life through
to see made manifest
the wonder he believes in—
yet when he has drawn far from the flesh’s temptation,
he thinks he has reached, one-way,
the holy boundary;

like the shepherd, dulled by sleeplessness,
who droops upon the cliffs
and, standing, nods off
leaning on his own crook,
and suddenly, in the deep darkness,
fancies it is day,
and all his flock is scattering;

so often, as I stood upon the road,
I thought time never ends,
and that my thought lays foundations like a fortress;
I thought the soul possessed an everlasting bastion,
and that the wheat of Heracles—what he sowed—
he harvests.

But as the ascetic, suddenly,
awakens in his sleep,
knowing the dream is false,
and springs up whole
to seize again the heavy crowbar and the spade;
and as the great hermit—
the moon among hermits—
if all at once he lifts his eyes and looks,
can marshal even the giant vision;
and if the angels, trembling, circle him like a swarm,
and if their yearning is fierce—still he holds a scourge;
and even in the assembly where he hears
the Bodiless Powers,
he trembles for the anguish
of the wingless seeds;

and as the shepherd, anxious while the thing goes awry,
leaps from his drowsing and cries out, whistling sharply,
and the flock at once halts in its stepping
and waits for the shepherd
to come near again;

so, in the depths of the swift lethargy
that wrapped me round,
in an instant the myriad eyes of Argus
opened within me;
and if my toil appeared to me
as hidden treasure,
from that same toil my will was drawn;
and as

the more a thing is worked,
the more the magnet pulls,
so my soul came to know
its secret power …

But when, in the depths of my soul,
together and apart, I found
the mountain’s strength
and all the plain’s sweetness,
among the living
and together with the dead,
my heart forgot its greatest vow.

Only all things—tomorrow’s things, today’s,
the eternal—
as a spring clouding
my compassion spun them for me …

Only swifter far than he can keep pace with
when the faithful shepherd turns the sheep toward the fold,
and from the stall the unweaned lamb
that hungered all day long
bleats, and impatient, pushed and pressing to the full,
seeks its mother—
and she seeks it—
but the shepherd, faster, flings it down
before her,
until no breath around them
draws and exhales
except the suckling of the lamb
as it wags its tail—

so, between the living and the dead,
out of the flock,
I would give a mother pity
who escaped from Hades with her infant;
I would give the son
to the desolate father;
the brother to the brother—
until, from end to end,
my strong compassion, spread over all things,
might spin within creation
a hidden breathing again …

But the day came when the dead and the living,
near me,
like brambles, caught hold
of my clothing;
and I was left alone,
alone within my rags,
and I said:
“It is time for my own skeleton also to see light—

only, my soul, before you are extinguished,
make clear and judge:
among the living and among the dead
WHO IS, WHO IS NOT.”

And as I raised my staff
to strike, suddenly, into the flock,
its face no longer seemed the same to me.

At once it appeared
to have taken on the gleam of a sceptre,
and in my fist I felt it tremble—
a divine spear.

For, in the hour of wrath and ruin,
from beyond
I saw—O ascetic of ascetics—
the father of my earth.

Body or breath to call Him—
the word does not fashion it—,
He was stripped of flesh,
as a sword from its sheath.

And I cried:
“O You whom I awaited—
stay my rush,
for You are the strongest compassion in my body!

“You are the great toil;
You are the holy courage;
You are the hidden cornerstone
of my mind!

“My paths shone
from the beginning to the far end of beauty—
but if only it were given me
to touch Your knees, Father!

“As an end You have revealed Yourself;
stay and hear me—
and as the digger and as the sower
double-plough me, earth-deep:

plough me to the bone,
and search me to the entrails!”
And my apparition answered:
“Before you were born, I search for you.”

No lip moved;
He did not speak.
Yet His thought, like thunder,
flowed through my veins.

He laid His hand upon my head;
and if He blessed me,
I did not dare to hope—
for He bent me whole
to the earth.

And I said:
“Father—do You will that I remain bowed,
and, as long as I live,
like at a spring at Your feet
slake my thirst?

“For You are whole-erect;
and if my life walked bent,
and if I spent my breath entire
before Your eyes,

blowing a scant spark
in Your secret cave
to rekindle a great shipwrecked sun—

command, if I am to stand
at Your feet, Father,
that I not shoot still farther
the longing of my heart,

that I strip off the radiance of the ordeal,
and—here I am—reap it down:
that thought which grew in me
unbridled as a mane!”

And I said:
“On Your holy road, Father,
since it was given me to enter,
forgive me if I wandered
in the plain of denial;

and if, where a man drags along
a sluggish opinion,
and if at times the worship grew strong
around me,

I begged Your measureless river
to turn
where joy for a moment
made my thought flare;

or if, in the ruin
in which Your people walked, I pleaded
for a tireless hand of help
to make Your mercy lean.

Only, Father—
if only my grief and my silence
might be quenched
among Your holy rocks,
to extinguish my shame!”

And I thought He answered:
“To come as far as Me,
many bones shone for you—
strewn along your road.

“This is not the passage of a people;
it is not a graveyard
of a few dead—
the deathless crucible you entered.

“Here is the measureless hush;
here is the hidden order;
here even the dew is heard
if it drips from clouds.

“Here is the web of temples—
nature’s meeting-place;
here the great senses of the Earth
meet in one.

“Here is the abyss of pain;
here the recess of toil;
here the whole man trembles
to hear the yes, or the no.

“Here, when the unuttered, unruly breath of God
encircles him
and loosens, whole, within him
his reins and his entrails,

either the road of Will
flashes before him,
or it fastens immortal
his head upon his shoulder—

or else, as though the sovereign thought
were severed from the body,
it escorts it—like the head of Orpheus
upon the waves—
singing alone,
reckoning to put in
at the sea of incorruptibility,
where the whole soul is act …

“For vain and dim thought
never roams
the high, serene bastion of this place;

but as eagles forever keep, round about it,
a broad wing opened,
governed by a mighty rhythm,

so the thoughts are mighty—
untamable, and few:
there the human will,
which would escape,
terrified of solitude and of the heavy struggle,
when the heart hammers
in hands, in mind, and in knees,

covers the lower earth
with the great shadow of the wing,
and hears and sees all things
together, inseparably …

“Only: if you seek
to plunge your mind
into great depths,
come here to My feet
and sit.”

Thus His words moved softly
within my reins,
and above me the eagles
glided and circled …

And behold: as one exhausted
in a harsh winter
who finds fire,
and with his whole soul sits down before it,
staring at the flame in silence,
and silently stretches
his cold hands toward the side
where the flame grows strong,

and as the warmth holds them
enclosed within its circle,
his mind is freed at last
into thought—so with me:

as if a pyre, upon hearing,
rose in me eternally,
my mind began
to flood with hidden harmony.

And I sat at His feet
like one who remembers deeply,
and upon his very knee
falls asleep.

And as the prophet,
blind, yet rejoicing in his holy darkness,
remembers the great work he knew—his organ—

for now he has no daylight
to bar the stars,
but his day is boundless
and his night is whole;

and no single sound calls him,
but all the firmament
fills the dome
of his entire hearing;

and he no longer sees
what is far and what is near,
for now all Earth lies beneath him
at every step—

so I too, gathered tight at His feet,
was living, unshakable,
and the dead man lived.

But as, in sleep,
the secret leaven of dream
now sets before us Memory,
dreadfully upright,
now—moving studious leaves of the soul—
sends it to the tripod,
a great, unbribed Sibyl,

so, in the deathless hush
in which I was made firm,
my every recollection
was oracle;
and as from the beginning
I was born again.

And as the arrow, nailed
to the magnet’s heart,
forever trembles—
winds do not move it,
nor waves around it—
but even if the storm sails in calm,
it convulses from one desire,
measureless and one,

so, while dumb care
was pinning my body down,
my enslaved impetus
fell whole to the earth;
and yet, like a beast of burden
not yet loosed from the yoke,
my head bent down
to the ground.

A moment—or ages—passed
around me:
I did not feel it,
for my heart weighed like iron.

Only in the great submergence,
as I was digesting toil,
as though the place of all the earth
took hold around me,

I saw, slowly,
the chthonic serpent uncoiling;
and the whole earth,
as fruit reveals its seed,
split open before me;

and as dough erupts
from the trough,
the graves showed me my dead
from end to end;
the cave revealed the ascetic
whole and entire;
and the sarcophagus gave up naked
its king.

A moment—or ages—passed
around me:
I did not say it.
When my eyes were found open again,

looking high, and round, and far,
I no longer saw, on His watch,
the father of my earth.

Only I saw that I stood
alone in His place,
and above me the whole ascent
and the rock.

One unshakable weight alone
fell on my chest,
until my bitterness poured out
into such a groan:

“Ah—may the ploughing of so many years
hold up my coarse body like a pillar
so that I stand against time;

may it secure, like a god’s,
the worthy nakedness of my mind
up to the place
the steel greaves brought me—

where the sun seems solitary,
and only the moon,
with the mountain’s strength,
like a lion round about;

and still the road be long,
and I not be able
to look behind—
for the summit is far
if I am to fly.

Yet let me draw the climb,
as a bull ploughs
a savage rib of earth,
tensing all his nerves;

and let the slope resist,
and let the foot sink,
as into the very soil it ploughed,
the ox refusing to go on;

let the vein branch and harden
my hand fivefold-heavy
beside the knee,
and let the heart groan only:
‘climb!’

And ah—let me have no companion,
yet not be alone:
let me be alone, wakeful,
and with all men as though asleep.

But with sun or rain
let me labor by day,
and all night long
wrestle with God in the dark;

for if at last, from weariness,
my limbs lie down,
I think I feel upon me
the warmth of the heavens;

and if I trust
my grief-night has come to rest,
let falling stars like arrows
tear through my heart …

And ah—let me be neither alone
nor have companions:
but as I do not turn behind,
and I climb the rock,

and as the virgin pride of toil
props me up,
let the orphanhood of loneliness
pour down my spine!

For beneath me, like smoke
from an extinguished fire,
the enslaved echo
of vain trumpets slides;

and the babble of peoples
follows me up
like a dog that runs
behind a beggar …

Help me, Earth—
for deep within me the first order has stirred:
the world’s act is smoke,
and my thought is act.

Help me, Earth—
I drain Your toil into my toil;
if I bent like Antaeus,
like him I touch You.

Help me, Earth—
and You, Heaven, untie the great knot,
so that above the Earth
the ark of the Best may be woven!”

So deep I sighed
that my sigh
was as though it became a staff
and a prop to my heart.

And I said:
“And if you are alone—
what does it mean,
since the summit still remains far off
for you to climb?

And why do you seek companions
to come to you,
since there is still ascent for you—
not turning-back?”

And as the night
spread wider around me,
I lifted my eyes into the night
and said: “My God—

has the great compline of my flesh
not come at last?
Have I not driven from my members
the world’s sluggishness?

Am I not ready,
into some great thread of Yours,
like lightning into cloud,
to give my whole blood?”

And it seemed to me a voice replied—
deeper far
than blood itself,
and deeper than its beating:

“A great love trained you;
but if it is truth—climb
until of itself, on high,
the vein of mind opens.

I do not wait for a vain libation—
know it—from you.
But when you climb
the fated secret steps …”

“And when the lightnings of your mind
have opened a road, let the body too follow
into the intoxication of My hidden Olympus,

into the secret sanctuary of dance,
where I am wholly plunged—
so that the generative ardor of your mind
may be shown entire.

I want no vain libation.
For nothing remains upon the earth
but a willful thought—
and even that, scorched by lightning.

Look well into the abyss,
so that your thought may grow savage;
for the mind can plant
even the abyss!”

So it seemed to me I heard a voice
deeper far than blood itself,
and deeper than its beating.

And then—like a whole body
heated white in battle
and never counting death
as something standing before it—
with a sudden, unlooked-for fervor,
as though what went before were the slough
of a serpent, I began again
the ascent.

And I said:

“May I never stop—
for from here onward
I smell an immortal fragrance in the air.

Grant only that up there,
where there is breath, it may take hold,
so that the hidden headland of my thought
may be redeemed—

for here my reasoning flows
and is lost in oblivion
from hour to hour,
as the star-stone is lost
in the night’s darkness.

Grant me, as You will, to be weighed
in the secret balance,
where the full mind weighs
like a whole star!”

And again the deep voice answered:

“Not even haste
will give you the great rejoicing
worthy of you.

But here, where the night’s gifts
open in their fullness,
yield yourself slowly now
to a rare mystery;

and for the great desire
tread slowly and with steadiness,
so that it may become for others too
a road and a path.

As one who combs
the mane of his horse
and harmonizes the journey
as rhythm within his thought—

so I ask you to climb:
firmly, and measured,
if you truly mean
to meet Me on the summit.”

So He spoke; and it was as though I understood
what He required—
as Orpheus, gazing at the sky,
held in his holy hand
a fistful of earth—
so, bound into a flawless rhythm,
I set out with steps transfigured:

Now every footfall was an aim;
an aim my gaze;
my every thought an aim
that made my blood
a brother to itself.

And I said:

“I must not hurry;
nor may I linger—
for the climb veils the summit for me
as a bride is veiled.

I must arrive
as bridegroom to a bridal glory,
who waits for me serene
with an immortal serenity.”

So I spoke.
And so I climbed to You,
my secret joy;
so I touched Your veil—
untouchable—
my summit.

All things were mute.
Around me, a boundless calm.
Mute my inward reins—
a secret silence;
mute, a hierogamy.

And behold: Thought—
silent and infinite—
of itself descended
around me: dense, swift,
like snow.

And around me it descended—
not joy, but joy’s soul;
and it spread, alone of itself,
like waves across a sea.

It rose, it fell,
and circled me again,
like a sea that could find no shore
on which to break.

And ever more I felt
a vast breath changing me,
as a great tree is changed—
wholly—
by warmth.

And as the almond-tree
suddenly opens all its blossoms at once,
so did my mind, in one moment,
burst into flower—
my living vow.

Then only did I know
the undiluted intoxication;
and Olympus—now graspable—
had blossomed round about me.

And then, as all things shone—
the within and the around—
within the boundless silence
(was it trumpet, was it lyre?)
as the nightingale in night,
as the cicada in the heat,
a voice, with the universes,
hummed:

“Victory, victory!”

And the whole veil of the summit
collapsed before her,
and a cry held all my blood,
as a stancher of blood:

“Blessed be the hidden love
that always said to you: ‘Climb!’
until, high above,
the vein of your mind opens,

and in the secret sanctuary of dance
where I am wholly plunged,
it feels within itself entire
the generative ardor.

For here the soul is Will;
and Memory is sea;
and the mother of the Muses is Muse—
an immortal Science.

And here the Word is command
and a flood of power,
so that you may plunge within yourself
the lyre of your nerves,

and when you have filled each vein
with injunction—
full of an immortal hymn—
do not wait: descend!”

Such was the Word,
standing deep within me
as a vigilant witness.

And I—as though I were
a secret chorister of the stars—
sank fearless into Rhythm,
so that soul and body might be joined,
as they longed to be joined,
in the divine dance.

And as a great sensation
raised up my inward reins,
as the worlds drew near
their dreadful image,

my nerves were a lyre;
the Rhythm, boundless, shuddered;
and my heart—
a mythical, sleepless nightingale.

Yet I tamed, day and night,
the heart-beats of the Orgy;
and if I ate from drum,
and if I drank from cymbal,
and if I tasted the bread
the stars gave me entire,
and the wine—
poured by the hostess of suns—
that opened me—

for before me the soul was Will:
a great inundation, Memory;
and Muse the mother of the Muses:
an immortal Science.

And I, before her great enclosing gaze,
as before Artemis Orthia,
bathed in the holy scourge
of a discipline,
the Spartan youth,
poised in reverence
in his own blood.

For she held me unshaken
upon the secret threshing-floor
where the whole of my reason
lives in me and props me up;

she traced, around my pulse,
a fortress,
so that I might know the heart
as, among the stars,
a star set apart;

she rooted my thought in secret
to its aim,
unyielding,
until it might be felt
as laurel on the wrist;

she filled my vein, for long,
with divine rhythm,
until once again, alone,
the heart should say: “Descend…”

How long she held me,
wakeful before her—
while the great Word within me
kept vigil as my witness—
I cannot measure;

but when I moved,
it seemed the whole earth, all at once,
moved too—
toward a new vow.

For I felt the light of my mind
apportioned
to the living,
to the dead,
and to the forgotten.

And behind me, everywhere, I felt
the earth’s holy inheritance,
processional,
following the lyre of my nerves.

For now, my step, my gaze, my chest—
even if I went from enormous solitude
toward the multitude—
were borne only upon holy currents,
as the eagle’s pinions, gliding,
do not beat.

And my mind—offspring of silence and of rhythm—
and my broad breathing,
and my Cyclopean gaze,
opened around them—once hidden—
newborn immensities,
wide, made manifest.

And chest and eye and mind breathed
a clean immortality:
each corner broader
than holy Asia,
each moment stretched deeper
than the ages,
each breath meeting—suddenly—
the stars …

Thus, while my eyes
walked the immeasurable expanse
(what shadows, I wondered,
were rising slowly toward me?)
I saw, looking down,
the rock I had left behind
bloom, in my gaze,
like a newly-cut diamond;

I saw, looking down,
the rock I had left behind
bloom, in my gaze,
like a newly-cut diamond;

and so I called to it gently:

“Health to you—
and joy to you!
For today your boundaries shine
beyond the stars!”

But I fixed my gaze upon its flanks,
as an eagle opens
the whole pupil of its eye
for the hunt.

For it seemed to me
that human forms—setting out—
either stood,
or climbed the rock,
scattered.

And it was as though all had lost the road
in the ascent,
and the knapsack, plainly,
weighed upon their shoulder …

Then I quickened my pace,
for I felt in my chest
a hidden pulse,
as of a man who sets out
to help.

And as I drew nearer,
I saw them again, more clearly;
and they seemed to me
not unskilled in struggle.

Who they were, I do not know;
but all of them—upright or lying down—
each seemed, mute,
to be awaiting something.

And all of them,
lifted by some ascent of time,
though they set out together,
appeared divided.

And it was as though all were driven by blood
to rejoice one day
in a great vision—
all that the world’s short-sighted eye
separates,
and all that reason rejoices
to join and to ordain.

But from the harsh climb
and their great haste,
each imagines for summit
the point to which he has come.

Then my heart beat
more than before,
as though, with bitterness and joy,
it questioned them in their depths:

“Are these the ones you awaited
to come to you as companions—
whom you thought you would find
on the bright return?”

And when I asked the question
and shaped it in my depths,
it was as though I weighed my heart
upon my breast
like a stone.

And I said:

“Go forward:
time judges each of your steps;
and the word that has power
can become a bitter goad.

And as for your love—hold tight the whip;
but do not let the time allotted you
run away.

For the hour of sowing charges forward,
and summer charges forward:
cast your seed,
and time will bring you
the harvest.”

So I spoke.
And my inward parts
were not shaken in dread—
but my soul was Dionysically kindled
and flung up like flame.

Then, with neck rigid,
lifting the burden
of the command,
I went forward boldly
into their midst.

And they, hearing my step
and looking up,
took me in their mind
for the mountain’s shepherd.

But I stopped there;
and the rock was my throne;
and I looked round on them in a circle
as the ancient teacher:

“An image of great toil
I stand among you;
and with this image
I raise again your bodies
and your minds.

‘Shame!’ I cried to them, ‘shame—rise, shake yourselves—’
and, drawing close one to another,
look into one another’s eyes!

‘Shame!’ I cried, ‘shame—
that even in your youth
bread should weigh upon you
as though it were poison.

Give liberally to it—quickly—
and grow strong;
and if you set out together,
then meet here together
on high!’”

So I cried first;
and they, looking up,
again took me in their mind
for the mountain’s shepherd.

“Rise—and wash your thought
from drowsing,”
I cried again at once,
“and hear my voice.

For now the word leaps in my spirit
like a ram
whom spring has girded
and the tall grass.

Because your ears are used
to hearing a rough echo,
do you think my daring
is merely mountain-strength?

The strength is the hidden one
that pierces through the ages—
and like Samson
I hold fast
the pillars of time.

Another table,” I continued,
“had I spread for you…
Ah—if only you knew—
how long I have been waiting for you!”

Then their eyes opened wide
upon my face,
as though dimly they guessed
my mind and my purpose …

And then I—turning my spirit,
like a Dionysian amphora,
toward the divine high priest
of things to come,
the Sun—
spoke to them in such a way
that their speech was seized
from their very entrails,
and they opened their arms to me.

And they listened,
with hearing flung wide open,
as I told—one by one—
the present things,
the future,
the things forgotten for ages.

And as the gift descended upon them
in a dense outpouring,
at the hearing
each soul began to become virgin again.

And their looks changed,
their hands,
their heads;
and they seemed ready—
as for dance,
or for struggle.

And I said:

“If you are ready now
for struggle or for dance,
then move—singing the dawn-openings
of the whole earth.

Initiated bodies—
dance round
from the young joy,
for now fate shoots forth
your own inheritance.

And all of you—
with impatient heart,
full of holy daring—
strike the earth
as the horse strikes it
to set itself in motion.

For now the seasons have ripened;
and time, which haunts all things,
melts the silence of ages
like snow—

so that the streams of ages
may descend from the flanks
of every summit
down into the shallows
of the first world—
the holy—

so that ruins and blossoms may meet;
so that from the depths
the earth’s spirit may cry out
like a heart,
and stone may sigh …

But before you move together,
come close around me,
and all of you, binding hands,
swear the great oath:

First, hear the Rhythm
I bring you from the summit—
the same with which I plough,
and the same with which I sow;

and for that same Rhythm I keep you,
before I leave you, with you,
for the harvest of the whole earth,
for the vintage of the whole earth.”

I spoke, and they swore;
and the struggle joined their spirits,
as their new betrothal
was bound to the earth.

And all together they struck
their heel upon the ground,
and thus, beginning the dance,
they opened their mouths:

“Rhythm is the Earth’s counsellor;
Rhythm her companion:
Rhythm great and deep and secret—
her light.

We had no swan as guide
in the mythical journey
where we thought there is no crossing.

But behold: the soul of swans—
which waits for ages—
now beats wings, freed
from lethargy!”

And I, as though apart,
did not breathe a breath;
yet a longing touched my entrails
without speech.

For it seemed to me,
when I lifted my eyes,
that from beyond
I saw again, in secret,
the father of my earth.

Body or breath to call Him—
the word does not fashion it—,
He was stripped of flesh,
as a sword from its sheath.

Upon Him was an unsayable purity
like snow;
and His old age
was a youth
never seen upon the earth …

And at once, within my inward reins,
as though His kiss
were on my forehead,
I distinguished His final command:

“Child of My very soul,
hold fast your strength,
so that it may become for others too
a road and a path.

Behold: the soul of swans—
which waits for ages—
now beats wings, lightened,
from lethargy …

But before it rises whole
and shakes itself upright
toward the pure music,
toward the eternal act,

from the great breasts of knowledge
which you hold,
give them drink—
and like calm cataracts
milk into the earth’s joints;

give them to drink
widely, as though it were my soul—
and drop by drop
the secret teaching you received from me.”

Thus He spoke to me;
and I, seeing Him beckon,
and the double ring of the dance
begin to grow quietly calm,

held them again there.
Again the rock was my throne.
Again I saw them round about me
like the ancient teacher.

THERE I STOPPED; THERE I FOUND AGAIN THE HOLY COURAGE;
AND HERE I SET DOWN THE CORNERSTONE OF DELIVERANCE.