One dream
Dream, in which I am climbing up for a long time to a very high tower. Like a cliff it’s rising high above the landscape and the town surrounded by two rivers. Around it, like bunch of grains are clustered many other things – shops, stores and autumnal gardens. Variegation of those new buildings is hiding a colossus: only sometimes visible massive wall of stone and brick, among them sticking cracked stone beams. View from the top downward over the jagged walls is, however, causing dizziness. The air here is crisp and fresh as if I had suddenly dived into the clear cold water.
Long after, I am passing through countless chambers, now dim, later bright, some of which are decorated as residential rooms and others like museums. The tower is simultaneously apartment and treasure-house. The corridors are intersected as a maze. In their continuity there are lounges and libraries. Then, in the dining room which seems to be built for giants, I attend a sumptuous meal, real feast on which I am the guest of an ancient family that inhabits it. The act that is more reminiscent of a very complicated ritual than to the act of feeding. During this meal, interesting conversations are being kept. But, those are conversations with the dead. Apparently, every bit also opens eyes to the invisible: the rooms are filling up with shadows. Finally, at the end, I am becoming aware of the presence of the forefather, the patriarch of this old family, the presence which is more felt than it can be seen by the eyes. He is like a very long shadow that stretches across the table.
Contrary to him, the characters of the two sisters are quite real. They showed me two objects: first, of which my memory leaked out (this is a very old piece of a weapon), and other, made of an animal bone. Plastic is prehistoric. There are two stylized falcons sculptured onto bones, with their heads facing one another. All this is accompanied by detailed explanations that cannot be translated into the language of awake. The last image I see before waking up is the hair of one of the sisters, old gold-colored hair on the back of the garden crosscut by low stone walls.
Images are disappearing, but the sense of discovery, surprisingly, follows me for a long time and in reality.
Translated by Zorana Lutovac
Odin
Once the doomed ship made from dead nails shall darken the world.
It shall be preceded by the three-year-long cold, howling wolf, three red roosters and many others, as cautionary signs. While he climbs his Aerial throne – an immensely tall tower that raises above all that was ever built by either gods or men – Odin watches it grow every night.
Until then, however, until that time comes, Odin will each morning look at the world with joy, from the top of his tower, he will look at that vast country of giants and people, seeing the country by the first glimmers of the morning sun.
And then on Odin’s outstretched hand two birds, two ravens, will land; Thought is the name of the first and the name of the other is Memory.
The land is green and fertile now, but it was not always so. In order for this country to become a homeland for good people many hard battles with the rocky giants had to be won. The beauty of the world is perishable. There will be a time when all this will go away in the fire. Hejmdal, the keeper of the bridge that connects heaven and earth, will announce it with a single powerful blow of his horn.
It will be the moment when the giant serpent Midgard, green as the sea, wakes up, from its powerful movement the world will shake. It will be the day when the bridge Bifrost, with the terrible roar, will collapse under the weight of the celestial armies. The day when the sky wolves will devour the moon and the sun, and when the dense eclipse shall cover the world, and Odin and Thor, and many other gods, will fall in an unequal fight.
The battle will be fierce but short. The outcome of the battle at the end of the world is already pre-determined. Gods and all the people who will fight by their side – all those who have ever fought bravely in this land – cannot change it. And no matter how bravely they fight this time, black Surtus Loe, who will ride in the battle before the children of Muspel, will eventually ignite the ground with his sword brighter than the sun, whose flames will flare up on all four sides. One by one, the stars will go off. The country will eventually sink into the ocean; Anti-being shall prevail over Being. It will be the most famous and most difficult battle that will take place since the beginning of time, a battle in which the gods or people are not required to win, but only to fulfill their duty, irrespective of the outcome, to fulfill it until the end.
Odin knows that. (He knows the secret of the runes.) And he knows that by not being able to ignore the insult, he will throw his spear one day, which will bring death to many, including his son, and thus will also start a fatal chain of events that we know as the “Twilight of the Gods”. Odin knows that he will die in the first fight, swallowed, devoured by the monstrous wolf Fenrir. He knows this because nine days and nights he spent hanging upside down above the face of the deep, hung on the roots of a large ash tree, and because he has sacrificed his own eye to drink from Mimir’s spring, The Spring of memories.
Odin is prepared for all that. When the time comes, he will not, like frivolous Frej, regret for his lost sword. At dusk of the day of unspeakable eclipse he will bravely enter the battlefield; leading Einheriar (even their quarrels will be dear to him). Finally showing his face under the golden helmet, he will not hesitate to look death straight in the eye.
When, after all, on the land – resurrected like the Spring – the first people come out of the forests of memories, the survived Aesir will remember his deeds and will remember Odin’s magical runes.
It should be noted that, from the standpoint of this myth, the fact that we now no longer have a valid key to the mystery of runes is not only expected, but also legitimate. Knowledge is recollection. Remembering Fimbultir’s gold runes is knowledge from the Golden Ages, it will be restored in the fire and collapse and then resurrection of the divine and human power, in that fire will be restored the entire cosmos as well.
Тranslated by Ivana Ivanc
Achilles
I will die before the city is conquered. Before the fire cleanses the street of the hated Troy, before the blood washes away all the insults inflicted to the Danayans. It is my destiny, until that time comes, every day to silently stand opposed furious and angry crowd. One of those people is my dark skin killer.
I do not feel fear while rushing with my war chariot through the crowd, approaching the walls and gates of Troy (below which I will never pass). Their hatred, spears and arrows cannot hurt me – not before the onset of its particular time. (As Xanthi, a horse that understands the secret signs of the gods, warns me every morning, I do not have much time left.) I am the son of Peleus who sailed with the Argonauts, my mother is the goddess and not a mortal women. Even as a boy I was bathed in the waters Styx. My body has since that time hardened like iron in the fire.
I do not feel any envy toward other heroes with whom we share this vast battlefield because I know that I am the best of both armies. There is loot that I could win, but it has no significance for me because I will not, like Agamemnon, return home. I do not yearn for wealth – it is enough for me the honor kings daily show me. Who, among the Greek heroes, can be proud that he destroyed several towns but me? For many has my sword brought death – and to many it will bring. I remember Hector, the greatest among the children of Elijah, by whose death I avenged unfortunate Patroclus. The Amazon Pentesilea and remember that she died in my arms. I also remember Tersit whom I killed because he mocked the tears that I’ve mourned her death. Everything I have done I have done for the glory. I despised the long and tranquil life and death in his bed, choosing the dubious warriors fortune. I know that one day they shall raise me shrines and temples and will say my name along with the names of the gods and the other brave men, invoking the Greeks in battle. I know that one day will be king and conquer of the world who would want to be like me. My mother does not have to be ashamed because she has born just a man, mortal and not a god. All this is not enough for victory.
Trojans will not be defeated by the insane courage of Achilles but by treacherous cunning Odysseus.
Тranslated by Ivana Ivanc
Boris Nad
About the author :
Boris Nad was born in Vinkovci in 1966. He studied in Zagreb and Belgrade, graduated from the University of Belgrade. Since 1994. Boris Nad published various essays and articles in diverse journals and periodicals. Some of his most important works are :
1. Vreme imperija (Beograd, „Rivel Ko”, 2002), geopolitical writings
2. Gozba pobednika (Beograd, „Žagor”, 2005), short epic science-fiction novel
3. Nova Itaka, (Niš, UNUS MUNDUS – Niški kulturni centar, 2007), selection of essays, poetry,short stories and short prose
4. Ideja centra 1 (Otkrivanje Hiperboreje), (Niš, UNUS MUNDUS, br. 29 – Niški kulturni centar, 2008);
5. Nemi bogovi, (Beograd, „Žagor”, 2008.), short prose
6. Ideja centra 2 (Između Raja i Pakla), (Niš, UNUS MUNDUS, br. 31 – Niški kulturni centar, 2008).
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