Immediately after Summer equinox
there push on the adherents of a secret cult –
Hyperboreans bring confusion,
some novices, some ultra-
fanatical – on arrival, they fall
down before their deity
with anointing oils. All
coins they would exchange for the charm of mystery.
Obediently like fakirs, barefoot and naked,
under the rain of Apollo’s arrows,
with their heads in san, like ostriches,
they torture and burn their own bodies.
But Aphrodite, under the cover of the night,
takes the lead without much effort –
until the daylight she is always right,
to her the rites are performed.
And the next day – again to Apollo
the all-day torturous rite must be performed.
They drink soma in order to endure exhausted
that custom which is so old.
All that is strangely tolerated
by the native population, though
old women sometimes make a sign of cross
over a nomad so shaggy and exhausted
on the threshold after kermis.
Whom to inform and how?
Only to send Hermes!
Translated by Lazar Macura