Mythistorema - Triceratops Home

74
Just a little more
Let us rise just a little higher.
JOURNAL OF THE HELLENIC DIASPORA
The almond trees herald the coming of the spring. The marble symbolizes
the classical Greek tradition and the sea the inexhaustible source of love.
After the voyages on "rotting sea-timbers," after the wandering in a
wasteland where the pine trees are scorched, the cisterns empty and the
people in distress, a faint hope appears, the prospect of a revival, an
elevation and a happy voyage.
In reference to this poem Kimon Friar writes: "At times, throughout
all Seferis' poetry, there is a momentary glimpse of beauty . . . always
the feeling that the next rise of land may show the breaking sea, the
marble shining in the sun, the almond trees in blossom."" He implies,
however, that this recurring hope is not realistic, since "the only assurance
is to seek the dark serenity of the dead." This may be true on the personal
level of the poem, that referring to the protagonist himself and his
companions; in the next poem of Mythistorema, the last of the whole
sequence, the protagonist mentions that he has reached the end and refers
to himself and his companions as "the strengthless souls among the
asphodels," as if they were dead and real life were irrevocably lost for
them. However, he adds that, although dead, they can "teach peace" to
those who will live in this country in the future. Thus, in contrast to the
personal level, it seems that as far as the country is concerned the realization
of the dream is not impossible, and those who follow will learn
from the misfortunes of their ancestors.
24
Poem "24," the last of the Mythistorema sequence, starts with an
identification of the "works of love" with the "works of the sea," implying,
together with the lines which follow, that this modern Odyssey
ends for the protagonist and his companions in the land of the dead,
where they remain unable to finish the journey successfully, unlike
Homer's Odysseus. The protagonist here, however, can assume the role
played by Tiresias in the original Odyssey and show the way of return
to "Those who one day shall live here where [he) ends}."
The descent to the underworld is a recurring theme in Seferis' poetry."
Hades is symbolic in this case, as the protagonist and his companions,
"strengthless souls among the asphodels," feel dead while they are still
in the land where others "one day shall live." But the ritual of sacrificing
86Modern Greek Poetry, 69.
"For instance, in "Mathios Pascalis among the Roses" and "Stratis the Sailor
among the Agapanthi."