Men in Aida, a three-part project of which only the first volume has appeared in book form (Tuumba, 1983), is a homophonic translation of The Iliad, but with a difference. Where Zukofsky’s Catullus, the mother of this genre of miming the sound of an alien text, aims at capturing also the basic spirit, if not always the figurative and narrative frames, of its source material, Men finds a radically new tale in Homer’s phonemes. Thus
Men in Aida’s opening stanza —
Men in Aida, they appeal, eh? A day, O Achilles! Allow men in, emery Achaians. All gay ethic, eh? Paul asked if tea mousse suck, as Aida, pro, yaps in. Here on a Tuesday. ‘Hell,’ Rhea to cake Eunice in. ‘Hojo’ noisy tap as hideous debt to lay at a bully.
Ex you, day. Tap wrote a ‘D,’ a stay. Tenor is Sunday. Atreides stain axe and Ron and ideas ’ll kill you.
— is rendered more literally by Michael Reck as:
Sing, Goddess, Achilles’ maniac rage:
ruinous thing! it roused a thousand sorrows and hurled many souls of mighty warriors
to Hades, made their bodies food for dogs
and carrion birds — as Zeus’s will foredoomed— from the time relentless strife came between Atreus’ son, a king, and brave Achilles.
Reck attempts to convey the taut warp of Homer’s line by shortening it in English. Melnick’s version careens from syllable to syllable, capturing the dance of the phonemes with remarkable exactness — to hear Melnick read the work aloud is an unforgettable experience – but with virtually no interest in the “story” as such. Instead, themes emerge from the syllabic stream that very quickly make apparent that Men is, in the most literal sense, a ludic gay utopia:
Ought a Paw tempt ya? Air rib bowl. Lucky beau tea a nay Rae. Cartoned ale lay. Sand tape a.m. Allah, Paul, a Metaxa.
Urea Tess key you into the lass at ache ace saw.
All as oil mega-night days am is poem math. Offer a suck. I raise. Team men are new men. Noe Menelaus sort o’ coo. No! Pa! Prose Trojans. Toe nudie met a tray. Pee owed a leg is ace.
Guy dame! Oy gay Roz out owes a fairy say thigh a pay lays.
O ape pee Paula Moe gay sad do sand dame I who yes a guy own. Ooh men soy pot, eh? Is son echo gay?
