LitLetter 207: Ulysses and Argos, and Creative Imagination
A man and a dog...
The gaze this week is on that timeless hero (or ruffian as some have him), Odysseus in Greek and Ulysses in Latin. You might call Homer’s original tale, The Odyssey, the first adventure story, immediately on the heels of the first war story, The Iliad. Odysseus has inspired many people over the millennia. In our LitLetter list here, CP Cavafy’s Ithaka (LL 2) is a leading poem of the ‘life as a journey to be enjoyed, not as a destination’ genre. And LitLetter 129 -
discusses Lord Tennyson’s magnificent poem, Ulysses, which will crop up a little later today. In fact, there are many perspectives one can take – as perhaps with all great epics – with the Odysseus myth. Further below here, a modern poet, Michael Collier, takes us all to task over how we read, especially when we know the story and hasten ‘to get to the good bits’.
This topic came to my imagination very recently when I received from a marvellous friend an anthology of poetry titled The Book of Dog Poems (Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Book-Dog-Poems-Ana-Sampson/dp/1786279436). Very accessible, I gobbled it down in less than two days, bringing to mind all the characteristics of our dog, Duffy (who is she named after, I wonder? 😊), a chocolate brown miniature poodle with a personality the size of the Sydney Opera House.
On reading the poem here, I first thought of my school and my encounters with the hero, Odysseus, next of university and writing essays a bit like this post, and lastly of poetry reading down the years and all the cross-references and overlaps and connections. It was quite a thought experiment and when I surfaced after say thirty minutes of daydreaming, I knew I would write about it.
Here's the first poem.
Argos by Alexander Pope
When wise Ulysses, from his native coast
Long kept by wars, and long by tempests toss'd,
Arrived at last, poor, old, disguised, alone,
To all his friends, and ev'n his Queen unknown,
Changed as he was, with age, and toils, and cares,
Furrow'd his rev'rend face, and white his hairs,
In his own palace forc'd to ask his bread,
Scorn'd by those slaves his former bounty fed,
Forgot of all his own domestic crew,
The faithful Dog alone his rightful master knew!
Unfed, unhous'd, neglected, on the clay
Like an old servant now cashier'd, he lay;
Touch'd with resentment of ungrateful man,
And longing to behold his ancient lord again.
Him when he saw he rose, and crawl'd to meet,
('Twas all he could) and fawn'd and kiss'd his feet,
Seiz'd with dumb joy; then falling by his side,
Own'd his returning lord, look'd up, and died!
Isn’t that lovely? Here are the lines translated, The Odyssey, Book XVII, line 300:
…There lay the hound Argos, full of vermin; yet even now, when he marked Odysseus standing near, he wagged his tail and dropped both his ears, but nearer to his master he had no longer strength to move. Then Odysseus looked aside and wiped away a tear…
What causes Odysseus to shed a tear? Is it the sad sight of his much-loved hound in desperation, close to the end of his life? Or the memory of the dog as a puppy, a puppy Odysseus will have started to train before the call came to join the fleet bound for Troy? Or is it simply remembrance of things past? It is hard to say, but hearken to other great poets.
‘Then can I drown an eye unused to flow’ Sonnet XXX of William Shakespeare, writes Shakespeare also lost in remembrance of things past and the other solaces of ‘that inward eye which is the bliss of solitude’ which so fired the imagination of another William, Wordsworth this time (Daffodils by William Wordsworth).
We are all, all of us, all of the time (nearly) creating in our imaginations dreams, fantasies. inspirations and aspirations, seeking (this is my hypothesis) to secure meaning in a complex life not easily understood, to link learning with outcomes, to demonstrate to ourselves that we matter. These ‘visions of alternatives’, of ‘might-have-beens’ can only originate from our memories, those shifting, evanescent, opaque sentiments in our mind’s eye. There is nowhere else they can come from. Nowhere.
And reflection, fantasy-creation, ‘images-in-the-mind’ building, storyboarding, these are the processes that form the birth of the creative imagination – expressing itself in the myriad of creative formulations such as art, drama, literature, music, song, sculpture, dance, architecture, film, and photography, and many more. All these forms that we enjoy for the stimulation of our minds and hearts come from our memories which are our sole contextual references.
Is this really what all literature is about? All memory, and dreams, and creative thought? All manner of achievement, of derring-do and dangers faced? All types of sadness, despair, distress at something not achieved, perhaps something of unkindness and hurt caused? Poetry certainly deals with these zones of life in an unerring fashion, straight to the heart of it, no elephants in the room, just boom!
Back to Argos, the faithful hound, the only sentient being to recognise Odysseus on his return to Ithaca to reclaim his life, his wife, his fealty from his people. And Argos can hardly see him yet with over twenty years having passed since Odysseus left, something in his aura perhaps, his voice, his smell – how do our dogs know us? Whatever it was, Argos crawled over to his lord, licked his feet lovingly, and died. The fidelity lies beyond words. How must the lord have been, of what character, to inspire such love, such memory, such devotion?
The second poem today is modern. Michael Collier is an American poet and creative writer, educated in Phoenix, Arizona, and has several books of poetry and anthologies to his name. Classically schooled, he beds much of his creative work in ancient mythology. And…you will see from this poem here, also titled Argos as was Pope’s, he has interesting insights into how we read – the same story of returning hero, faithful dog - and weeping reader! Akin to the two Williams quoted earlier, whom I likened to every mortal soul in a wistful remembering and encounter with things past, things lost, never to be retrieved.
Argos by Michael Collier
If you think Odysseus too strong and brave to cry,
that the god-loved, god-protected hero
when he returned to Ithaka disguised,
intent to check up on his wife
and candidly apprise the condition of his kingdom
so that he steeled himself resolutely against surprise
and came into his land cold-hearted, clear-eyed,
ready for revenge, then you read Homer as I first did,
too fast, knowing you’d be tested for plot
and major happenings, skimming forward to the massacre,
the shambles engineered with Telémakhos
by turning beggar and taking up the challenge of the bow.
Reading this way you probably missed the tear
shed by Odysseus for his decrepit dog, Argos,
who’s nothing but a bag of bones asleep atop
a refuse pile outside the palace gates. The dog is not
a god in earthly clothes but in its own disguise
of death and destitution is more like Ithaka itself.
And if you returned home after twenty years
you might weep for the hunting dog
you long ago abandoned, rising up from the garbage
of its bed, its instinct of recognition still intact,
enough will to wag its tail, lift its head, but little more.
Years ago you had the chance to read that page more closely
but instead you raced ahead, like Odysseus, cocksure
with your plan. Now the past is what you study,
where guile and speed give over to grief so you might stop
and desiring to weep, weep more deeply.
Is Michael saying in this last stanza the more we rush through life, the more we miss? Only in our reading, or in everything we experience? ‘The past is what you study’ sounds identical to what I said a few moments ago about everything bedded in memory. The need to weep may be at the moment of experience, but is more likely to be at the moment of memory, of what you study, what you reflect upon.
I conclude this post with another memory, or a memory within a memory. Tennyson wrote his poem titled Ulysses (please refer above to the link to the LitLetter discussing this poem) when Odysseus had re-instated himself on Ithaca – and was now bored! Bored stiff from lack of adventure. Quite an imaginative trajectory from Lord Tennyson! Here is an excerpt from what I wrote two years ago:
The last six lines of the poem are a poem within a poem. They lift the prior lines – already magical and praiseworthy – to an unprecedented level of awareness, that is awareness of oneself and the position of oneself in the prevailing order.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Oft-quoted, these lines embody the realistic vision of a person, an organisation, a state past their prime yet still vigorous. Content to admit lesser power, yet beware! Still defiant, still strong to pursue, still not giving in. The last time I experienced them was in a recent 007 movie, Skyfall. M, played by Judi Dench, was giving evidence at a parliamentary enquiry in Whitehall. James Bond (aka Daniel Craig) is not far away, seeking to prevent Javier Bardem’s character from blowing up the place. Before he can do so, M quotes these lines about Britain. The defiant acceptance of self (‘that which we are, we are’), acknowledging former power no longer owned (‘we are not now that strength which in the old days moved earth and heaven’), happy to admit former heroism and later weakness (‘made weak by time’), and yet, and yet…then, perhaps the most stirring line and a half in poetry:
‘strong in will/to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.’
Meanwhile, Daniel Craig is running (no jet car for him this time!), sprinting to the rescue, completely embodying the strength of will - to strive, seek, find, and not to yield. I defy anyone not to be overcome here at the theatrics of Dench and Craig. We know the film is a fiction, but that does not matter. Willpower ascendent, the triumph of the human will and spirit over all manner of obstacles, that’s what matters.
We have considered in this post the overlapping themes of memory, its store of rich context available to all of us, and the heightened emotions we experience when we concentrate hard to remember and reflect. Creative imagination is the release button for individual expressions of wonder, awe, insight…into our meaning and purpose on earth. I cannot see how it can be otherwise.