johnny9fingers | The Death of Patroclus - Christopher Logue. (Reply)

So for those of you that don't understand why I think what I do about Logue, I present for you here his "Death of Patroclus" from his 1981 version of "War Music": (part 1 "Patrocleia"). It is, of course, his copyright. I hope there aren't too many typos. Now go and buy a copy.

  Three times Patroclus climbed Troy's wall.
Three times his fingers scraped the parapet,
Three times, and every time he tried it on
The smiling Mousegod flicked him back.
But when he came a fourth last time,
The smile was gone.
  Instead, from parapet to plain, to beach-head on,
Across the rucked, sunstruck Aegean, the Mousegod's voice,
Loud as ten thousand crying together,
Cried:
  "Greek,
Get back where you belong^"
So loud
Even the Yellow Judges giving law
Half-way across the world's circumference, paused:

"Get back where you belong! Troy
will fall in God's good time, But
not to you!"
  It was Patroclus' turn to run, wide-armed
Staring into the fight, and desperate to hide

(To blind that voice) to hide
Among the stainless blades.

  And as he ran
Apollo dressed as Priam's brother stood
Above the Skean Gate, and strolled
With Hector for a while, and took his arm,
And mentioning the ways of duty, courage, love,
And other perishable joys infecting men,
Dissolved his cowardice with promises,
  Observe the scene:
They stand like relatives; the man, the God,
Chatting together on the parapet
That spans the Gate.
        The elder points. The other nods. And the plumes nod
Over them both. Patroclus cannot see
The Uncle’s finger leading Hector's eye
Towards his flesh,
Nor can he hear Apollo whispering:
"Achilles’ heart will break..." And neither man
Thinks that a God discuses mortals with a mortal.

  Patroclus fought like dreaming:
His head thrown back, his mouth-wide as a shrieking mask-
Sucked at the air to nourish his infuriated mind
And seemed to draw the Trojans onto him,
To lock them round his waist, red water, washed against his chest,
To lay tired necks against his sword like birds.
—Is it a God? Divine? Needing no tenderness?-
Yet instantly they touch, he butts them,
Cuts them back:
- Kill them!
My sweet Patroclus,
- Kill them!
As many as you can,
For
Coming behind you through the dust you felt
—What was it?—felt creation part, and then

Apollo

        Who had been patient with you,

Struck.

  His hand came from the East,
And in His wrist lay all eternity;
And every atom of His mythic weight
Was poised between His fist and bent left leg,
  Your eyes lurched out. Achilles^’ helmet rang
Far and away beneath the cannon-bones of Trojan horses,
And you were footless… staggering… amazed...
Between the clumps of dying, dying yourself,
Dazed by the brilliance in your eyes,
The noise—like weirs heard far away –
Dabbling your astounded fingers
In the vomit on your chest.
  And all the Trojans lay and stared at you;
Propped themselves up and stared at you;
Feeling themselves as blest as you felt cursed.
  All of them lay and stared;
And one, a boy called Thackta, cast.
His javelin went through your calves,
Stitching your knees together, and you fell,
Not noticing the pain, and tried to crawl
Towards the fleet, and-even now-feeling
For Thackta’s ankle-ah!-and got it? No….
Not a boy's ankle that you got,
But Hector's,

  Standing above you,
His bronze mask smiling down into your face,
Putting his spear through... ach, and saying:
  "Why tears Patroclus?
Did you hope to melt Troy down
And make our women fetch the ingots home?
I can imagine it!
You and your marvellous Achilles;
Him with an upright finger, saying:
Don’t show your face again, Patroclus
Unless it’s red with Hector’s blood.”
  And Patroclus,
Shaking the voice out of his body, says:
  “Big mouth,
Remember it took three of you to kill me.
A God, a boy, and last and least, a hero,
  I can hear Death pronounce my name, and yet
Somehow it sounds like Hector.
  And as I close my eyes I see Achilles' face
With Death's voice coming out of it,"

  Saying these things Patroclus died.
And as his soul went through the sand
Hector withdrew his spear and said:
  "Perhaps.”