Tales of Brave Ulysses

This song by Cream on their Disraeli Gears album of 1967, is marvellously evocative. Told by, one assumes, a modern-day English Odysseus in the Greek islands, the object of his desires is identified with Aphrodite.

Of course Aphrodite would not have been Odysseus' first choice. She was responsible for the fiasco known as The Judgment of Paris, involving Helen of Sparta, and the siege of Troy.

You thought the leaden winter would bring you down forever,
But you rode upon a steamer to the violence of the sun.

And the colors of the sea blind your eyes with trembling mermaids,
And you touch the distant beaches with tales of brave Ulysses:
How his naked ears were tortured by the sirens sweetly singing,
For the sparkling waves are calling you to kiss their white laced lips.

And you see a girl's brown body dancing through the turquoise,
And her footprints make you follow where the sky loves the sea.

And when your fingers find her, she drowns you in her body,
Carving deep blue ripples in the tissues of your mind.

The tiny purple fishes run laughing through your fingers,
And you want to take her with you to the hard land of the winter.

Her name is Aphrodite and she rides a crimson shell,
And you know you cannot leave her for you touched the distant sands
With tales of brave Ulysses; how his naked ears were tortured
By the sirens sweetly singing.

The tiny purple fishes run laughing through your fingers,
And you want to take her with you to the hard land of the winter.