trans. French Richard Wilbur The plot of Racine's last "secular" play is sufficiently well-known. Phaedra, the virtuous wife of King Theseus of Athens, is afflicted by Heaven with an illicit passion for her step-son Hippolytus, and the consequences are tragic for all concerned: the death of the falsely accused Hippolytus, the bereavement of his beloved…
MASTHEAD Directors DeWitt Henry Peter O'Malley Coordinating Editor for This Issue Thomas Lux Managing Editor Susannah Lee CONTRIBUTORS Ralph Angel's first book of poems, Anxious Latitudes, is due out from Wesleyan. Michael Augustin is a young poet from Bremen, West Germany. He was in residence at the International Writer's Workshop at the University of Iowa…
trans. Greek Martin McKinsey The clouds of the deep cast a spell on you Those pale Erinyes of the mistral Igniting the envy of the flesh But when the sun's unravelers laughed Striving for an earthly pride The infinite's coloring was suddenly yours. Now as a I wander the mountainside Across pinecones strewn by a…
trans. Italian Ruth Felman This day, one of love and laceration so many years ago, finds us walking together, over sand and rocks, your hand helping me in the difficult places and your gaze directing mine toward the high barrier of agaves and reeds, the northeast boundary of the beach. “See,” you say to me,…
In memory of Barbara Loden Sometimes, when I see people like Rose, I imagine them as babies, as young children. I suppose many of us do. We search the aging skin of the face, the unhappy eyes and mouth. Of course I can never imagine their fat little faces at the breast, or their cheeks…
Like a coffin in a procession whose corpse leaves A stealthy trickle of violets in its wake While Attica bids it a soft Good evening. Like some harrassed gardener bending down Among the cables and the skinflint stones Without hearing the passion of the bitter-orange When it cloaks itself in wind and beckons with the…
trans. Italian Ruth Feldman and Brian Swann Mariarosa be good; I am leaving and deserting you* I'll never hear the May song again, daughter of oak and underbrush. You dressed in flowers of the broom, grown back on the uncultivated slope. You were inviolate, shut like a bittr blossom. Your frightened eyes were white beanflowers,…
"Ellie, listen to this: In the evening after sunset, when according to my habit I was contemplating the stars in a clear sky, I noticed that a new and unusual star, surpassing all others in brilliancy, was shining almost directly above my head, and since I had, almost from boyhood, known all the stars in…
The garden was entering the sea Cape of deep carnation Your hand was leaving with the tide Smoothing the sea's bridal gown Your hand was opening the sky. Angels with eleven swords Were sailing alongside your name Slashing through the flowery waves Down below the white sails leaned In quick northeasterly squalls. With the white…
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