Summary
The latter half of the poem begins with Creeley attributing the Latin quote from the second stanza to the priestess Sybil. He then formally announces himself as the speaker of the poem before remarking that Virgil is long dead. He comments that the stories of Aeneas and Hercules have lived on and that the world awaits the stories of heroes like them but is largely compelled to action by their vulnerability.
Analysis
The poem's second half makes its themes more readily apparent. Creeley continues to dissect the story of Aeneas before moving on to a larger comment about the ultimate aims of hero narratives. By the end, the reader gets the distinct impression that Creeley has laid out a template for a new kind of writing about heroes. In examining these particular stories, he has attempted to explain what is actually moving or affecting about their stories.
The third stanza begins by ending the scene in the previous one: "That was the Cumaean Sybil speaking." Creeley notes that the Latin quote from the previous line was from the priestess Sybil, in the Aeneid. He goes on to formally state that he is the speaker of the poem ("This is Robert Creeley,") and making a mild dig at Virgil ("and Virgil / is dead now two thousand years,"). This moment is a thematically important one. He is not placing his own work above Virgil's. However, by stating that Virgil is "dead now two thousand years," he seems to imply that Virgil's model of writing is outdated. Additionally, by making himself the speaker of the poem, he is commenting that it is now his turn to write about these heroes. As he frames it, he is free to do so however he chooses. He ends the stanza by saying that the legends of Hercules and Aeneas ("yet Hercules / and the Aeneid, yet all that industrious wis-") live on. Interestingly, he not only uses enjambment here, but actually breaks apart the word "wisdom" between the two stanzas. This hints at both the fragmentary nature of some of these epics (the actual text of the poem depicting Hercules is lost) and also their transference across time. It also builds momentum at a crucial moment in the poem.
In the poem's final stanza he reiterates the importance of these sorts of narratives. The first two lines of this stanza ("dom lives in the way the mountains / and the desert are waiting") connect to the line preceding it ("yet all that industrious wis-") to read: "yet all that industrious wis / dom lives in the way the mountains / and the desert are waiting." In the third line he completes the thought ("for the heroes,") demonstrating that he believes this need for heroes endures. He uses imagery of "the mountains" and "the desert" coupled with the phrase "industrious wisdom" to solidify the idea that these stories are primordial. In particular, the phrase "industrious wisdom" suggests that these heroes' stories drive their readers into action. With this terminology, Creeley categorizes people's need for these narratives as an immovable fact. The closing line of the poem ("and death also / can still propose the old labors.") really supports its central thesis. The inclusion of the word "labor" circles back to the initial mention of Hercules's labors. This suggests it is the very fact of mortality that compels people to do major tasks. Subtly, Creeley is stating that the mortality of these heroes is what readers connect with and feel compelled by. He employs the phrase "propose the old labors" to state that people feel most pushed into action by the fact of human weakness. The word "old" also implies that these struggles are common and ongoing. In the view of the poem, the need for these stories has always existed and will continue to exist. It primarily asks how to make them as emotionally engaging as possible. For Creeley, these heroes are at their most interesting and affecting when their authors give them moments of humanness—not when they are rushing to and from battles, quests, and monster hunts.
As its title makes obvious, this is a poem centered around heroes. Creeley is trying to outline a new way of reading and writing about heroes. He wants to do this because, in large part, he perceives the old ways of telling these stories as problematic. In the poem, he writes that it is essential that writers get to the core of their heroes' humanness. For Creeley, this is the only way readers can truly be inspired or moved to action by their heroes.
