Jacek Kaczmarski - Powtórka z Odysei

In sapphire perspectives
(Sea, the sky, thunder's echo)
The piercing Odysseus sails,
Looking for his home.
Island's emeralds, rock's temples
Look on, silent, as he passes

Odysseus was, as it seems,
A womaniser, a thief, a killer.
Taking women, plundering countries
Though Itaca awaited him.
As he was cunning in business
He got named Ulysses.

Leader of thousands, proud man
Few like him in history
An oar as pen, in waves
He writes his odyssey of mistakes.
God's favourite, strategian -
One ship remains for him.

And there (if to believe the song)
A faithful wife, house in a wineyard;
Impatient and icky,
Suitors manage the inheritance.
Drinking wine, slaughtering sheep -
One of them is to be chosen.

How it really was - i know not,
Maybe the song's word deceive -
The sweet spoil - interregnum,
Proud widow with dowry.
Getting lost in star's aeons -
The thief could've gotten plundered

He resisted siren's temptation,
He was not turned into a pig...
The song perfects man,
Man perishes, the song remains.
That's how mortals reach their hights
And that's the realism of the myth.

Telemachus' ship circles
Through bays and straits.
Will the young man find his father?
Will the father recognize his son?
Will, going to his Troy
Son bear the father's armor?

Odysseus' fate doesn't cut corners
The oar's pen weighs in hands -
One has to have something to go back to
Something to hold on to, to cope.
One has to have something to believe in
To face one's own song.