Poetry Forum

Antikythera, and other mechanisms


Captain Τιμόν(*) views the device

Caesar has ordered strictly, that no one turns
the handle—the technikós(***) Αλέκος(**)
staggers slightly in the swell, his hand upon
the opened crate—nobody is to see
events from future time laid out. The Gods
alone know this by right and the consul shows
due deference and decrees that no-one use
this thing save him. Much later when the man
was drunk, the whole crew heard him often boast
he had no choice but frequently to wind
the dials back to a century before
his birth and forward again up to today.
He claimed this as the only way to see
the mechanism hadn't suffered hurt.

(*-Timon; **-Alekos; ***-technician, modern Greek, I needed a plausibly old term but I also needed to imply the modern meaning, so this is a compromise...)


Αλέκος explains the dials

Upon this side are those things of the Earth:
above, progression of the months and years
laid out in spiral form, and more than that:
the festivals and Games at Athens,
Olympia and Rhodes. Now lower down
another spiral shows eclipses: Sun
and Moon; dancing in the sky. He turns
it round. This side is for the heavens,
Gods, their wanderings across the night.
The Moon, its place in things, the dark and bright
phases, the motion of the Sun, through houses
of the Zodiac, and far beyond it all
fixed constellations rise and fall, throughout the year.


The sea captain's dream

Captain Τιμόν rests uneasy, his salt
and water blood uncalm, the mechanism
in his hold offers no direct harm, but a man
who's watched the heavens forty years can't simply
sleep comfortable with ideas of gears
outside the sky. The calendars that form
his life are woven from much softer things
the winds round certain islands, his son, his wife
and festivals that come because the town
gather; not because some metal pointer pins
them to a dial. He turns in bed, uneasy.
Part of him knows the wind has changed;
within his dream the same unease: islands that move,
brass tracks beneath the waves, a giant hand winding...


Unseasonable

The wind has changed. The sea grows mad. The captain
invokes Poseidon beneath his breath and grabs
the steering oar himself. Beneath the deck
the oarsmen also pray, but Αλέκος
turns from the raging sea and guards instead
the precious crate. Even technicians pray
but to what spirits, Gods or fates he's kept
his peace—part of the artisan's secrets—
but whatever powers they are fail him. Down
come the sails, and the oarsmen struggle more. The lea
of any shore might save their skins. Τιμόν
tries first for Kythira but as fear grows
turns instead for tiny Aigila(*). He knows
he's got there only when they hit the rocks.

(* transliteration of ancient name of Antikythera)


The technician's dream

Αλέκος sleeps so deeply when they pull
him from the sea, that all believe he'll die.
They try to keep him warm, burn sage leaves, ply
the fates with secret gestures, muttered words
they've heard the shepherds using for sick lambs.
This is no sheep, nor yet a man: technikós—
who holds construction in his hands. So deep
his charge has drowned, in sleep it takes him down

and he sees, unsurprised, a new dial: sea level
clearly marked. The needle turns as all grows dark
around it. In his heightened state he notices
also for the first time another gauge
"πολιτισμός", now well into decline.
He wonders for how long the dark will last,
when everything he knows has passed, how long
before technicians once again will build
machines to map the heavens? How long until
they pull a lump of metal from the waves?

(* "πολιτισμός" - politismos: civilisation, modern Greek again...)

bodkin
it's a good story (how could it not be?) but suffers a bit in the telling.
It is all in the same voice, despite the subtitles suggesting otherwise,
and some of the phrasing is clunky. Where's your inner Gemmell?

S1/L1[tab][/tab]do you need strictly? It is Caesar after all.
Αλέκος(**) staggers slightly in the swell, his hand upon
the opened crate — Caesar has ordered
that no one turns the handle, [for none should] see
the future laid [out as ???] - and the technikós(***)
[understands duty as he does the device].

S1/L6[tab][/tab]is the consul the technikos? If not name him.
S1/L14[tab][/tab]'suffered hurt' seems an odd phrase for a technician;
you wouldn't imagine sailors saying 'the mast got hurt' or similar.
S1[tab][/tab]when does the Captain view the device?

S2[tab][/tab]less colons, more full stops. Should have a more conversational tone.
for example,
See here, upon this side...
Now look, lower down...
S2/L7[tab][/tab]did the ancient Greeks think the 'sun and moon' danced 'in the sky'?
Also, a sudden shift to third person.

I would imagine that the speaker would have some pride,
some sense of the genius of the device, and that, I think, is lacking here.

S3
Τιμόν is restless, his salt-water blood disturbed, [though] the mechanism
in his hold offers no direct harm. ut a man
who's watched the heavens forty years can't simply
sleep easily [when his mind is full of] gears
outside the sky. [When] the calendars that [chart]
his life are woven from much softer things[;]
the winds round certain islands, his son, his wife[,]
the festivals that come because the town
gather[s]; not because some metal pointer pins
them to a dial. He turns in [his] bed.
Part of him knows the wind has changed;
within his dream the same unease: islands that move,
brass tracks beneath the waves, a giant hand winding...

S3/L3[tab][/tab]'below' rather than 'beneath'?
S3/L5[tab][/tab]'instead'?

S4/L3[tab][/tab]can you 'ply' with gestures?
He's been sleeping 'deeply' and taken 'down' but suddenly his state is 'heightened'?
S4/L12[tab][/tab]delete 'also'
S4/L17-18[tab][/tab]I don't find the final question convincing

It would be improved, I think, with the explicit introduction of the narrator.

Regards, Not
[tab][/tab]

Hey Bod,

I've read this all over once or twice, and I am thinking on it. I trip over the Greek characters though, which right off the bat makes it hard for me to engage with the story.

Why wouldn't it work to do something like this:

Caesar has ordered strictly, that no one turns
the handle—the technician Alekos
staggers slightly in the swell, his hand upon
the opened crate—nobody is to see
events from future time laid out."

I feel like the names Timon and Alekos do plenty to create an old-sounding feel. Let alone Caesar.

There is also a wordiness in S1. What would happen if you a) named the machine up front, and b) turned the italicized portion into a first person voice as he hears it in his head? It these words of Caesar's directive come across as verbatim orders which is not as interesting to read about as Alekos' personal relationship to this time/star/navigation machine.

Also here:

"Much later when the man
was drunk, the whole crew heard him often boast
he had no choice but frequently to wind
the dials back to a century before
his birth and forward again up to today.
He claimed this as the only way to see
the mechanism hadn't suffered hurt."

it feels like you are describing too much detail. Some tightening would get the reader more interested in this man and his machine:

He got drunk and boasted to the crew of his important job. His travels and test runs between centuries/galaxies.

Okay I'll stop right there because I know it's bad form to write over someone's work.

Point being, this first of five segments (or are they meant to be five stand-alone poems?) needs to sell the reader on this man and this device. Otherwise it's too much work to get into the next segments.

I will come back to say more on the other sections if you like.

Wilcken

On the Greek question. I can see the temptation...as Wilcko suggests...to translate (and so also remove the need for footnotes). However, just to mention the alternative case, the use of foreign language gives it a slight sense of the different/alien, a blend of the known/unknown that might somehow fit the subject matter here? Just mentioning that thought. I didn't find it unpleasantly distracting...not like some Ezra Poundy type canto packed out with bit and bobs of this and that language.

Good subject matter; enjoyed it muchly. Interesting how the Captain becomes the star rather than the mechanism.

I especially liked the first one.

Also this bit...

and far beyond it all
fixed constellations rise and fall...

And this is lovely...

The calendars that form
his life are woven from much softer things
the winds round certain islands, his son, his wife
and festivals that come because the town
gather;


Seth

NotQuiteSure wrote:it's a good story (how could it not be?) but suffers a bit in the telling.
It is all in the same voice, despite the subtitles suggesting otherwise,
and some of the phrasing is clunky. Where's your inner Gemmell?

I would agree with that, I'm afraid - except that I don't know who Gemmell is. Archie? Tommy? Neither, probably.

I definitely think you shouldn't use the Greek alphabet for your names. It's just plain wrong. I'm reading a book about Homer at the moment, and all the Greek is put in what I'll call - lazily - western letters.

It is a terrific idea for a poem - or, perhaps more likely. a short story. Needs more inner oomph, though.

Cheers

David

Thanks all, I'm not sure what message I'll take from this. I wondering if you're all reading something different into it from what I intend... Or maybe it's because I know the subject matter better...

Hmm, maybe one to sit on for a while.

Thanks!

Ian

Hey Ian,

Reading the responses of others I will add this to my clumsy attempt: Every poem has its audience. I may not be it for this one.

I was intrigued enough to want to get into it. So I gave it a whirl. I will spend some more time on it. I was a bit preoccupied when I wrote that crit.

Wilcken