Finding Home - THE TEARS OF ARAXES – A Poem from Armenia

Over the weekend this blog received a “like” from a Canadian/Armenian. As such, I followed the link to her post and read with great interest about how she felt she had “come home” the minute she stepped onto Armenian soil despite having grown up in Canada.

I grew up in South Africa and even as a child knew that South Africa would not be my home. This feeling of “not belonging” was intensified through my teenage years especially during my post-high school period when I completed 2 years national service.

Immediately after national service I toured Europe and on landing in Luxembourg and travelling into Germany, I knew that my future lay somewhere other than South Africa. I ended up working in London and did many backpacking mini-tours into European countries, but none really felt like “home”.

I returned to South Africa, trained as a computer programmer, but always had a sense that my future lay elsewhere.

In 1987 I married a Kiwi (New Zealand) Occupational Therapist on assignment to the South African Leprosy Mission. Even though married we never “put down roots” in South Africa and when her contract ran out it was an easy decision to “up sticks” and move to New Zealand.

Our route to New Zealand took us via London, where we had both worked in earlier days, New York, Los Angeles and eventually Auckland. The USA was stimulating but did not have that “this is where I’m meant to be” factor. On disembarking in Auckland in May 1988, I knew straight away that I was “home”. This was where I was meant to be. Why or how did I know this? Don’t ask me, I just knew.

I currently work and live in London (again) but we still have our family home in Papkowhai just North of Wellington, New Zealand.

Here’s a poem from Zabelle Boyan’s “Armenian Poetry and Legends” for you Tamar and all those who have a feeling in their gut that their future lies somewhere beyond the end of their street……

THE TEARS OF ARAXES

BY RAPHAEL PATKANIAN

I WALK by Mother Arax
     With faltering steps and slow,
And memories of past ages
     Seek in the waters' flow.

But they run dark and turbid,
     And beat upon the shore
In grief and bitter sorrow,
     Lamenting evermore.

"Araxes! with the fishes
     Why dost not dance in glee?
The sea is still far distant,
     Yet thou art sad, like me.

"From thy proud eyes, O Mother,
     Why do the tears downpour?
Why dost thou haste so swiftly
     Past thy familiar shore?

"Make not thy current turbid;
     Flow calm and joyously.
Thy youth is short, fair river;
     Thou soon wilt reach the sea.

"Let sweet rose-hedges brighten
     Thy hospitable shore,
And nightingales among them
     Till morn their music pour.

"Let ever-verdant willows
     Lave in thy waves their feet,
And with their bending branches
     Refresh the noonday heat.

"Let shepherds on thy margin
     Walk singing, without fear;
Let lambs and kids seek freely
     Thy waters cool and clear."

Araxes swelled her current,
     Tossed high her foaming tide,
And in a voice of thunder
     Thus from her depths replied:--

"Rash, thoughtless youth, why com’st thou
     My age-long sleep to break,
And memories of my myriad griefs
     Within my breast to wake?

"When hast thou seen a widow,
     After her true-love died,
From head to foot resplendent
     With ornaments of pride?

"For whom should I adorn me?
     Whose eyes shall I delight?
The stranger hordes that tread my banks
     Are hateful in my sight.

"My kindred stream, impetuous Kur,
     Is widowed, like to me,
But bows beneath the tyrant's yoke,
     And wears it slavishly.

"But I, who am Armenian,
     My own Armenians know;
I want no stranger bridegroom;
     A widowed stream I flow.

"Once I, too, moved in splendour,
     Adorned as is a bride
With myriad precious jewels,
     My smiling banks beside.

"My waves were pure and limpid,
     And curled in rippling play;
The morning star within them
     Was mirrored till the day.

"What from that time remaineth?
     All, all has passed away.
Which of my prosperous cities
     Stands near my waves to-day?

"Mount Ararat doth pour me,
     As with a mother's care,
From out her sacred bosom
     Pure water, cool and fair.

"Shall I her holy bounty
     To hated aliens fling?
Shall strangers' fields be watered
     From good Saint Jacob's spring?

"For filthy Turk or Persian
     Shall I my waters pour,
That they may heathen rites perform
     Upon my very shore,

"While my own sons, defenceless,
     Are exiled from their home,
And, faint with thirst and hunger,
     In distant countries roam?

"My own Armenian nation
     Is banished far away;
A godless, barbarous people
     Dwells on my banks to-day.

"Shall I my hospitable shores
     Adorn in festive guise
For them, or gladden with fair looks
     Their wild and evil eyes?

"Still, while my sons are exiled,
     Shall I be sad, as now.
This is my heart's deep utterance,
     My true and holy vow."

No more spake Mother Arax;
     She foamed up mightily,
And, coiling like a serpent,
     Wound sorrowing toward the sea.

                 Translated by Alice Stone Blackwell.

If you haven’t worked it out or looked it up, the Araxes is a river that rises in northeastern Turkey (near the source of the Euphrates) and flows generally eastward through Armenia emptying into the Caspian Sea.

From “Armenian Poetry and Legends”  compiled and illustrated by Zabelle Boyajian

ISBN 978-1-907256-18-9

ARA AND SEMIRAMIS - A Tale from Armenia

From the History of Armenia,

by

MOSES OF KHORENE

FOR a few years before the death of Ninus, Ara reigned over Armenia under his Protectorate, and found the same favour in his eyes as his father Aram had done. But that wanton and lustful woman Semiramis, having heard speak for many years of the beauty of Ara, wished to possess him; only she ventured not to do anything openly. But after the death or the escape to Crete of Ninus, as it hath been affirmed unto me, she discovered her passion freely, and sent messengers to Ara the Beautiful with gifts and offerings, with many prayers and promises of riches; begging him to come to her to Nineveh and either wed her and reign over all that Ninus had possessed, or fulfil her desires and return in peace to Armenia, with many gifts.

And when the messengers had been and returned many times and Ara had not consented, Semiramis became very wroth; and she arose and took all the multitude of her hosts and hastened to the land of Armenia, against Ara. But, as she had beforehand declared, it was not so much to kill him and persecute him that she went, as to subdue him and bring him by force to fulfil the desires of her passion. For having been consumed with desire by what she had heard of him, on seeing him she became as one beside herself. She arrived in this turmoil at the plains of Ara, called after him Aïrarat. And when the battle was about to take place she commanded her generals to devise some means of saving the life of Ara. But in the fighting the army of Ara was beaten, and Ara died, being slain by the warriors of Semiramis. And after the battle the Queen sent out to the battlefield to search for the body of her beloved amongst those who had died. And they found the body of Ara amongst the brave ones that had fallen, and she commanded them to place it in an upper chamber in her castle.

But when the hosts of Armenia arose once more against Queen Semiramis to avenge the death of Ara, she said: "I have commanded the gods to lick his wounds, and he shall live again." At the same time she thought to bring Ara back to life by witchcraft and charms, for she was maddened by the intensity of her desires. But when the body began to decay, she commanded them to cast it into a deep pit, and to cover it. And having dressed up one of her men in secret, she sent forth the fame of him thus: "The gods have licked Ara and have brought him back to life again, thus fulfilling our prayers and our pleasure. Therefore from this time forth shall they be the more glorified and worshipped by us, for that they are the givers of joy and the fulfillers of desire." She also erected a new statue in honour of the gods and worshipped it with many sacrifices, showing unto all as if the gods had brought Ara back to life again. And having caused this report to be spread over all the land of Armenia and satisfied the people she put an end to the fighting. And she took the son of Ara whom his beloved wife Nouvart had borne unto him and who was but twelve years old at the time of his father's death. And she called his name Ara in memory of her love for Ara the Beautiful, and appointed him ruler over the land of Armenia, trusting him in all things.

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From “Armenian Poetry and Legends”- ISBN 978-1-907256-18-9